It's Raining Centipedes...

Woke up about an hour before my alarm was set for me to get up today and started unexpectedly writing some poem lines. That hasn't happened in a while, so I ended up feeling excited and energized enough to get up about half an hour before I had planned to so that I could try to finish the poem.

I think I finished it, but it feels even weirder and more WTF than usual and includes centipedes (among other things) and also the last collaborative poem I was working on included centipedes too, not sure where these centipedes are coming from, but at least they're not dolls (or are they?).

While working on the new weird poem, I noticed this other new poem (completed? in-progress? I don't know yet...)...that I must have written a few days ago and then forgotten about. Me and my out-of-whack brain waves, but I'm happy I have two new almost done poems and a few collaborative poems in progress and I'm sorry I'm behind on almost everything else.

Oh and I ended up incorporating a recently acquired word for a certain foot deformity into today's centipede poem, so I'm pretty sure that's something new.

Then I semi-randomly looked up centipede socks and found some.

Then it started pouring rain (and thunder and lightning) and maybe that's because my new poem is called "It's Raining Centipedes".

I also found out about Sinéad O'Connor dying (at only age 56), which makes me sad.

She was one of my favorite singers back when I was in high school (and beyond). I loved her first two albums, at the time I felt like I didn't know anyone else who was as into her music as I was, so my Dad went to one of her concerts with me. In later years, I saw her perform at one of the Lilith Fair concerts, attended with my sisters, and she was wonderful.

Sinéad O'Connor  singing Troy (Live) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lV21J75vFE 

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.

*

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!

genuine, heart felt passion

In my opinion, here is one trait involved with having a genuine, heart felt passion for writing (and certain other kinds of art and certain other parts of life too). You're not aiming to please anyone else. Even if part of you might desire to please someone else, that's not what you're aiming for with your creative work.  You're just expressing what you need to express in the best way you can, whether or not anyone else relates. You will spend hour after hour after hour after hour writing something that maybe nobody else will relate to. You will keep going until it feels done.

You'll post it somewhere - and then you might feel a little bit bummed that nobody seems to relate to it or seems the least bit interested - but you will not overly question yourself for writing it, because you felt like you had to. Maybe part of you doesn't quite understand WHY you had to.  But if you had to, you had to. Whether or not anybody else relates, you still had to.

Maybe you can pretend that someone secretly relates (maybe someone does and you won't be pretending. Unless I get into my depressed mode, a little part of me always likes imagining that a few people relate to me and just aren't sure how to tell me so).

If you didn't have a genuine personal passion, then why would you spend so much time and energy working on something that most people don't give a fuck about?  Because it matters to you and you're not going to bow down into easy complacency.

Poetry Publishing AND Writing

For whatever reason(s), some poets and presses don’t seem to like to talk about subject matter related to poetry acceptance/rejection, how much they do or don’t submit, and how many submissions their presses receive etc… but I will. Maybe this is inappropriate or unprofessional by some people’s standards, but why? Maybe it will make me seem unpopular by some people’s standards, but oh well. I have no desire to force my way or fake my way into the popular zone.

I remember when I was younger and got more bummed out by rejections and tended to take them too personally. Once I ended up having my poetry accepted by a lot of sources, rejections didn’t bother me much – because I started to perceive it more like obviously my work wasn’t going to be everyone’s/every presses style. I mean do I like everyone else’s poetry? No way. And sometimes when I don’t like it, it’s not because it’s poorly written or clichéd or otherwise crappy. SOMETIMES it’s for reasons like that – but other times, it’s well written, but just not my style. Not that I have any ONE style. There are numerous styles I like and numerous styles I don’t like, when it comes to poetry, visual art, and lots of other things too.

Aside from my own poetry’s acceptance and rejection, what’s changed my perspective even more in recent years is running my own small poetry press, Blood Pudding Press. When I hear someone sound really bummed about having a chapbook manuscript rejected (not just some individual poems, but a whole manuscript), I can somewhat relate to that on a poet level, but I can also think about it on a press/publisher level and here’s part of how I feel about it on that publisher level.

