I'm not always aiming for positive emotions...

Sometimes it's hard to explain why I am drawn towards certain kinds of creative writing, visual art, and photographic art that others might view or interpret as gross, gory, unsettling, disturbing, or even offensive, because there are various different reasons, sometimes fused together and somewhat different depending on the piece of art.

One of those reasons is that earlier on in my life, I feel like I experienced quite a few examples of people choosing to hide (or avoid knowledge or awareness of) parts of reality that they found disturbing. I understand not revealing certain disturbing aspects of reality to little kids (but also some little kids don't even have the privilege of being able to avoid certain disturbing aspects of reality), but I also think that some adults would rather act like disturbing aspects of reality don't really exist forever. On one hand, that's an individual choice, but on the other hand it's a choice that not everyone has the privilege to make if they're surrounded by a different part of reality.

With my own poetry/art OR poetry/art by others that I choose to share, I'm not purposely aiming to shock or offend, but I'm also not aiming to keep it calm or pretty or avoid the unpleasant or bothersome. There are a variety of different kinds of poetry/art I'm drawn to in some ways, but among those, I've always been drawn towards some dark, unsettling, and disturbing. Why? I don't know exactly or maybe that's because there's a variety of different reasons, depending on the art and other factors. Sometimes because it stimulates my brain and catalyzes creative impulses. Sometimes because it has a strong affect on my emotions (and I'm not always aiming for positive emotions). Sometimes because I'd rather feel angry than sad. Sometimes because I'd rather be made aware of/attempt to confront something disturbing or disgusting than stay unaware of it, hidden from it, or choose to just ignore it. Which is not to say I never ignore things. Sometimes I do.

I would never personally kill an animal, but I've taken photos of dead birds and dead baby bird fetuses before, not because I thought it was shocking or titillating but partly because it's a small but unsettling part of reality that many people would rather just walk past and ignore. Also because I'm so disturbed by death or by life just visually disappearing.

Some years ago when I had my dog put to sleep (which in my opinion is a pretty disturbing phrase and a very difficult experience) and then brought his dead body back to my house, I was drawn to take a few photos of him, because that was the last time I was going to see his body. I had loved my dog and I had taken tons of photos of him when he was alive. But I only snapped one really quick one after he was dead, because my parents were over and that might have freaked them out and seemed ridiculously weird to them. They liked my dog too, but everyone processes and handles these things somewhat differently. I guess I'm drawn to someone incorporate death into art, since I'm so into art, and if something still exists in art then it doesn't seem entirely dead?

I'm much more disturbed by the idea of death/non-existence and the uncaringness of death itself and by people just tossing dead animals in a big trash heap like they're garbage than I am of people photographing that unsettling part of reality and presenting it in order to provoke thoughts and feelings (which is part of what I think art does).

With this interconnected small series of poems I'm currently in the process of working on, one of them is trying to express a difference between fantasy horror films and documentation of real life violence, in terms of some people implying it's not a good idea to watch too many horror films but also implying that we should try to ignore many aspects of real life violence. I'm having a hard time with the poem for some reason. Who knows? Maybe semi-sorting through these thoughts of mine here and then copying and pasting them next to my poem-in-progress might help me finish it soon. Or maybe not.

Blood Pudding Press notes

Occasionally people ask me if I am accepting chapbook submissions for Blood Pudding Press or when I will be - and the current answers to those questions are no, I am not accepting chapbook submissions and I am not sure when I will be.

I'm currently trying to promote the chapbooks I've already published, focus on my own writing, focus on reading online literary magazines and print chapbooks from other small presses, and focus on reading poetry submissions for my online blog style lit mag, Thirteen Myna Birds.

I have a few possible forthcoming projects in the back of my mind for Blood Pudding Press, but I try my best not to rush myself into breakdown mode and not to commit to more projects than I can reasonably handle and then have those projects on hold for an overly extended time period.

When and if I am accepting submissions for Blood Pudding Press, I'll announce it on the Blood Pudding Press facebook page linked to below and the Blood Pudding Press blog here. 

