Halfway through April Poem A Day – yet again

... and this is what I wrote about it today, in a comment at 'imaginary garden with real toads' whose prompts I have been using. (The garden closed at the end of 2019, but has re-opened just for April.)


O yes, I remember – it's mid-month, my Muse is flagging, everything I write seems to me both prosey and banal, I make vows that this is the very last time I'll do a poem a day in April.... And then I remember, too, that this happens every year!

If only I could remember how I have managed to get myself out of it in the past! I think it might have to do with keeping on writing, eventually writing myself out of it. Meanwhile I plod on, longing for the wings to unfold.

The Joy of 'Spoken Word Poetry'

... as they call it now. (I grew up calling it performance poetry, but same thing.)

Last night was ... um, must be the 4th Poets Out Loud event in Murwillumbah, and a great night it was. As always, we had a diverse group of poets from within Murwillumbah and also from surrounding towns and cities in both Northern Rivers (NSW) and southern Queensland – and a wonderfully receptive, enthusiastic audience. I am still full of exuberance from being exposed to poetry, and sharing one of my own, in my favourite way. (And I do love to let my hair down, clap loudly and yell, 'Yay!' for my favourite performances.)

When I arrived, the man on reception told me that (well-known Northern Rivers poet) Janie Treasure had recently shared my Volkswagen poem at a reading of women poets in Lismore. 'It went down well,' he told me. 'It always does,' I said.

Janie was at Poets Out Loud last night, so I was able to thank her. 'I adore that poem!' she said, adding that she reads it often, and giving me a huge hug.

It's probably always going to be my most famous poem, as it was anthologised years ago in two very mainstream anthologies for schoolchildren. So, as I have been meaning for some time to record some of my pieces on Soundcloud, I have now done so for this poem and added that to the blog post where I shared it in the past. Now you can both read and hear it if you wish, at this link.

My poem in last night's open section went over well too, and I have added a Soundcloud recording to that also, if you'd like a read and a listen: here.

I've been featured at an earlier Poets Out Loud (along with another ex-Melburnian, Matt Hetherington) with my full name, but in the open section people are usually introduced just by their first names. So I am becoming known in these circles just as Rosemary, the poet – a whole new career, amongst people who have (mostly) never heard of me before. I love it!

This time the featured reader was yet another poet who has migrated here from Victoria, Nola Firth, whose book, 'Counting on Murwillumbah',  I immediately bought after hearing her readings from it. I also bought SlamCraft: Writing and performance craft of spoken-word poetry by Poets Out Loud founder Sarah Temporal, to share with my writing students. On further reading, I'm delighted with both.

The addition of lovely singing by Eliza, before we started and in the break, and of great food from Bacaro restaurant, made the experience even more sublime. And Eliza's own poem, which she regaled us with later, was a beaut!

We were also told the exciting news that Words Without Fences, which shares the writings of refugees, is becoming active in Murwillumbah.

And I guess the best bit is that there were a number of non-poets in the audience, come to enjoy the show – which they obviously did.

Altogether, I'm in bliss. I've decided – not for the first time – that spoken word poetry is my true spiritual home.

Bacaro Restaurant, behind which (and attached) is the big performance space used for Poets Out Loud.

Poets Out Loud

Enterprising young poet Sarah Temporal has just organised a new series of monthly poetry readings in Murwillumbah NSW where I live (and she lives). They began last Thursday with a varied and exciting program of two featured readers (me and Matt Hetherington) and lots of brilliance in the open sections. Here I am in full emote on the night:

And these are the poems I read, the first two from my book Secret Leopard, the second two much more recent, from my blog The Passionate Crone:

The Day We Lost the Volkswagen

During a momentary lull in her head,

the poor old thing lost her grip.

The boat she was towing towed her instead

ponderously down the slip.

backwards into the water.

For a swirling moment she almost floated,

she thought of setting sail.

But her bum tilted, her britches bloated —

she was heavy in the tail —

and the sly seaweed caught her.

