1. Book Three Melody: Off

 

2. Fractalverse VI: Third stage edit of the entire manuscript

 

3. Dreamcatcher: Off

 

4. Cheapery St. Heroes Book Three: Off till 6/15

 

5. Firefly: Off

 

6. Angel: Book Three: Off

 

7. Stories from the Quiet: Off

 

8. The Good Place: Off

Transcribing Montaigne: Off

Thought of the Day: The edits of the sixth volume of Fractalverse have been completed!

 

Truthfully, I did most of them last night after dinner. I finished up this morning. I'm going to take the rest of the day off (I very much deserve the rest); tomorrow I'll start formatting the manuscript for publication.

This will be my twenty-seventh Book published. That's a very weird thought for me. Once I opened the tap on Melody in 2004, many other stories, poems, illustrations, fractals, and essays began pouring out as well.

I try not to fuss over my poetry, at least not nearly to the degree I do my stories, for example. For me, Writing Poetry almost always starts as an extemporaneous exercise: I write an entire poem in one go, usually in the space of an hour. Certainly it's never more than that. It's got to come from the gut, and as deep as I can reach. What's waiting for me there is what I try to translate into language. Later I'll work through it to sharpen and polish it. But the actual writing of it is done.

 

I don't make any claims to be a great poet. If a poem touches you, that's all that matters to me. I have no time for sniffy academics or literati who, armed with their erudite scalpels and tweed jackets, deconstruct and criticize, almost always disdainfully, almost always with their noses up some long-dead great's ass, what they feel to be worthy verse.

I can tell you right now: my poetry will never be worthy to them. For one, I'm an independent author, which to them makes me lower than pond scum right off the bat. For another, I ignore conventions as much as possible. I'm not interested in rhyming (unless it occurs organically, with no effort); I'm not interested in meter or prosody. For a third, I'm a white middle-aged male who isn't cutting into himself with a rusty butter knife or drinking himself slowly to death with a fifth of bourbon every night or violating little boys or setting up the philosophical foundations of Nazism. I suffer from depression, but truly, I'm quite a normal dude. Apparently, though, "normal dudes" can't be poets to these tight sphincters who--and you can verify this for yourself--twist themselves into knots trying to justify Nietzsche's views as not abhorrent, radically contradictory, or a perfect fit for mindless monsters like Hitler. Or Trump.

 

I started writing poetry in the early 80s as a way to deal with the horrors of my life at the time. The habit stuck. I'm glad it did. I derive comfort from reading them. They feel therapeutic to me, and maybe they are. This is the most insane era in human history. Trying to stay sane in it is a profound challenge. Writing poetry helps me do that.

 

With any luck, I'll get the manuscript formatted this weekend and launched. Sometime in the next month or so I'll post six or so of my favorites here on this blog. I hope you'll do me the honor or buying the book and supporting me. That would be very appreciated.

 

Have a nice evening!