My Blood Pudding Press is pretty itty bitty. It’s not academic (or anti-academic) or associated with any particular organization; it’s just a one woman gig of publishing unique, ribbon-bound, hand-designed poetry chapbooks – only a few a year, so that I can also focus on my own reading, writing, submitting, art stuff, other stuff. (Some poets/publishers are way better at multi-tasking than I am; not me; I’m not going to force myself to pick up my pace and then go bonkers).

The last few years, in order to choose which chapbooks I’m going to publish, I’ve run a chapbook contest. For this year’s contest, I was accepting submissions for one month and received well over 50 submissions. In the 50s is probably a very small amount of submissions compared to what college based or other more well-known, large scale presses receive – and might even be a small amount related to what some other small presses receive. But 50+ was a good number of submissions for me.

Of the more than 50 submissions I received, I only plan to choose two for publication. So far I'm not even halfway through reading them all and there's already way more than two that definitely deserve to be published, so it is going to be tough narrowing it down. I imagine it works similarly for many other small poetry presses, especially the presses that are not academically based (and I’m not talking about content there; I’m talking about being associated with a university, which has a lot of different readers and covers the publishing fees and etc…).

If you are a small press that is handled by just one individual poet (or less than one handful of individual poets), then those who handle the press can either choose to focus mostly on publishing (barely spending any time at all on their own personal writing/art/creative work – unless they have a speed racing, multi-tasking style), so that they can manage to publish more than just a few of the people who deserve to be published - OR they can choose to publish just a few of the people who deserve to be published and also have time remaining to focus on their own creative flow. 

Obviously, this works somewhat differently for every individual and I’m just speaking for myself. As with many other aspects of life, I think I am pretty “in between” with this, but I choose to focus on BOTH (my own writing/submitting AND publishing others) – and for me personally, if I focused much more on publishing, then that would hugely outweigh my own creative flow and then I’d be really unhappy. 

With all that said though, again, of the 50+ chapbook submissions I recently received for my Blood Pudding Press and am currently reading, I’ll bet there’s going to be more than two HANDFULS of them that deserve to be published – and it will be tough narrowing it down to only two.

A Round Thing that Starts With the Wrong Letter

(A year that started with the wrong kind of bang has ended; what comes next?)

I few days ago, I had a little after-dinner issue that made me feel like crying. These feelings are nothing new throughout a year that began with me suffering from an unexpected Stroke, but I have been continually recovering and improving, to the point that I think most people who briefly interact with me might not even receive an inkling that anything has affected my brain powers at all. A big part of me really likes that, but it also has its challenging aspects.

Although my reading and writing skills continue to get better and better thank goodness, they are still significantly slower than they used to me. Although every month, I seem to remember details better, I still do not think I could work a regular job, because after I initially came across as pretty intelligent and productive, how could I explain my inability to memorize new things with quickness or efficiency?

And how the heck would I explain my ongoing trouble associated with handling easy little words? Food stuff is one example of those easy little words and my ongoing issue with food stuff words is what made me feel like crying the other night. Even my poetry used to be brimming with strange and specific food-oriented words, to the extent that a few people thought I had made up my last name, COOK, to fit into my own poetry-fest.

A few nights ago after dinner, my mom handed me a yummy piece of homemade gingerbread (I had to concentrate while typing this to get the word gingerbread) and she put something on it; some white stuff that I cannot remember the word of. I asked her what that white stuff was called and she told me, but I have already forgotten that word again. When she told me the word, I started to tell her what it reminded me of, which was another white thing atop another dessert thing and...

See what I mean? I couldn't think of the word of a dessert product that I have partaken of many times in my life. And I couldn't think of the word of the white stuff on top of that dessert product. Oftentimes, I can think of the first letter of a word even if I can’t think of the whole word. So I said something like "that round thing that starts with a g" and then I began to feel like some sort of an idiot, because here I was seated at the kitchen table with a group of people and the best descriptive phrase I could muster was “that round thing that starts with a g".

As it turned out, I didn't even get the first letter right this time. As I tried to describe the dessert product a little better, my mom finally asked if I was talking about Cinnamon Rolls and YES that is what I was talking about. And the main reason I had even brought up Cinnamon Rolls was due to an attempt to talk about the white product that sometimes appears on top of them, but it took me so long to make it to the word Cinnamon Roll, that after that, I felt overly stressed out and dumb and pretty much just gave up.

