Oh The Times, They Are A-Changin'

I'm going to start submitting my poetry to journals and such. The closest I've ever gotten to doing that before is submitting shit to The Windmill (and, er, I believe at least one piece that was mine that got in was submitted by somebody else who had read my poem and decided to send it in...without asking me first). I only read people my poetry; I rarely will let someone read it on their own without reading it to them myself. It makes me uncomfortable to imagine it being read in a voice that isn't mine. Mr. O'Brien liked my poetry; that's enough for me, haha.

When other people read my work, I typically get the word "raw" as a description. This can be a good and bad thing, but I'm fairly critical of myself and typically just try not to think too hard about the intentions behind any comment; otherwise, I'll end up imagining negative meanings and such. It's hard to feel comfortable reading infront of people, let alone asking them what their thoughts are (although I typically do anyways, and I value feedback).

I felt comfortable reading in my 10th grade poetry class; I can distinctly remember exactly who was in that one class: Abby, Bre, Alana, Yoshiko, David, Corey, Richard, Ian, Sam, Alexis, Daria. Mr. O'brien made me feel infinitely better about reading publicly...he was immensely honest, inappropriately/fantastically sarcastic, and if he complimented something, you know that he felt you were doing well. And that, for some reason, meant a ton to me.

I started reading infront of people once more around February when I joined the writer's exchange that Rob set up. At first, there were 8ish people, but eventually it was typically just David, Rob, Bobby, and I plus perhaps one or two more once in a while. That was also an extremely comfortable setting to read work, and I admire each of those three fellahs' work quite a bit. I've been reading David's writing for nearly four years (has it really been that long? goodness...) and it's always had such an intense, critical quality to it that I wish I could accomplish.

I sit and write my bitter, almost-a-little-too-honest poetry, typically some portrait of a young girl drowning or lovers with the walls closing in, and after it's all scribbled out, I question why I'm completely incapable of writing things worth reading, haha. Or rather, worth questioning. I can't write rants very well (I s'pose I used to be able to, though) because I'm not quite as upset about...everything as I used to be. If something upsets me, I try not to rant about it and instead, fix it or accomplish something to at least attempt to change it, so rants don't work quite as well as an outlet. I can't write pieces with political themes except on VERY rare occasions nor ones that comment on human behavior besides the ones described earlier.

Still, I love writing, I'm addicted to words. Even if I don't get published anywhere, that's okay because at least I've stopped being a goddamned pussy about it.