Freeze Tag

Brett Elizabeth thinks I'm a better writer than I actually am - she decided to tag me in this blog-fellow-writing-linkage activity that I surely don't deserve. She did it, though. She extends too much grace to me. She's my writing mentor, overall life coach and best friend - so, if she asks me to do something, I will.

The rules: get tagged. Tag two people. Answer questions. Hope your tag-ees answer the questions. The two people I'm tagging: amazingly smart, witty, and genuine Katie Pruitt and Danee Pye who is a crisp well of creative ideas, grace, and elegance. Once, they both worked together to keep me alive. I owe them more than I give - I regret it almost on a daily basis. (I am sorry)

They both deserve your readership, but mostly, your respect as amazing people and great writers. 

The questions:
1. What are you working on? 
MFA. That's what I'm working on -- holy shit. And life. I can't express the amount of overwhelming all things are right now. I'm lucky if I can spit out a poem once a week. This winter was a wick to all goodness in my life - sopped that shit right up and has left me a shell. Summer is working her sweetness and I'm trying to pick up the little pieces of shiny that might be left and shake them down into this hollow mess of a heart. School and staying alive, that's what I'm working on. Artistically, I'm working on line breaks. And how to handle negative critiques. I have in my headspace an idea bumping into braincells -- I'd like to write a series of HOW TO poems. I have two that I loved writing; I think it'd be fun. And also, poems on or about or mentioning saints. But those are future messes to tidy up at a later date.

2. How does your work differ from other writers in your genre?
I don't know. I'm figuring that bullshit out as a I go. I'm a strong defender in the idea that no poem is original - I'm' just telling it from my fucked up perspective. So, in that way, I guess I'm different: I'm a foul mouthed hillbilly who has a serious drinking problem laced with an ever decreasing self-worth. Putting it that way, though, tosses me in the bag with lots of you chumps out there, right? :) I once had someone tell me my voice can sometimes be "Southern Gothic". I'll hold on to that. Oh, he also said I had a knack for creating moments and disregarding narrative. I don't know if that was a positive.

3.  Why do you write?
Like Brett, and I suppose many writers, I've written forever. There was never a genesis like, it just always was. I have a weirdly saturating sadness that I can't understand - so I put words together. Over christmas I found an early story (holla' to my fiction roots) I had written maybe in the first grade called A Sad Day. It was about a baby bird who died. AAaaaaand, there you go. Basically: I write because I have to, you know?

4. What is your writing process? 
Well... that has changed significantly since I've started this Bennington gig. I used to get really sad (so easy to do), drink cheap wine or whiskey, and write the night away. Now, I get all fizzy-stomached and nervous and think about how shit is going to get shoved through a meat grinder. I try to suppress that. And then I write. Lately, I haven't been happy with anything I've created. And it's been a hurtful few months. It'll happen again. In the mean time, I carry my notebook where ever I go. I get ideas from phrases I hear during the day or standing in line for coffee or wrangling the ache I have for western adventures. It comes and goes and if it's not there, I write anyway. Not so much a process. Just a way of life, right?

Thanks, Brett. Love you.

here come the tears (for Brett)

Sometimes even when we work really hard, shit crumbles. Don't we know that.

Sometimes, or rather, other times, we settle and shake and shift our lives down to fit perfectly in the space (and time) we have arranged around us. Those are lucky times. Good and favored and take-a-big-breath times. Those days end with sun in our hair. We rest in the easiness.

I want to say I'm sorry to you. This is not the way we all imagined it. Please forgive the universe for the unlucky.

Let your mouth sing praises, in hope.
I love you.

Model Broad with a Hollywood Smile

I have a friend who writes. I mean, I write. I do, but it's stupid. It's not like the way she writes. Her words are serious with emotion and it's an emotional-provoking joy ride. You get that? Do you get what I'm saying?

My high school english teacher reiterated that poetry is supposed to evoke emotion. She said that at least 2 times a day during the poetry lesson. She did. And it never got old. It still doesn't. When I read poetry, I think, "Does this make me feel?" If no, then screw you - your poem is only a half-breed. (Wait - Can you believe I just said "half-breed"? Cause I did).

But Brett's poems? Her poems are magic. The pages are heavy (heavy!) with feeling. Sincere with the thought of, "Yeah, I totally get it". Read this:

"Alright, fine, I will get up
and do the dishes
if you think up a contraption
or way for me to do them
here from the floor"

Get it? Yes, because every damned person on this planet gets that from time to time. She's a writer. A real, legit, beautiful dew-drop-touching writer. Most days, especially when I write, I want to be like her. Seriously. Every April she and I write a poem a day every day and she, really, no lie - is my mentor.

Read this book. Buy this book. Know that she is a sincere word-smith - every word she pieces together breathes humanity in a way that breaks your heart into a brillion pieces.

Anyway - buy this chapbook, love this chapbook and know that this woman, this writer, is insanely talented. Her words are gold compared to mostly dirt from other assholes.