Here I was among a group of people and could not even manage to describe certain things as well as their little kids would have been able to describe it. I felt like they most likely would rather play with the kids, rather than spend half an hour trying to concentrate on a disabled adult attempting to figure out easy little words in order to say what I was trying to say, when what I was trying to say was simply a very small description of a white dessert product atop my mom's gingerbread that tasted like a different white dessert product atop some Cinnamon Rolls. I could hardly think of any of the words for a small description that should have lasted about one minute long.

Unfortunately, that is nothing new when I am trying to talk about food (or names or other brief descriptions), so sometimes I just don’t even try to talk about those things, especially in the midst of group settings as opposed to one on one. Sometimes I find myself worrying about not being able to think of some easy little word in a public setting (which has happened before) and then how the heck should I explain that? I don’t really feel like telling semi-random people who I barely know that I suffered from a Stroke almost a year ago.

It's so frustrating and upsetting to me sometimes, being someone who used to be able to describe things interestingly, uniquely, and EASILY and now I often can't. In addition to the little words, there's the fact that I can't write significant book reviews anymore; I can no longer specifically describe my own viewpoints on stuff like poetry, art, feminism, and much more (and since I would have to concentrate long and hard in order to think of more specific words, I just typed 'and much more').

Overall, I have been feeling less depressed, less negative, and more willing to interestingly shift my own verbiage around. But every once in a while, an exchange that ought to consist of a simple, easy, quick little conversation goes awfully wrong and really upsets me. Sometimes I worry that I am NEVER going to be able to communicate as well as I used to. Sometimes that makes me feel like crying.

***

(This is a short version of a small article I am currently working on. I hope to complete and publish a slightly longer version on my Associated Content site soon. If you are interested, stay tuned.)

A Diary that nobody else will read

Hi. I'm going to write a quick-ish little message here that is probably mostly for myself to read (or re-read or understand or something; unfortunately, I have recently noticed that in addition to not speaking, spelling, or writing as well as I used to, I also can't remember things as well, for cripes sake {sp?}). Anyway basically here's my deal.

For years, I had a very long, weirdly personal blog online (CandyDishDoom). About a year ago, I switched over to this site, which is not so personal, but mainly deals with poetry and other writing stuff, and okay, maybe an occasional little semi-personal thought or idea, but not a majorly long one. My long thoughts and contents are now only written to a few extremely close friends.

However, today all these odd, post-stroke thoughts & ideas were coming through my head and I kept jotting them down on a random little piece of paper. They weren't poems (I haven't tried writing new poems yet since my stroke); they were more like personal blog-like words about different and difficult ideas and thoughts I've been experiencing. I don't really want to reveal these different and difficult thoughts to those who barely know me (yes, I did enjoy doing that in the past and even met some wonderful new friends because of it, but...)

Thus, I suddenly decided to start a new word-written Diary. I used to write tons of written diaries when I was younger, especially in my early to late 20s, but that changed when I finally got a good computer and switched to online blogging, etc... As noted above, my times have now changed and so I'm going to try written diary words that I write myself and only read myself.

Hopefully, this will help my writing continue to improve, but also review semi-important thoughts and feelings about this time in my life, and ALSO allow me to talk about sometimes feeling sad, blue, glum, and older than I should be (grrr!)! My husband was this age when we first got together (I had just turned 30; he was 37); once we met and hung out with each other, he didn't seem old to me--so why do I feel older now? I think it's because of my stupid stroke.

Anyway, enough of this. I'll be writing such thoughts/feeling in greater detail on words to myself from now on. I will still write poetry-type things here. Indeed, when I started my diary writing this evening, I was writing inside an old book (book is probably not the best word, since this contains blank pages for someone to write their own words upon) in which I had previously (years ago) written some older things.

Some of those older things were odd lines written by me, to possibly be used within future poems. Some of those older things were various lines from other people's poems, which I had especially liked. Here are two that seemed wonderful and sad to my tonight:

"A writer's truest self is not the person
you meet, it's the person you read"

&

"In the dead water
where my tongue is held captive"

That last one was written by Frank Stanford.

