Black Sites

A black eye smacked across the face
Lies- caught with sooty residue
Staining their empowered hands

Their sordid secrets
Scattered about the globe
Now open for all to see
Like the belly of a gutted fish

In futile denial of the screaming truth
Their sick- torture twisted lies
Stare back at the world
In dumb void

Hope

The two Maples from our backyard that a promised a week to ten days ago. Isn't this time of year really all about color? The brilliance on one hand counterbalanced with the browning and graying. At least that is where I find the beauty of the fall season. I have to look for the good in it... I miss baseball. I do enjoy the cooler days - but not the shortened daylight.

But ah! Spring will come again! That is the greatest thing about spring - that eternal hope it represents.

When I think about hope and poetry together, I immediately think of Sam Hamill. I was delighted to hear that Sam was honored yesterday with the PEN USA Freedom to Write First Amendment Award. The First Amendment Award is presented to an individual who has demonstrated exceptional courage in defending freedom of expression in the United States. In my humble view, Sam's contributions to the literary community, the causes of justice and peace, and bringing the two together in one powerful voice is a tremendously unselfish act that poets, writers, essayists and indeed people of all walks of life would do well to aspire to.
You can find out more about PEN USA here.

Peace
War
writers
Poets

So true

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." ~Scott Adams

Tuesday's mailbag

"Thank you for your submission. Although we are not able to publish your work at this time, please be assured that we value your submission."

Those form letter* words - we've heard before. But alas, the anticipation of this one group of poems I submitted and had been hanging out there a little longer than usual for this venue, is now finally over. So I move on...

Much more work to harvest. Writing poetry has so much in common with gardening. Working the soil and pruning the plants. Nurturing them along. I'm thinking now about this years crop. Has it been better then the previous year? In volume? In quality? Things to think about as the final quarter of the year slips past us.

*not to be confused with "four letter words"

Anti-social? No, just artistic - National - theage.com.au

Anti-social? No, just artistic - National - theage.com.au

I'll admit that I have found articles exploring the thought process of creative individuals very absorbing. I'm always interested in new twists and thoughts on the age old debates about creative people and their mental status. This time, I found the article more amusing then informative. Maybe Dr. Hendricks work is quite serious and scholarly. Perhaps it is the writer Geoff Strong and his choice of words that I find humorous but this piece really has me cracked up.

Starting off with the opening line... "Know any creative types: writers, painters, musicians, actors? Chances are they tend to be contrary, a touch psychotic and rebels, cause or not." I'm sucked in. I'm immediately in my self-analytical phase - picturing myself deeply indented into a black leather couch asking myself...Am I a rebel or just a cranky old man? Cause? You want causes? Hell, I got causes out the wazoo!

Ok, seriously... I'm off the couch and thinking about this article. The good doctor has decided that "all people who are creative tend to have schizo-type personalities." That is what the article says. Not some or most, but all. She has also found distinct differences between the three groups (writers, visual artists and performance artists).

According to Dr. Hendricks:

• Writers had the most extreme personality disorders - more neurotic and less agreeable "they are more at odds with the world.
• Visual artists - are the closest to normal (whatever the hell that may be) though still more deviant than normal personalities.
• performance Artists - were the most likely to want to experience new sensations and novelties, and were also the most narcissistic.

So let me get this straight, it is because I'm a writer that I am at odds with the world? Gee, and I thought it was just because of the deep rooted corruption in government and the fact that we have a President who is a moronic mad man and a Vice President who is heavy into torture.

I loved the part in the article about how the doctor tested the groups of people by giving them problems to solve to see if their solutions were conventional or divergent. The example was showing them a brick and asking them to suggest possible uses.

A non artist would for example say - building things.

Artists were more likely to suggest it could be thrown through a window (At Dr. Hendricks office) - notice how I immediately think like an artist here.

The love list

When I started this list a few posts back- it came into being as a result of a Margaret Atwood quote about the word love and how significant it was. I really had no idea at the time how many words that we could come up with that were synonymous with love, but I threw out three and another bloger added six more words. So here we are...

I'll repeat what we have so far:

1. adoration
2. union
3. passion
4. commitment
5. desire
6. selflessness
7. sacrifice
8. affection
9. worship

So here we are with nine... any more wordsmiths out there that want to build on this list?

It's sunday already?

A number of us from one of my writing communities attended the wedding of fellow poet/writer Scot Isom and his wife Dena last night. Best wishes to the new couple! I cringed just a bit when I saw in the program there was a reading of one of Scot's poems. I thought... he has one clean enough to read? Luckily he wrote one just for the occasion.

It is feeling so strange now without baseball. That is one aspect of fall that I hate. All the fun colors and enticing smells we come to think of with this time of year still come up short without baseball.

I have been using a full spectrum lamp at both home and the office of late. I do believe it truly helps with respect to SAD. Plus the light is so much better to read by. Our cats love to curl up and sleep beneath the one at home. Catching a few rays.