I thought even then she might make a try

(she seemed to be righting her flank)

but she spun gravely, one eye on the sky,

gave a dignified splutter and sank.

The sea frothed briefly.

I don’t know — she wasn’t the kind to drift,

much less come apart at the seams.

But the sails and the clouds that day had a lift,

and perhaps she had some dreams.

It was a damn nuisance, chiefly.

                       

© Rosemary Nissen 1974

from Universe Cat, Pariah Press (Melb.) 1985, and

Secret Leopard: new and selected poems 1974-2005 (Alyscamps Press, (Paris) 2005

First published Nation Review. 

Also in:

A Second Australian Poetry Book for Children, Oxford

Secondary English Book 3, Macmillan

Off the Record, Penguin                                    
Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets. 

Vagabond

Down near the flat rocks at the pool

the secret leopard sniffs the day.

He tilts his head by the striped bamboo,

calling me: come and play.

When I was seven, and nine, and twelve,

I watched for his furious, bell-shaped head,

but they always dragged me back from the track.

'He is terrible,' they said.

They stuffed my ears with cottonwool,

they tied my hands and feet to the bed,

but still the house shook silkenly

to his broad, electric tread.

That was a long, long time ago.

Now I am grown and free to run

to the white rocks and the dim bamboo

and the velvet hood of the sun.

He has been waiting by the yellow pool,

padding the black leaves patiently,

holding the flame in his narrow eyes,

wild and slow as the sea.

His handsome haunches are molten gold,

his perilous paws flow red through the shade.

You may mew forever from your pitiful bed —

I am deep in the spiky glade.

I will not tell of the spotted jungle

with silver trees that eat the sun.

I will not tell of the tawny trails

where I and the lavish leopard run.

 © Rosemary Nissen 1974

 from Universe Cat, Pariah Press (Melb.) 1985

and in Secret Leopard, Alyscamps Press (Paris) 2005.

First published A Second Australian Poetry Book for Children (Oxford)

Also in Secondary English Book 3, Macmillan.

Sonnet Written Upon a Tim Tam
As requested by my friend Jim 

Yesterday I posted on facebook my pleasure

at eating Tim Tams and reading sonnets 

simultaneously, whilst also sitting in the sun

with my sweet cat. This post got a lot of likes. 

Then one friend asked, intending jocularity, 

'When will you publish "Sonnet Written 

Upon a Tim Tam"?' Why not? I thought, 

and replied, 'Tomorrow' – which is now today.

The taste is something between chocolate

and honey, a blend, and the texture also mixed:

creamy soft outside, the centre crisp yet melting. 

It takes six bites – or sometimes only four –

to savour and devour one whole, from the first

burst of joy in the mouth to the last lingering lick.

20 Aug 2017

The Advantages of Poetry

Be faithful to your calling.

It will not desert you.

(You will doubt this at times,

when it seems to take leave of absence,

but trust. It WILL come back.) 

Poetry won't keep you warm

on cold nights,

but will help you celebrate

those who do

(every coupling 

a secret threesome)

and console you

after they depart.

It might not make you rich

but you'll think

your poverty's worth it.

You'll always

have someone to talk to.

Poetry is not a partner

who’ll dump you after just one dance.

Poetry wants to go home with you.

And if you can't dance,

poetry will teach you.

Poetry will happily 

get wasted with you –

and in the morning

you'll both look worse for wear.

Later, though,

poetry will help you straighten out.

If the power goes off,

you only need a candle

and some kind of notebook

with keyboard or pen.

You can do without TV

or someone else's novel.

It won't feed you

but it can make you forget about meals, 

and any other hunger or thirst 

except the ache for perfection

of word or line.

No matter what goes wrong,

no matter how helpless you feel,

there is always this to do.

And when everything's right

and beautiful

and buoyant,

poetry enables you

to hold the moment a whole lot longer,

then to return for more.

(With poetry, there is no such thing

as being too greedy.)

Poetry doesn't care

about fame and status. 

You do –

and it may or may not happen –

but to poetry it's simply irrelevant.

