I have not been writing or reading for my own enjoyment in a month. It seems to happen every fall when the sky becomes a boiling pot of roux and there are no warm rocks to sit on and sun myself like a lizard. What is the point of enjoyment if you cannot be a lizard?
My therapist has been shaking things out of me for the past few months. It has felt good and lighter, though it is hard and there are ten minutes before therapy in which I just sit and shake and think about how hard it going to be to feel things. It is both. I have been writing an artist statement for grad school applications, which is a winding experience in its own, to consider what your work does, and I wrote about the dichotomy of my life and how it has influenced my writing. There is this thing, yet there is another. The poem begins, yet it ends, and yet it ends where it began.
I think my biggest influence has and will continue to be the cycles and circular occurrences of our experience in this dimension. Which means, to be honest, sometimes my work doesn’t make sense to me. Or it reveals itself later during revision, thank god, so it becomes something clearer. Writing feels like a question. And a question, if it has an answer, is a relationship.
I wanted to write to say hello, I am here. I hope you are all okay. I know there is a lot to hold right now. Everything feels like it is spinning. I forget entire days. I forget that I have been working on MFA applications and making an advent calendar with A. and mending holes in socks and wiping tears from children’s eyes and planting garlic and mulching garlic. It spins.
I held a poetry workshop at the coffeeshop which wasn’t really a workshop but rather me printing out 4 copies of my writing sample and passing it out to my incredible housemates, most of whom have never been in a poetry workshop. I promised to return the favor.
And here is an accidental poem Jack wrote in the margins of my poem (shared with his permission) with cross outs and all. What a perfect answer to my poem.
Hero Villain
Reads darkly?
Like this. So endearing to be
surprised by familiarity
Echo from deep cave
No reverb
Walls take the sound
Like an apple?
Gives sad
hollow feeling
…
Below this photo is the poem in which Jack was writing comments on, paper form. Maybe there are other poems you can find, ones I haven’t seen yet. Love to all. Thanks for sticking around.