In the interest of clear communication, let me clarify about the poetry I write. Y'all who know me, know I'm not just peculiar, I'm downright nonsecular. So, no my poetry is not particularly religious. It is not "Christian," by any stretch of the imagination, but neither would it follow any religious tradition since I'm as religious as a rock. There might be ecstatic moments, but more along the lines of a
carpe diem or an orgasm. Yes, you read the last six letters of the previous sentence correctly.
I have been known to write pornetry, or whoretry, whatever you might end up calling my "erotic poetry" if you ever ran into it. It's quite explicit, but even a church secretary friend of mine was able to read & critique it. I've been writing literary work and studying poetry for over ten years now, it's probably going on 15 with a great deal of dedication. I've actually moderated on two of the most significant literary boards I've ever found in the English language among U.S. sites. I'm a shit moderator because I couldn't handle more stress after a day at work. There are a lot of whack jobs on the net, but in the world of poetry, they're whack jobs who claim their outburst come from their sensitive souls - and y'all know how well I handle those.
Anyways, I write some respectable work, but have not gotten sufficiently organized for a grand marketing push towards publication. That shit takes time and thought. I just write the stuff. Still, I have had a few pieces picked up. Recently, I actually had somewhat of a "moment". A festival picked up five of my pieces of pornetry. If you're a friend of mine in Seattle who has a cast iron stomach, I'm wrangling you to attend the festival with me - under pseudonyms.
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| This is actually my attempt at making Mozzarella cheese |
They're all pieces I wrote last year. Frankly, I think they're pretty good and the "payday" is admission to the festival and the gala plus a ticket credit. No, Dave isn't going to attend. He just looked at me, rolled his eyes, and snorted, "Yeah, right. Why don't you ask A, B, or C" And so I did. Anyways, the works I write, because I am a 50+ year old woman are not just X rated, they're Z rated. You'd quite blush knowing what kind of knots my characters find themselves tied into. While I am quite pleased about the pieces being picked up, but I'll have to check out the quality of the rest of the work to figure out if this festival is actually a meaningful addition to my "artistic" resume.
This topic came up because I'd capitalized the word, "Heaven", in my euphemistic sputter, "heaven's sake". I'm a grammar nazi, or as much as I can be. So, I went back and changed the lower case to upper. Anyways, I don't write poetry for myself either, I write to be read. I write for an audience. I write for a conversation with my "reader." I'm compulsive in that I've always been working on some creative project since I was very young. My Mother, as crazy as she is / was, and my Dad went to
great lengths and sacrifice to give us classes in music, drama, painting, drawing, swimming, etc., even if we didn't have great looking clothes, hair, or shoes. My first "artistic" career was in ballet. I studied it from the time I was six until I was sixteen. I made it as "far" as a small ballet company with affiliations to the Atlanta Ballet Company when I ran smack into the fact that I would never be the dancer I wanted to be. So, I quit and focused my energies elsewhere - namely travelling to Europe (2X), college, and then writing novels. After that was engineering school, and then joining McCaw and being a field tech. At that time I worked to build a painting studio.
If you've visited my house, you've seen the studio upstairs. Throughout my 30s I worked in oils, primarily, but also completed some watercolors and then you've seen the architectural work I completed in my house. I turned down an offer or two in my 40s to work with painting companies because the painting contractors were impressed with the quality of my architectural work. They were really impressed with my lines b/c much of the painting in my house was done without taping. The harlequins in the guest room, or the stripes in the bedroom were obviously taped, but I'm talking moldings & trim work were done without taping.
It was in my 40s that I began to focus on the poetry because the internet was "growing up." Bulletin boards were beginning to replace newsgroups and by 2000 there were people who could afford to build their own bulletin boards and to play with that software. Also, web browsers were becoming more sophisticated and it was easier to search and find things on the internet. I don't remember using google at that time as much as Netscape. But it was the graphical introduction of the bulletin board system which impacted me the most. The newsgroup formats were crap to read.
The painting, while not abandoned, took second place to poetry. Poetry, which has always been my most significant "voice," became my primary creative focus because I finally had access to critical feedback and educational resources. And when I talk about "critical feedback," I mean I hung with the crowd at the
Poetry-Free-For-All (PFFA), which has as
Rule #1 in their
FAQ:
Someone called my poem pointless piffle, foul-smelling fluff, a wanton waste of bandwidth, or otherwise drove the spike of an unkind review through the oh-so-tender tissues of my ever-so-sensitive heart. Also my soul. What do I do?1: Thank them. Always.
Very well worth it. Best education ever.
So, I've spent my years reading poetry, reading more poetry, reading about poetry, studying poetry on the internet, taking workshops on poetry on the internet, moderating poetry boards & poetry submissions for literary boards on the internet. But not gathering my work into chapbooks, or submitting to periodicals or for publication. That has always been a few more hours than I've had in my weekend, my vacation, or my day. Besides, why bother. At having to pay a reading fee of anywhere from $20-$35 to have a poem even looked at for a publication, I'd go freakin' broke.
Like I said, "lowest of the low."
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