You want someone to read your poetry,

someone to hear your words.

You're allowed to want that; it's natural.

And there will be those who do.

Cherish them, even if they are not many.

But know, as well,

that if you stand outside and speak your poetry,

be it in a shout or a whisper,

the trees will hear, and the air.

When you read your words over to yourself, silently,

angels and spirits will stand at your shoulder

reading too, noticing the pictures and the music.

And when the words are nowhere but in your mind,

God perceives them, who put them there.

29 June 2016

Lovely to be featured ...

... with two other poets celebrating Nature, by Sherry at Poets United.

POEMS OF THE WEEK BY ANNELL, WENDY AND ROSEMARY

And equally lovely to be described (with the others) in some of the comments as, "Three of our most treasured poets"; "three of my favorite poets"; "three poets we know and love so well" – in addition to terms like "gifted", "talented", "beautiful".


We write for its own sake ... and it's very nice to be read and appreciated too, particularly by poets whose own work excites me.

Success as a Poet?

What is it? asks Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides.  He had interesting things to say, which, if this subject interests you, you would surely enjoy reading – things about money, fame, artistic achievement, immortality....  He invited other poets to share their views. The following is my own response:

I started as a very young child. I lived in a household – and extended family – which valued poetry, and my Dad used to read it aloud. I thought it was the most beautiful thing a human being could make and wanted to spend my life at it. I am now 78, and I have, and do.

In the days of print media only, I even earned a little money from it, maybe $20 or so when accepted by literary journals, which happened fairly often for a few years, plus getting something from sales of my books – of course, not enough to live on, but it seems I did a bit better than most poets do nowadays.

Fame – well I had a small amount of fame within Australia for a few years, both as published poet and performance poet, but poetic fame is limited in any case. The man and woman in the street have never heard of me – and they probably also have not heard of poets far more famous than I ever was.

I ran away from the poetry ‘scene’ eventually, rather disenchanted. I found most poets to be beautiful people, helpful to each other – but for some few there was nasty politicking going on, and it tainted things. I kept on writing of course, just not participating.

Why ‘of course’? Because, like you Robert, I have to. I have always had to. And it has always been and will always be a very high priority in my life.

And now – my goodness, for the past 20-odd years in fact – I have embraced the internet, where I find many absolutely brilliant and wonderful and largely unsung poets. I have a blog. I follow prompts from time to time, as well as still getting flashes of fresh inspiration. As I have always done, I experiment with forms, styles, voices, and I strive to make my art as well as I can. For it is indeed my art form, beyond self-expression (though it’s that too) – a making, a putting something new into the world that wasn’t there before.

And all this begs the question of value judgments. It’s what I do. Some people will like it and respond; others won’t. Sometimes I will do it well enough to please myself; often not, no matter how I strive, how I tweak. I always find it worth the endeavour. It’s how I chose to live my life, and so far no regrets.

When I was a little kid, I wanted to spend my life making poems. I could think of nothing better. How lucky am I? I fulfilled this dream and continue to do so. Thanks to the internet, I even get read; in fact my blog has a far wider audience than I received when published in prestigious paper journals. I feel greatly blessed.

Is not ‘success’ achieving one’s dreams?

I didn't say to Robert, but will add here:

Nine years ago, someone who wanted to destabilise me asserted that I was not a poet, suggesting that I was only kidding myself. (Leaving aside Marge Piercy's 'The real writer is one / who really writes' which is the definitive and best answer) –

He asked,

'Do you write poems every day?'
'Do you spend time making them as good as you can?'
'Do other people read them?'
'Do people say they like them or that they are moved by them?'
'Do poets you admire tell you they think highly of them?'
'Do they get published (not just self-published)?'

He apparently did not know me very well, as he seemed to expect that I would have to answer no to these questions. But I answered yes, and he kept having to ask new questions to try and get the 'no' he wanted. Which did not come. 

Instead of a destabilisation it was a validation. I had not questioned that I was a poet – I have known that about myself from a very early age – but it was thrilling to have it affirmed via this check-list.

