Gearing Up for Change in August

About 27 months ago (2 years, 3 months), I left my job with the family non-profit to pursue other projects. I felt great about it. I was sad to leave the work I found so meaningful, but was also excited to have more time and energy to devote to concerns a little more core to my values. That, and being able to be openly out of the Broom Closet and not have to make the 77 mile round trip commute anymore felt like a huge relief.

Since then, I have done many things. I have co-directed/produced/performed in 3 plays about gender. I have written 3 novels and a mess of poetry (that is an official unit of poetry, for sure). I write this blog and have recently begun a couple others, I have organized various retreats and special events, I have done some community organizing and activism, I do my energy work, and the list goes on. I have had a lot of failures and almost as many fiascoes. I have learned a lot. It is good.

And now, I am officially BORED. I got there. I am amazed it took this long. I sit to read, and am bored by the book. I read my blogs and feel restless. I exercise and wish it had a point. There is only so much media I can consume. I create projects, like drums and wirework and Easy Buttons, etc., but I have to stop and let the glue dry, and at this point we have enough invested in drums that as soon as we finish the next round of prototypes, we need to be focused on selling before making more.

Feeling this restless and bored is a great sign, I think. It is a sign that my health has improved to the point that I have the physical energy to feel like I want to be doing more than I am, rather than feeling grateful that I can lay in bed for half the day because I am in pain. I find that I keep going over my to do lists in my head, trying to accomplish more on my various projects. And the thought of getting an active, part-time, cash-paying job excites me.

Every year, things move in August. Shift happens. I can already hear the whine of the engines as they rev up....

Poetry is like Gravity

A couple weeks ago I went to the tail end of a poetry workshop that was a part of a larger weekend event. It was there that I realized that I had lost my poetic voice. When I was in school, I used to write the kind of poetry all teens write. I remember I had a whole set of poems about the joys of driving, and another running theme was definitively, often rhythmically, sexual. But more than that, I was deeply involved with the Literary Arts Magazine in high school and received acknowledgment from teachers and peers as a poet. 

That changed when I got to college. I submitted to the LitMag there and was rejected except for two lines taken out of context. I read my work at an open mic and an older woman came up to me and said, "You think a lot, don't you," which sounded critical to my ears. I lost confidence, and even though I have continued to write prose and a lot of my creative prose blends into the poetic, I have really stopped looking for poems or playing with the poetic form. I decided at the recent workshop that I would like to reclaim and rediscover my poetic voice.

Since I am such a lover of NaNoWriMo, I thought I would do a NaPoWriMo for myself (this does exist independently of my project here.) I decided that since NaNo is 50,000 words, I would do 50 poems in one month. And since I didn't want to wait for the 1st, I decided I would go Dark Moon to Dark Moon and wrap up on March 15th. 


Poetry seems to be like gravity. As soon as I relaxed my muscles, so to speak, I fell right into it. I have been prolific. I could easily write 100 poems this month, or more. I sit quietly and the poems are like many colored ends of yarn poking out at me from all directions. All I have to do is grasp their first lines and tug, and voila! out pops a poem. 


I cannot claim that all my poetry is good, because of course it isn't. And at one point about a week into the project, I wrote a poem about how much I dislike my poetic voice for over-dramatizing everything, but then I just kept on going. A project like this is more about quantity than quality, and the experiment over the perfect. I have written some awful poems. But I have also written some very decent ones, and a lot that I would deem good enough. 


Perhaps after the 15th I will begin studying poetry again, looking for what it is that sets good poetry apart from the bad or indifferent. I suspect it is the quality of the poem to inspire, surprise, and create empathy through its use of imagery, sensuality, and comparison. 


This has been and continues to be a very interesting project. I am glad.