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After finishing her second book, The Needle (Houghton Mifflin, 2011), poet and literary translator Jennifer Grotz went to the Monast猫re de Saorge in the French Alps. Completing the book had given her a 鈥渃lean slate,鈥� she says. 鈥淢y idea was just to see if poems came. But I was going to work on translations. I wasn鈥檛 putting pressure on myself.鈥�

The poems came.

Grotz鈥檚 newest book, Window Left Open (Graywolf Press, 2016), draws on her visits to the monastery over several summers. 鈥淚 was so inspired by it, and that鈥檚 partly why I kept going back,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t was like the monastery became a kind of vocabulary for me.鈥�

Franciscans occupied the 17th-century baroque monastery, located between Nice and Turin, until 1988, when it became a writers鈥� retreat. 鈥淭hey鈥檇 thought about making it into a hotel, but it was too spare,鈥� says Grotz, a professor of English. 鈥淭hese were tiny monks鈥� cells. It鈥檚 a mattress on a wooden plank, a desk, a window.鈥�

But for Grotz, that sparseness was liberating鈥攅ven, she says, 鈥渆cstatic.鈥�

Being at the monastery is like stepping out of the modern world: there鈥檚 no access to the Internet or cell phones. There鈥檚 hardly electricity, or even much in the way of plumbing. Although there鈥檚 enough space to house about 20 people, Grotz was never there with more than a handful of others, if even that.

鈥淲hen I鈥檇 first arrive, I鈥檇 go through withdrawal, dying to check my email or get a cell phone. But after a day or two, that edge wears off. And then I felt this incredible freedom鈥攖he days were so long and free, and my attention span was so intensified by that freedom.鈥� A single day at the monastery was as productive as three days of her life back home, she says.

And the poems she wrote were unusual for her.

鈥淲hen I first came back and showed drafts to my friends, they kept calling them my 鈥榩sychedelic鈥� poems, because they鈥檙e so steeped in the sensory world. There鈥檚 actually nothing psychedelic about them at all. What I did was describe what was literally outside my window or in the garden.鈥�

Her book is about that openness to experience. She writes in her title piece, 鈥淲indow Left Open鈥�:

All you have to do is open the window

to let the night in: then moths

effervesce in a stream

toward the lamp . . .

The book is divided into two parts. The darker first half is urban, quotidian, and wintry.

But the second is suffused with life in a 鈥減erpetual summer,鈥� she says, like her experience of the monastery, which is available to writers only in the warm months.

鈥淚nitially, I thought I was writing two books. I didn鈥檛 see how the two went together at all,鈥� she says.

But she began to see parallels to William Blake鈥檚 Songs of Innocence and of Experience. She realized that her two sets of poems were 鈥渃omplementary, and the 鈥榮ongs of innocence鈥欌�攖he monastery poems鈥攚ere much more powerful if they were juxtaposed with the 鈥榮ongs of experience.鈥� But I flipped the order.

鈥淚t鈥檚 more honest to my experience. You enter the middle time of your life, and you see the radical imperfections of society, and of modern life鈥攖hat鈥檚 the first half of the book. And then somehow going to the monastery soothed that and opened up a kind of optimism and beauty. It was restorative.

鈥淭here鈥檚 something approaching wisdom or acceptance that being in the monastery鈥攖hat pared-down existence鈥攁llowed. And that became very interesting to me, the sense of being able to convert experience back into a sort of innocence.鈥�

Grotz says her time in France has changed her as a writer. She鈥檚 always been interested in imagery, in painting the physical world with words and 鈥渘ot just living in my head,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut there I was taught such a lesson in looking, and it has made my poems more sense-drenched. I have an appetite for that now in all my poems. It developed some impulse in me.鈥�

It鈥檚 an impulse she tries to pass on to her students. She asks them to describe the things they see.