(I must confess that at present I am not making poems every day – just nearly every day.)

ANNOUNCEMENT: New e-book

Oh, I am madly excited!!! My poetry collection, SECRET LEOPARD: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 1974-2005, has just been reissued as an ebook, via my favourite publisher Content X Design. (Thank you, Delaina and Kristin!)

You can get it for only $2.99 USD in whatever format suits you (mobi for Kindle, epub for other e-readers or pdf for your computer).

Lots of wonderful poems, if I do say so myself :) and you won't find them on my blog!

(There are still a VERY few paperback copies left which I am now selling for $10 USD — and to Aussies $10 AUD — plus postage. You'll have to message me if you want one of them.)

Here is the link to the ebook.

Blog Posts and Literary Journals

A personal conversation which might be of wider interest

A friend messaged me with a question:

Noticing talk lately about poems posted on blogs or websites = publishing. Therefore holding back on posting new poems on my blog as hoping to submit to mags etc., many of which stipulate "not previously published". Not knowledgable about this, trying to find out more. What do you know?

I replied:

I know that it is a grey area. Whether or not blog posts are regarded as prior publication depends on the particular editor of the particular journal/anthology. Also your facebook posts could be ineligible, depending whether your profile is Public or Friends Only. Some editors/publications have a blanket policy of no prior online appearance. Others don't count posting on personal blogs or in closed online groups as prior publication. Check, but I think the groups you publish to on fb are not closed. (This is usually not specifically applicable to other online groups in the wider blogosphere, such as Poets United and others I use, because we don't publish our poems IN the groups, we supply a link to those posts at our own blogs.)

Some poets get around this by putting things on blogs very briefly, perhaps labelled as – and being – drafts, and removing them within a week or two before submitting elsewhere. Some don't put on their blogs anything they wish to submit elsewhere. They may perhaps post such poems to their blogs after publication, with appropriate accreditation of 'first publication' as one would if publishing one's own book.

Others, such as me, blog on regardless. There are enough journals and anthologies, many online and some offline, who will include pieces that have appeared on blogs and in social media. I don't bother much anyway unless I am invited, which still sometimes happens.

On the one hand, it could be said that I can afford to thumb my nose, as I was well published in decades past and made a name for myself. I think it was more like five minutes of fame, but it's true that I had and enjoyed it.

On the other hand, I look at my blog stats and know I get many more readers by publishing to a blog than I would by appearing in even the most prestigious Australian literary journals. (Some of my old colleagues seem offended if I say that! But it's not a denigration of the literary journals or their contents to note, from their own statistics, that they have a lesser reach. It's just the nature of things.)

There is also the fact that – for reasons of convenience, really – I don't do spoken word performance any more, so no longer have the grassroots community reach in that kind of way. I get it in a different way, in a different but sometimes overlapping community, via my blog.

Depends what you want: to be read, or to have some standing in literary circles. (Both, of course; but perhaps, as things are, one must predominate.) There is a widespread view that poetry on blogs is not of a very high standard; that people publish any old thing without it having been workshopped or edited, and readers who couldn't tell a poem from a Hallmark greeting card rush to praise it. (The same view is held about self-published ebooks.) There is some truth in that; I have seen some horrendous examples thereof.

However, the poets who publish in the online poetry groups I've found have a commitment to poetry, develop rapidly through communion with other poets (just as poets do in offline groups and events) and many of them are, in my opinion, as good as anyone publishing to more 'literary' acclaim. (Well, maybe not quite as good as Mary Oliver, but – you know – she's God. *Smiling.* Some aren't too bloody far off, all the same.) Many of them have a high reputation in online poetry circles. Does that count? Well yes, judgment of one's peers and all that.

I think my opinion of their excellence counts for something, having been a teacher of poetry writing at tertiary level, a reviewer in respected publications, and a publisher of prize-winning books of poetry.