Also, as mentioned above, I'm pretty much always accepting submissions for Thirteen Myna Birds, so I'll link to that site below too. The submission guidelines appear near the middle right of the site.

The Blood Pudding Press facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/BloodPuddingPOETRY/

Thirteen Myna Birds - https://13myna.blogspot.com/

Also, the Blood Pudding Press shop - https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress

Sometimes I worry that even though I FEEL like I have depth, maybe I'm not expressing my own depth to the extent that I think I am. Maybe I just FEEL the depth, but it's mostly stuck inside my own head and the stuff that comes out is basically just repetitive.

Non-cliched expression

I seem to be in the midst of this phase lately in which I'm wondering what defines me and what is important to me and why.

I know poetry and art are very important and meaningful to me (and whether or not they're important and meaningful to others doesn't matter all that much to me) and I also know that even others who ARE into poetry and art are not all going to relate to mine (which is fine). 

For years, I thought that poetry and art AND communication were very important and meaningful to me, but lately I seem to be questioning the communication part of the matter more than usual.

I mean, on one hand, I like expressing myself and hearing others express themselves, BUT casual conversation tends to annoy me and lately, I seem to be having more annoyed streaks and feeling like I don't relate to all that many people and wondering what is the point of spending my time communicating with people I don't even relate to very much, when I could be spending that time reading, writing, thinking, and communicating more with myself.

I think communication with oneself is meaningful. Exploring one's own mind is relevant. I think too many people just stick with their minds basics and go with the flow and those are the type of people I'm tired of wasting my time communicating with. 

I'll gladly continue to communicate with other people who are driven to thinking, feeling, creating, and expressing, but those who are prone to rambling out cliches without even thinking about it? Maybe they should ramble their cliches in someone else's direction instead of mine.

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About me and nonfiction writing (other than communication via emailing,  blogging, and "social networking" - realms in which I'm sometimes quite prolific and sometimes not),  I don't read much nonfiction at all (other than book reviews and nonfictional commentary by or about poets), in part because of serious memory issues and also because I have serious trouble organizing/arranging/revising longer work. Heck, even turning some of my poetry into a full-length manuscript is quite a lengthy undertaking, but...I guess that would be different with fiction or nonfiction, since it wouldn't involve deciding how to order the poems, and since the content would have some sort of more standard order, but...

Then that brings me to the whole, how in the hell can my content be positioned in a standard order?  I'm not standard, I'm not logically ordered, and I'm pretty OCD with my own ordering and positioning.

It did cross my mind a few years ago, when a few people were suggesting to me that perhaps I should consider writing a nonfiction book about my carotid artery dissection/aneurysm/stroke/divorce etc... but I don't know how I'd arrange such a manuscript. I have a lot of files on my computer and on paper on that subject matter (personal notes, journal entries, notes to others, notes from others, video of me trying to read, etc...), but the thing is, the re-reading, revising, arranging, organizing process would have to be my full focus for a few years and do I really want to set aside all other writing (including poetry, which is very expressively important to me) and art and submitting and publishing in order to focus on assembling a nonfiction book about my stroke? 

Sometimes I wish my reading and writing and creative process was a little faster and more multi-task prone, but it's not. 

Half my computer is masses of unorganized notes of expression and communication that I saved for valid reasons, but there's so many that I'll never be able to organize them, unless organization is most of what I focus on in life - and who wants to focus on organizing the old and not creating any new?

Not long ago though (i.e. sometime last year), I did finally finish working a personal nonfiction story into a prose poem (I called it that, because I wasn't sure what to call it - it was poetic language in prose form) that got published and then nominated for a Best of the Net in nonfiction. It was based on something that had happened well over ten years ago, that I finally managed to work into a piece of creative writing that I actually liked (when I first started trying to work on it, it made me feel like puking and was WAY over the top, so I finally just had to set the content aside for years, until I could re-work it from a somewhat less emotional trauma puke-fest). I'm glad I finally finished that piece, but like I said, it was based on something that happened over ten years ago and it just ended up being a three page piece.

So who knows how long it might take me to even really dive into book length nonfiction based on the stroke/divorce stuff that happened five years ago.

And also, what is with the speed racing of time?!? AAAH!