鈥淚t sounds so obvious, but you鈥檇 be surprised how difficult that is. Our students are so brilliant, but they don鈥檛 really give themselves permission to just describe the world.

鈥淭hey think they鈥檙e supposed to be philosophizing or doing something much more heady. They intellectualize even when they鈥檙e supposed to be seeing. And so that鈥檚 something I teach them about鈥攍ooking, without your brain filtering it.鈥�

You could say she鈥檚 helping them to open a window.

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All poems are reprinted with permission from Window Left Open, by Jennifer Grotz; Graywolf Press, 2016.

Sundials

They do not make a shape themselves, which is why
they look like marks left from something sliced,
but the sun doesn鈥檛 slice, and that is what they measure,
these lines, on every wall of the courtyard so that the Franciscans

could know as precisely as possible the time to ring the bells.
Humans invented time, and this morning, watching
the sun鈥檚 shadow slice across the walls, I think they did so
as a form of praise. Nature made the 铿俹wers

smell beautiful to attract the creatures that pollinate them.
Except for the dandelions, too many to count, left for the wind
to pollinate instead. What sparrows are to birds, little wisps, half-bald now
after the rain, past the days they lit entire 铿乪lds a solar yellow.

Little lampposts of the 铿乪ld, little clocks. That鈥檚 what happens
after staring at the sundials frescoed on the monastery walls.
Everything becomes one: the lizards in the morning heat 铿俰cker
like second hands all over the walls, little gray lightning bolts.

The roses measure the amount of time we can bear
their beauty, and the candelabra measures the length of dinner on the grass.
The trees are clocks for the wind, and the cherries are clocks for the birds,
and the pupils are clocks that measure one鈥檚 a铿�ection

but can be read only by the other, the affected. Vaster: the mountains
measure the clouds and the dandelions in the 铿乪ld measure how far
the wind travels, how far it carries the seeds, while the spider
in the corner of my room is the second hand to stillness.

And the poem is a clock that measures the time and the time
it takes me to comprehend this, the time and the weather.

Apricots

I judged them very carefully, as though
I鈥檇 been given the charge to determine
which are good or bad, and they were all good,
even the slightly overripe ones with bruises
had a bitter ferment that only brightened
the scent. And the too-young ones, 铿乺m
and slightly sour, not yet softened by the sun.
And the ripe ones, that felt like biting into
my own 铿俥sh, slightly carnivorous.

They had been elegant in the tree, tiny coquettes
blushing more and more until I picked them,
then they were minimalist and matte-colored
in wooden bowls, so barely furred one couldn鈥檛 help
but clothe them, enclose them with your hand,
caress each one thoroughly before taking a bite,
exploring the handsome freckles left
from some minor blight.

Now I stand under the tree and
pluck them one after the other.
Each one tastes di铿�erent, like a mind having
erratic thoughts. Going into the trance
halfway between eating and thinking,
the thought of an apricot, the apricot of a thought,
whose goodness occurs over time, so that
some had been better earlier, others soon
would become correct, I mean ripe.

厂苍辞飞铿俛办别蝉

Yesterday they were denticulate as dandelion greens, they
locked together in spokes and fell so weightlessly

I thought of best friends holding hands.
And then of mating hawks that soar into the air to link their claws

and somersault down, separating just before they touch the ground.
Sometimes the snow铿俛kes glitter, it鈥檚 more like tinkling

than snow, it never strikes, and I want to be struck, that is
I want to know what to do. I begin enthusiastically,

I go in a hurry, I fall pell-mell down a hill, like a ball of yarn鈥檚
unraveling trajectory鈥攄own and away but also surprising ricochets

that only after seem foretold. Yesterday I took a walk because
I wanted to be struck, and what happened was

an accident: a downy clump 铿俹ated precisely in my eye.
The lashes clutched it close, melting it against the eye鈥檚 hot surface.

And like the woman talking to herself in an empty church
eventually realizes she is praying, I walked home with eyes that melted snow.