(Started writing this blog post a
handful of days ago; then my time/brain space got invaded by a wedding, a baby
shower and other what not – including other oodles of reading/writing/poetry
goodness. Finally getting around to finishing it, in one way or another – about
how so-called vintage children’s books
got me thinking, when does contemporary poetry suddenly turn into vintage!?! AAH.).
The hour is late, I should get to bed,
but instead I am feeling compelled to express a few thoughts/feelings about how
tonight my poetry made me feel old! Not
because of its content or style (thank goodness), but because of the fast
passage of time.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by
this. After all, I am 40 years old and I started writing a lot of poetry back when
I was a teenager – and I started submitting it/having it accepted for publication
when I was in college (getting my BFA in creative writing) – and I started
writing/submitting/being published considerably more AND feeling more strongly
and favorably about my writing style in my late 20s to mid 30s – so…this
shouldn’t surprise me or make me feel weirdly old, but…
Last night, I was adding a few vintage
children’s books to my Blood Pudding Press shop – more specifically, children’s
fairy tale books published in 1978. That process got me thinking about fairy
tales fused with poems. I was adding additions
of "Beauty and the Beast" and
"Cinderella" to my shop, thinking about how personally I’m more of a
fan of gruesome and macabre fairy tale language (a la Grimm's), rather than how
more traditional kid's books
really tone down the words.
(Despite the toned down words, I’m still keeping a copy of Hansel and Gretel - because no matter how a children's book tries to tone that content down, it's still going to be delightfully creepy, on a variety of levels - PLUS the fact that when I was a little girl, my mom used to style my hair based on a Gretel illustration).
I got to thinking
about how in recent years, I don't write poems
inspired by fairy tales. I’ve written a
few fairy tale themed poems in the far off past – but many years ago, I thought
fairy tale inspired poem themes were becoming overdone – and for the most part,
I’d rather work with my own themes, rather than creating variations on others’
themes.
I understand how parts of fairy tales can be creatively
inspiring, though (for me, especially the violent bursts). In the far off past, pieces of my poems where
semi-inspired by rumplestiltskin, rapunzel, and black birds in a pie. Thinking more about it, I realized that I
HAVE used some fairy tale snippets recently – not any overall fairy tale theme,
but fusion mix snips of georgy porgy pudding pie inserting himself plus my ongoing
spurts of ashes to ashes (to ashes to ashes to ashes) in various amalgams.
Then I got to thinking about how an older poem of mine,
possibly the first poem of mine that I continued to feel really strongly about
many years later, SCRATCH, was inspired by various childhood issues, including
burning my hand on an electric grill while walking around in circles reading
'Sleeping Beauty'.
I recently read SCRATCH (for the first time in years) at a
poetry reading event this past March 2013 – and while thinking about it again,
I decided to locate its print version, to take a peek at more details. Yes, I have
my poems on my computer, but for many years now, whenever I finish a poem, I
also print out a copy – and I have all these printed out copies of poems (hundreds
upon hundreds open hundreds) stored in big envelope sections, where I handwrite
notes as to where they’re submitted, rejected, accepted etc…
When I finally
managed to locate the printed out copy of SCRATCH and then look at its
handwritten notes, I found out that it was written in 1999!
I don’t remember
all the details about how and when I revised the piece (how many times and how
significantly etc…), but according to some of my handwritten notes jotted down
on the printed out copy… An earlier version of the piece was read at Clintonville
Community Co-Up and was read twice at Victorian’s Midnight Café (those notes
made me remember my Open Mic reading phase in my mid 20s). It was submitted to and rejected by Spinning
Jenny, Brownstone Review, Sonora Review, and Crab Creek Review (I’m not even
sure if all those sources still exist anymore).Then it was revised. Then it was
rejected by Indiana Review, Green Hills Lit, and Arsenic Lobster (a source I’ve
now been published by several times). It
was entered into a few contests/poetry prizes in 2000 (I had forgotten that I used
to submit my poems to contests too).
Furthermore, I have
quite a few submission sources written down and crossed off – and I’m not sure
if that means I never heard back from those sources one way or the other or
what (because if I had heard back with a rejection, then I think I would have
written that in the rejection section). I have all this stuff crossed off – Sylvia
(Dec.), Bathtub Gin (Jan. 2000), Great Midwestern Quarterly (June 2000), West
Branch (May), Interbang (July)… There are
a few other notes too that I don’t quite understand and I don’t want to spend
too much time trying to analyze the details of notes I jotted years ago.
The overall detail
that made me feel weirdly old was that it appears I initially finished writing
and stared submitting the poem in December 1999 (and had it accepted by SKIDROW
PENTHOUSE in which it was published in 2003, 10 years ago) - and so when I read
it for the first time in years at a poetry reading event this past March, I
knew it was an older poem, but I didn’t realize it was thirteen years old!
I’m sure I could go
on (and on & on), but that’s enough of this semi-random rambling for now.
In other news, the
vintage Cinderella book already sold from the Blood Pudding Press shop – but as
of right now, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is still available there (https://www.etsy.com/listing/155869933/vintage-childrens-fairy-tale-book-beauty?)
– and I’m hoping to find time to
add more vintage kid’s books and other stuff soon.
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