Toodles, Poetry! And Humankind?

Some weeks ago, it occurred to me that I have no place in the world of poetry anymore.

I have spent much of the last year devoted to finishing a first draft of a lengthy historical novel. I have continued to interact with my beloved poetry group, but I cannot say I truly was interacting with my own poetry. When the question “Should you still be writing poetry?” arose from the depths of my subconscious, my first instinct was to tamp it down, and hard, but it just wouldn’t go away.

I’ve taken extended vacations away from “poetry world” before and I’ve also been frustrated at times with all aspects of what we call “poetry,” from writing to revising to submitting to publishing, etc., but this time felt different.  So I decided to look that persistent little query in the eye and, behold, I watched as it morphed into, “WHY should you (or ANYONE) continue to write poetry?” Wait. What? Me or ANYONE? Oh, no, I thought. So it’s not, “I have no place in the world of poetry,” it’s “poetry has no place in the world.” Hang it up, Natasha Tretheway. As brilliant and brutally beautiful as your work is, it’s no use. Have I really started to buy into the “Poetry is dead” tripe? Ugh, I thought. Am I nihilist? Has Game of Thrones done this to me? Of course poetry is dead! EVERYone’s dead except the assholes! Damn you, George R.R. Martin!

Continue reading “Wherein I almost (almost) quit writing poetry forever. Or, alternatively, “Thank you, Arthur Chu.”” →

The confluence of the death of Maya Angelou, a strong woman with a strong voice, just the kind of woman we need now, and the Elliot Rodger rampage brought on by his hatred of women (yes, as well as his mental illness), has prompted me to take an afternoon and write this out to you, my male friends.  Because this tragedy could give us opportunities to talk about so many important things, like reasonable gun control, the state of mental health care in this country, and/or the disgusting epidemic of celebrating infamy in our culture (the Kardashianization of America, if you will), I encourage you to think about those things, and discuss them amongst yourselves.  However, let me be clear:  I’m going to use this space to talk about the way women are treated in this culture.  Before you go all “Not ALL men” on me, or make fun of the social media phenomenon of #YESAllWomen, just go read some of these “manosphere ideas” *  and tell me whether you’d feel comfortable being thought of and discussed this way.  I’m thought of this way, as is my daughter, and my mother, and all the women I know, by men just like those quoted in that last linked article, and those sites that Rodger frequented.  Now tell me you don’t know any men who think of women that way.  If you say you don’t, you’re either very lucky or very lying.  I’ve known some men who think like Elliot Rodger thought.  Plenty, in fact.  Now let me tell you a story.

The first time I visited New York City, I was 22 years old.  I went with some friends from law school.  We were at a bar early one evening before dinner.  One of my friends and I went to the restroom, and walking back through the crowded bar to rejoin our friends, someone behind me grabbed my hair, and jerked me back hard, at the same time, demanding loudly, “Where the f**k have you been?” Continue reading “If You Are My Friend, And You Are a Man, You’ll Read This” →

If my friend Laura were still with us, and she could’ve spent her birthday today following someone around just to get material for her next comedic essay, she might’ve picked me.  How might she describe this mess of a thing I laughingly called a schedule today?  I wish she were here to write it, but I’m going to try and tell it like I think she might have told it.

Before I launch into all that, because I’m as likely as not to forget it if I don’t ask now even though I did put it in the title:  would y’all sign my petition?  I want to change the name of “work out” to “work in” because, if I manage to get any exercise on any given day, it’s just because I worked it in.  And usually that results in my schedule not really working out.

Onward!

As with many a splendored thing, this new schedule I’ve put together for 2014 looks great on paper.   My first priority is writing, and I have rededicated myself to one project in particular (some of y’all who know me are thinking, She means re-rededicated).  It seems like everybody and her brother has a “strategic plan” these days,  so I came up with one of those to help me accomplish my 2014 goals.  You should know I have certain personal challenges which are relevant to this discussion: I am not a morning person and even when I wake up early, I cannot be sure I am a fully functioning human until about 10:00 a.m.; I do not multi-task, and I tell myself that multi-tasking is the work of the devil so I can feel better about not doing it; I am a slave to lists, so much so that if I veer from the day’s list, I will make another list just so I can catalog and check off the things I actually did do – some people call that a diary, but, whatever.   I’m also one of those people who gets more things done the more things I have to do. 

So.  Because of that last thing I mentioned up there, I thought concocting a daily schedule with “extra” things To Do built into it would be a great help to me!  Let that simmer for a minute… . Continue reading “Sign My Petition! (And Other Insanity)” →