Tongue Like a Stinger (now with more angst!)

My latest e-chapbook, Tongue Like a Stinger, has just been published by Wheelhouse Press. Please feel free to check it out here:

http://www.wheelhousemagazine.com/chapbook/cook.pdf

It has been published concurrently with two other new e-chapbooks, which I look forward to reading soon--Xenomorphia by Matina Stamatakis & John Moore Williams and Over This Here Rainbow by Lars Palm.

You can read what Wheelhouse editor David Wolach has to say about these chapbooks, the Wheelhouse mission, and other exciting upcoming projects at his blog here:

http://davidwolach.blogspot.com/

A sort of hybrid of older work with new material, my chapbook might appeal to those who find some of my latest poetry a little too visceral or in-your-face for their liking. The 'Tongue Like a Stinger' collection is slightly more subtle; not a lot more subtle, just slightly.

It's about birds and bees and fur and tentacles and implanted debris and tainted femininity and more. It includes my Best of the Net 2007 winning and Pushcart Prize nominated poem, 'Some Explanations for Fainting Goats' and more. I designed the collage art cover with various images inlcuding a photo of a bird skeleton found in somebody's attic, which had to be disposed of after my photography session, because flesh was still clinging to the bones and it stunk.

If you're in the mood for my more in-your-face and oozing, my latest print chapbook, PINK LEOTARD & SHOCK COLLAR is newly available from Spooky Girlfriend Press in a small print run, costs less than a fast food meal, and has already been described as "outrageously pungent" (Adam Fieled, poet & critic):

http://spooky-girlfriend.blogspot.com/2009/07/now-available-pink-leotard-shock-collar.html

***

In other writing/editing news: new flight formation winging its way onto the scene some time tomorrow, dog warts article in progress, revamped DIY feminist poetry publishing article in progress, I have quite a few writing assignments on my platter that I pretty much need to finish up in the next week, plus I need to get started on the next Blood Pudding Press chapbook, egads!

At least I finished a chapbook review yesterday and submitted it to The Chapbook Review.

At least I got a dreaded doctor's appointment out of the way today and a not so dreaded hair cut.



*

Update: Another tidbit of poetic good news--I have received a poetry acceptance from Action, Yes! YAY!!!

Plus, I just realized I now have ten published chapbooks (not counting the one that's out of print)! Five self-published through Blood Pudding Press (inlcuding two collaborations) and five published by other small presses (including two e-chapbooks). WOW!

Plus one more chapbook manuscript in circulation and one more collaboration in progress.

Poetry Poetry Poetry, go go go!

*

Thursday update: I wonder if people think I'm being too self-congratulatory or overly self-promotional when I write up peppy little spiels like the above. Well, right now I'm in the midst of a small wave of discouragement (hopefully, it will pass soon enough and then I might delete this bit, because I don't want my blog to seem too negative or self-defeating). I truly do adore and become excited about poetry projects and I've had a pretty darn grand poetry week or so, with the publication of TWO new chapbooks, an acceptance from one of my highly-coveted wish list mags and more,

BUT...

A small wave of discouragement just came over me. Maybe it was because I found out today that a nifty freelance writing gig I recently applied for did not come my way. It was a writing gig for the Onion News Network. Of course, I'd prefer to write poetry, but poetry doesn't pay the bills, unless you have some kind of academic job, which I don't. Sometimes I get tired of taking consumer surveys online and writing little freelance articles about dog warts in order to make three dollars (not an exaggeration).

'Well, I'm not going to be a writer for the Onion News Network,' I semi-dejectedly informed my husband a little while ago.

'Well, neither am I, ' he replied.

Yeah, but he didn't spend nearly three full days working on the writing application.

I probably spend more time on my writing stuff than many people spend on their full-time jobs, but where has it gotten me? Okay, that's not a fair question. It's gotten me plenty. I've had lots of poems published--I have a book--I've published ten poetry chapbooks in the last three years, which I realized last evening and which seemed sort of impressive at the time--so I guess that must mean I'm doing something right with my poetry.