As for my own esteem, it is indeed true that I received much validation when I was younger, and no longer need anyone to assure me I'm a competent poet. I think I am also pretty good by now at assessing fairly objectively which of my pieces are working well, and which could be improved or scrapped. Above all, people tell me when something moves them deeply, in comments which go beyond the politely encouraging.

So yes, I do feel I can afford to thumb my nose at more traditional avenues now. It comes at a price, though. While Australian poets (and readers) of my generation remember me well, newer ones coming up have probably never heard of me. I don't, I think, have a name that will last in Australian poetry. Once I longed for literary standing in the present and fame in posterity, while some of of my confreres said,'It's all ephemeral; let's be heard NOW.' Funnily enough, in age our positions have reversed!

For you (and others) who didn't seek and get that validation years ago, it may well be important to pursue traditional paths of publication at this point, pay your dues and earn the respect you deserve. After that you can choose where to go next. Perhaps in both directions at once; there are those who do that too.

You could put the blog on hold until later – either deleting it entirely, leaving it up as a record, or changing the setting to private so only you would see it.

Or you could keep it going and choose what to put on it, e.g. stuff ABOUT your writing, such as the chapbook publicity that's already there. And/or maybe poems you think good enough to share with the world, but don't particularly wish to submit to journals.

Basically you should do what YOU want. Life's too short not to! Hopefully this helps you make a more informed choice.

Occupation Poet

'Not for ambition or bread,' said Dylan Thomas about writing poetry, in the sonnet, In My Craft or Sullen Art.

That's about right, for most poets. Yet we regard it as our work, our vocation, that thing we can't not do.

I'll be truthful: I don't write that occupation on forms any more, though I did when younger. I put 'retired' or 'age pensioner'; it's simpler. But I still occupy myself in making poems, and in related activities. As they say, 'It's what I do.'

But what exactly?

Related activities are:

• Columns for the international online community, Poets United. I alternate fortnightly (on Fridays) between I Wish I'd Written This and The Living Dead, discussing poems and poets I like. When there is a fifth Friday in the month, I write Moonlight Musings, exploring various matters of concern to poets – such as copyright, plagiarism, influences, form, payment/reward.... 
• Administering various poetry groups on facebook, including haiku and tanka groups. 
• Participating in several blogging groups including Poets United. 
• Editing other people's poetry for pay. 
• Workshopping other people's poetry as a favour, or reciprocally. 
• Reading and commenting on other people's poems as participation in the facebook groups and blogging groups. 
• Producing book manuscripts, either on my own or in collaboration with other poets. Publishing some, usually but not only as ebooks. (Hey, look in the right-hand side-column! Some of them are still available to buy.) 
• Accepting invitations to contribute to poetry anthologies. (You'll find some of them in the side-column too.) 
• Writing book reviews, such as these here. 

Memoir Plans

I'm not sure if I can count it as a related activity – at least not directly – but I am assembling material for a memoir that has long been asked for by many people. They are more interested in the fact that I'm a psychic, an energy healer and a witch than in my poetry.  

I find it difficult to write. But a number of people have described my poetry as a sort of diary in verse – I guess that's what you get for being largely 'confessional' – so I am thinking that part of the memoir could be in verse, or poems might punctuate it. Meanwhile I assemble material, in personal journals that don't get shared yet, and in a blog called Blowing My Own Trumpet. (I'm so not musical! It's a metaphor.)

Interviews

Sometimes I interview other poets. For example, my friend Helen Patrice when her first book, A Woman of Mars was published.

Sometimes I get interviewed, e.g. this on poetry and witchcraft, by Sherry at Poets United.

Spiritual Writings

I belong to a women's circle called The Goddesses of Shining Light. I am sometimes asked to present talks or lead meditations at our monthly meetings.

I have a blog called Cronewyze, where I write about witchy stuff, energy healing, etc. 

And above all –

Making Poems

'What a quiet, dull life!' – that's what I think people must think about my life. I do have a social life, quite an active one with my many good friends, but I also spend a lot of time alone at my desk. For me it isn't dull; the making of poems is endlessly absorbing. Crafting them, getting them as right as I can, is like solving a puzzle. (I like doing puzzles; it's one of my recreations.) 

