Simple Life

"I told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope and she says, 'You're not a poor man. Why don't you go online and buy 100 envelopes and put them in the closet.' I pretend not to hear her and go out to get an envelope because I am going to have one hell of a good time in the process. I meet a lot of people, see some great looking babes, and a fire engine goes by and I give it the thumbs up and ask a woman what kind of dog that is and I don't know, the moral of the story is we're here on earth to fart around, of course the computers will do us out of that. What the computer people don't realize or don't care about is that we're dancing animals. We love to move around. And we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

—Kurt Vonnegut

Intersection of Insecurity or The Sea of Trust

Recently, a rejection pushed me into the street.

While cars zoomed by and the crosswalk flickered on and off, I stood there not knowing if I should return to the sidewalk to be pushed off again or if I should just stand in traffic and take my chances. I eventually walked back to the sidewalk because the idea of being hit by a bus (read: not writing again) scared me more than standing on the sidewalk and being pushed again.

In my world, a life with writing is the sidewalk, a life without is traffic pulsing around my head, hours spent running between cars feeling as if I had lost my path.

What is funny about this rejection, is that it had nothing to do with poetry, which is why I think I took it so hard. I've become someone who shrugs her shoulders at poetry rejection--oh well, there's always next time. But writing in other genres can open the insecurity in my veins and let it drain all over my desk. Did I say desk? Make that life.

I've been thinking about the future me and what she will be up to. I'm trying to make a life for her. Talking with a friend, I recently described the life of a poet as being like a long term IRA. You have to keep adding to the funds (read: submitting) and hope things pay off in the long run. We are constantly setting ourselves up for the future. If in 6 months from now, magazines aren't sending us acceptances, it's because of the work we didn't do today.

We live in this future world and how I don't want the future me to be frustrated because I took a week off feeling sorry for myself. I know how quickly a week can spread into a month, how writing can become so sort of thing that you used to do. Though to be honest, writing has been the one thing in my life that has remained constant. It is what I know will be there, even when the words won't come today, I trust it to keep me afloat. Tsunami or kiddie pool, I trust it.

Quote of the Day...

"Don't dwell on the book's reception. The point is to get on with it--you have a life's work ahead of you--no point in dallying around waiting for approval. We all want it, I know, but the point is to reach out honestly--that's the whole point. I keep feeling that there isn't one poem being written by any of us--or a book or anything like that. The whole life of us writers, the whole product I guess I mean, is the one long poem--a community effort if you will. It's all the same poem. It doesn't belong to any one writer--it's God's poem perhaps. Or God's people's poem. You have the gift-- and with it comes responsibility--you mustn't neglect or be mean to that gift--you must let it do its work. It has more rights than the ego that wants approval."


Anne Sexton

Window Shopping

I look back on my earlier poetry career when I was so out of it as far as awards, grants, books, etc. How excited I was to publish a poem! How excited I was to go to a poetry festival; I can only describe it as magical. There was as if God was in the room with me when I went to a poetry reading.

I was inspired by everything. I was overwhelmed to meet Li-Young Lee and I would hold poets up up up in the air and how the glistened in the sun… There is a part of me that wishes I could return to that magical element of poetry, but with everything, you grow, you learn more, and you come to realize what looks so beautiful behind the glass—pearls, feather boas, leather bound books—can lose a bit of its shine when you are right next to it, realizing they used faux-pearls, the boa costs $6.95 at Spencer's, and the books? They aren't even real.

Beginning again...

I will write and delete this first post a few hundred times because I can be obsessed with perfection. I also exaggerate. I'm imperfect. I'm wearing colors that don't match and sandals that are dangerous to walk in. This is my disclaimer. What you read here comes from a moment's thought and a lifetime of inexperience.

I'm happy to be part of your life, but don't mention my name. I like corners and basements. I prefer to sit alone with the ocean than mingle at the lake. I'm friendly, but sometimes appear aloof when I am feeling shy. I observe before I act and consider anxiety one of my closest friends.

I'm not really sure what will show up in the space here, but I'm sure it will include poetry talk, my cup of life, the ability to move without being noticed, and a poem or two. Quietly, I step back into the room, find the desk in the corner where I live in my paper worlds.