Yet every month, I struggle to pay my household bills, which is very stressful to say the least.

For thirteen years, I worked for the same company--for the last decade, it was one office job or another, passionless yet tolerable and with a company I didn't dislike. It wasn't a high-paying gig, but it was enough for a non-materialistic sort such as me, plus I had good benefits. This past November, my "position was eliminated due to organizational restructuring". I could go off on a long, bitter tangent about certain suspicions of underhandedness, but I won't.

Instead I will jump to the part about how I've applied for about 80 jobs since then (no exaggeration) and haven't gotten one yet and I don't think it's because my resume is bad or anything like that; I'm not sure what it's because of. I know the economy has been bad, I know the job market is very competitive, blah blah blah. Still, I've applied for about 80 jobs--from full-time to part-time, from well-paying to crappy-paying, ranging from university jobs to medical center jobs to art galleries to libraries to government jobs to office jobs to Call Center jobs to barista jobs and more. And I guess if my unemployment benefits run out, I'll start applying at fast food eateries, convenience marts, and gas stations, too.

So just in case anyone reads my blog and I'm giddily writing about my latest publication credits or poetry chapbooks or whatever and you think to yourself, 'Golly, way to pat yourself on the back about your ten chapbooks, Mrs. Egomaniac', you might want to consider that a big part of the reason for that (in addition to the fact that I really do get genuinely super duper excited about poetry stuff) is because POETRY is one area in my life in which things are going well and I have a lot of small successes and it makes me feel good about myself and happy. Which is not so much the case in certain other areas of my life.

Such as the elusive career area. Am I doing something wrong? Should I be investing less time into my poetry and more time into writing articles about dog warts or something even less appealing to me?

It's just that there's so much to do in the realm of writing. Writing and publishing my own poetry, publishing other's poetry and book reviews (because I like to give back to the poetry community), writing freelance articles, advertising and promoting and designing and brainstorming and organizing and reading...

Indeed, I've already let blogging fall way off; my participation in the blogosphere used to be much more extensive, but something had to give to make way for the consumer surveys and the freelance articles and the time-consuming, ongoing job search activities and the seemingly perpetual following up with people who don't get back to me. By the way, in addition to my resume, I now have a whole computerized folder of different cover letters that can be adapted to fit different job openings. I have an administrative cover letter, an art job cover letter, a library job cover letter, a customer service cover letter, an editor cover letter, and a freelance writer cover letter, among others. Apparently none of them are successful. But at least my poetry is.

Well, successful in most every way except for the bill-paying kind of success, which is probably the kind of success that matters most to a lot of people. In fact, an even more common response to my poetry chapbook pep talk would probably be something like, 'Who CARES if you have ten poetry chapbooks?'

So I was just trying to convince myself that I cared (which I do), since occasionally a wave of discouragement or deflation will overcome me and I'll feel like I'm writing into a void...

It just seems like it would make more sense if I could manage to earn my livelihood via the pursuits that I am truly passionate about, driven towards, committed to, and invest LOTS of genuinely-intended time, effort, and energy into, but alack.

Okay, enough angsty ranting. I'll try to come back later with more peppy promo, related to poetry, the Luna Chicks, and feral ferocity.

awkward snip

You know something that I think can be a little bit strangely awkward as a writer?

When you utterly adore a certain poet's material, but you know they do not care for yours.

I'm not suggesting this is good or bad or a huge deal or anything that's going to substantially change the way I feel about the poetry I adore or don't adore.

I am suggesting it seems to happen to me with some frequency--that I am a big fan of certain poets who I know aren't fans of me OR that I receive gushy responses of fandom from writers who supposedly love my work, but I am very underwhelmed by theirs.

It's really no biggie, especially considering the vast range of poetic styles and sensibilties out there, but like I said, it can make me feel a bit strangely awkward at times.

Most especially at times when I'm planing on writing some kind of poetry review and then find myself insecurely second-guessing myself, thinking something like, 'Well I don't think this writer really likes my writing and for all I know they might not even respect my writing and so maybe they wouldn't LIKE me to review their material'.

Hmmm...