Life presents no shortage of subject matter, and these days I also follow prompts from some of the poetry groups I belong to. I write nearly every day. I seldom submit to journals or anthologies now unless invited, though once upon a time (in my youth) I did. That was before the internet. Now I blog them, usually at my poetry blog, The Passionate Crone.

Although my real love is free verse, the older I get the more I like to experiment with form too. I try all sorts – haiku, sonnets, prose poems, sestinas, found poems, boomerang metaphors, tiluses – from the old and traditional to recent inventions.

Occasionally I write 'small stones' – small observations of life, polished to the best of my ability. They are usually in verse, but sometimes short prose, and I blog them at Stones for the River.

Coming Up:

The online launch of Delaina Miller's The Unique and Sundry, which I edited.

A collaboration with Helen Patrice and Jennie Fraine, Three Cycles of the Moon.

Writing a poem a day during the 'poetry month' of April. They'll be posted at The Passionate Crone.

Being a guest blogger during the month of June at Project 366, where various Australian poets post daily drafts, as a process and for (potential) discussion.


(Cross-posted to my website)

What woud you give up for the sake of your poetry?

... someone asked.

My reply:

I have written poetry since early childhood; it feels almost as natural and necessary to me as breathing. Indeed, not to do it would be a kind of death. So the question of sacrifice simply doesn't come into it. Poetry is what I can't not do, and also I have a life which happens against that backdrop or within that context.

My Secret Perfectionism

Cross-posted from LiveJournal

Perfectionism's the enemy; I know that. It's what has us beat ourselves up, ignore our achievements, belittle our triumphs, give in to self-doubt. It tells us we're never good enough, no matter how hard we strive. It's mean, horrid and sly. It's what stops us enjoying our lives.

In every area but one I have got rid of perfectionism. Near enough IS good enough. I have taken on board the slogans of my domestic mentor FlyLady: "Progress, not perfection", "Housework imperfectly done still blesses your family". I apply the same attitude to my appearance, my business activities, my projects ... to everything except my writing.

Well, that's OK. It's right and good to be a perfectionist as a poet, to get every poem as good as I can. That's what art's about, isn't it? You know you can't ever get it perfect but you come as close as you damn well can. Yes, I think that's legitimate in a poem — to agonise over the placement of a comma, to pore over the Thesaurus hunting the exact right word.

The trouble is, it extends to publications one produces.

As any of you who are also my friends on facebook must have noticed, any minute now (well, first weekend in September) I and three poet friends are launching a collaborative collection called SHE TOO.

We have done all the work ourselves, and it's a heck of a business collaborating internationally. One night recently I was up until 2.40am to help iron out, across cyberspace, an unexpected last-minute problem. Yesterday morning I left the computer to go get breakfast, only to find when I returned that my colleague in America had been waiting for my further input before she could finally go home from work.

We've done it and we're proud of it. It's available in pdf, Kindle and epub. We have prizes and party favours for people who attend our virtual launch. We've been given wonderful blurb comments from poets of some standing in the online poetic community. We've thrashed out thorny issues without ego getting in the way, and are better friends than ever. And, being great admirers of each other's work, we think the content is wonderful.

We've had to learn and implement those requirements for ebooks which differ from printed books. (Some material we're used to seeing as introductory goes at the end instead of the beginning. There is no back cover; text that would belong there goes in the preliminary pages.) There's been some trial and error about all this, but we finally figured it out.

The book is already available on Amazon and iBooks and is about to be on Google Play.

What an achievement, eh?

And now, all of a sudden, I'm in a blue funk. I think I should have rewritten one of my poems before it went to press — only I didn't spot where I could make a particular improvement until just now. I think we should have kept our longest blurb comment in full instead of judiciously cutting, and used it as a Foreword. Only there's already such a lot of introductory stuff, which is why we decided not to do it that way. I noticed a word left out, too late to put it back in. Of course, it's only the word "a", and it's not in a poem but only in a bit of suff at the end of the book, telling people how to rate it on Amazon.

