I want to take a second to share a poem today. I'm having a bit of an off day and therefore I've been curled up in an oversized sweatshirt watching American Horror Story all day, so it seemed like a good day to share "Lazy Poem." Here goes:
Watered Down
When did I become a watered down version of myself? I used to spend my evenings in concerts and coffee shops, my days filled with music and poetry. My ringing phone played Wilco from the pocket of my thrift store dress. I sat in the sunshine at fountains filling notebooks with words and wisdom. I flaunted my red hair, my strangeness.
These days I'm all about working. Eight hour days followed by eight hour sleep. I clean house and watch TV and ignore myself. Forget the makeup, forget the fashion- I live in my yoga pants on my trips to the grocery store, and where else do I go? Never far, and never anywhere exciting.
"While all bodies share/ the same fate, all voices do not."
This is one of my favorite quotes from a poem by Li-Young Lee and I often wonder, what would remain of my voice if I were to die tomorrow? Some pretty pictures? The memory of a "nice" girl? A few poems that no one ever read?
Who knows me as the introverted book nerd, passionate about music and language, with a strange style and a sense of adventure? I'm still that girl when I'm wandering the streets of Savannah with my camera, watching strangers and soaking up the sunshine. I'm still that girl when I'm cuddling on the couch with my doberman and my kindle.
But how often does that happen?
It's time to take back my time. It's time to leave the house a mess and read more books instead, to spend my afternoons in bookstores and sample all the coffee shops in Savannah. It's time to write more poetry and and wear more dresses.
It's time to find myself again.
Who's with me?
What part of yourself have you neglected recently and how can you bring it back? I'd love to hear your experiences and advice.
Taking a Step Forward
After posting on this blog for the first time yesterday I was feeling pretty inspired to do something but didn't quite know what to do with that inspiration. I read my book for a little while (I'm re-reading Lolita--what could possibly be more inspiring than the prose of Nabokov) and then I did something really big. For the first time ever, I submitted some of my poetry to a literary journal, Tin House.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't have any delusions of grandeur that my poems will be accepted to one of the top literary magazines out there first try. I'm probably not there yet. But now that I've submitted somewhere I think it will be easier for me to press that send button or put that letter in the mail again. My plan is to put a few submissions into a few different magazines every day in hopes that while wading through pile of rejection letters, one of them might be a yes. At this point I don't even care if I get paid for my work, I just want to be a published author.
This may sound a little depressing and like I don't have faith in my talents. It's not that, I'm just trying to be realistic. Some of the best authors in the world faced a long string of rejections before finally becoming as famous as they are today. So, without getting my hopes way up, I'm trying to take that first step. Because if it takes being told no 20 or 50 times before I get a yes, then I guess I better start now.
Why Write?
This is a question that I've been thinking a lot about lately. Why do I write? Out of the numerous things that I could do in a day, why do I always try to take a moment to stop and put some words on paper? It's certainly not for money or fame. I am 20,000 dollars in debt for my degree and haven't been paid a cent for my writing. And it's not because I have a strong desire to be heard. Most of my writing is in notebooks and journals scattered throughout junk drawers around my house, never seen by anyone but me. I don't write to prove my talent or make a difference. I write for the sake of it, because there are words bouncing around my head that need some sort of release. Now don't get me wrong, I would love to be paid for my work and for the whole world to read and love my poetry. I'm not denying the value of that by any means, but it isn't why. When I graduated from high school I needed to pick a major and all I knew was that I wanted to write. I chose journalism thinking, well, I want to write and I want to get paid for it. But that was not a match for me at all. Journalists need a passion for news and a need to find and share information. I never had that. Sure, I could write a good article no problem, but I didn't enjoy it and I didn't care enough to do it with the intensity that it takes to have a successful career in journalism. When I switched my degree to Creative Writing I knew I was taking a risk. I knew that the choice would not make it easy for me to find a high-paying job out of college, and I was right. But despite working at Sam's club, despite the fact that my work is still confined to journals for the time being, I don't regret it. In the first class I took I was introduced to modern poetry and I discovered that passion that I lacked in journalism. Writing an article was never fulfilling the way that writing a poem or a piece of fiction is for me. And so I finished my degree, and I wrote, and I write still.
Although writing in a journal is good for me, I recognize that I can do more. Writing in a journal is like talking to myself. It may make a difference to me, but why stick to that when I can do something bigger, better. So this blog is my first step in making my writing more public. I'd be lying if I told you I will write every day and that everything I write will be life-changing. But my goal is to write every week and to get my voice out there, if only to a few occasional readers who happen to stumble past my work. This is just my beginning, and I can only hope that it will lead somewhere wonderful.