I rationalise, yet these tiny things loom suddenly as huge imperfections. I am spilling this here so as not to rush to the private facebook group where we four authors/publishers communicate about the book and say it there. My poor collaborators! Imagine how they would feel. I'm the oldest, supposedly the wise crone, and I've acted as the editor for this volume. They think I know my stuff. How demoralising if I were now to go into doubt and angst, now when they are allowing themselves to relax just a little at last. No, we have to keep our spirits high for this launch party. I can't do that.

It's the urge to tinker and tweak and gild the lily, and fix what ain't broke. I know it is. But it's too late; the book is out in the world.

Well actually, there still would be time to call it in, alter it, put it out again ... but it's not me doing that part of the operations. I'm not the geek. The geek has done it twice for me already. She hasn't complained but reassured; all the same, I think I have to let go now and just writhe and gnash quietly over here, out of sight.

I so want it to be perfect! And you know, it never can be. The creation of a book is often likened to birthing a baby. Well, babies aren't perfect. They're unique, with variations that are not flaws but marks of individuality.

Fear of other people's judgment: that's what it is. The awful waiting for people to pronounce upon this creation which contains our life blood and parts of our souls. But there — the others are good. My deficiencies will get lost amongst all that good stuff; will never even be noticed. I tell myself.

I'd like to fix that poem....

Discovery – I Am Who I Am

Cross-posted from LiveJournal

I was seven when I decided to give my life to poetry. Now I'm 74, and indeed it is what I have done.

Now that I am alone, and nearly two years have passed, I begin to realise that I am doing much the same things I always did — certainly during my 20 years with Andrew, and many that date back much further than that. I'm a creature of long habit.

I notice it most when I sit at my computer and work on poems, or tasks related to poetry: reviews, revision, workshopping, collaborations.... With or without a husband, a 9-5 job, children or pets, friends or hobbies, courses of study, spiritual odysseys or geographical travels — being engaged with the writing of poetry has been my constant.

It hasn’t made me great or famous, and certainly not wealthy, but it is the way I have chosen to spend my life, and in its own way has given me purpose and fulfilment. I continue to turn to it naturally: my lifelong habit.

Other habits aren't vocational, but I like them all the same — perhaps simply because they ARE habits. There are just certain ways I like to do things, whether it's the food I eat, the way I wash the dishes, the time of day I have my shower, or the shows I watch on telly. I've made a few changes to suit the fact that I'm pleasing no-one but me now, but I find myself going, mostly, through the same routines as ever.

I live my life much as I did when Andrew was here, except that I’m doing it by myself. It often feels as it used to when he was alive; I slip almost into that comfortable awareness of the partner, the companion, the mate somewhere nearby.

I realise that many of the things I do when I am taking only myself into account are things I also did when I was partnered … and when I was partnered before … and when I was single in between … and when I was a young student who’d not yet married….

The me inside was always here. There isn't any new or hidden self to discover. Perhaps it's clearer now, since the fading of the "other" in my head — but really it was always clear enough.

Comments from LiveJournal:

Date: 2014-07-06 04:37 pm (UTC)

From: metahara

I'm so grateful to witness you being true to yourself now, as you always have - as you are
a poet.

Thank you for sharing.

Date: 2014-07-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

From: snakypoet 

Thank you for understanding! (As always.)

Date: 2014-07-06 10:44 pm (UTC)

From: kbpenguin 

I think that is a lovely confirmation you had great partners with whom you could be yourself and grow into who you need to be.

Date: 2014-07-06 10:50 pm (UTC)

From: snakypoet

Indeed yes! I consider myself blessed.

Date: 2014-07-07 02:22 am (UTC)

From: asakiyume.

slip almost into that comfortable awareness of the partner, the companion, the mate somewhere nearby

That's lovely ♥

Date: 2014-07-07 03:26 am (UTC)

From: snakypoet 

It's quite a nice experience. (Smile.)