Drought, Writer's Block or Something Else?

February 11 2016
October 17, 2014


Perhaps the longest drought between writing poems since I began writing poems in 2001. Well I stopped writing poems from 1983-2000 because of my poetry writing experience at The University of Delaware where the professor gave me the "support and encouragement" to make me want to quit. If famous poet professor felt a certain way, he must be right. I was only registered for that class to improve my song writing anyway.

Poems are like dead fish when creativity dries up

The Zippers, VD, Timothy Gager, Tommy Conwell

 
So it's a drought, not writer's block because I've said I do not believe in writer's block---even lectured on not believing it. It's life that gets in the way, or perhaps it's your inner editor.

So there was this first time period in my life of poetry not written for a period of almost twenty years. Then in 1999, I had two children and there just wasn't enough time to write the 3000 word short stories, I'd been writing. Short poems that I could begin and end during a kid's nap seemed to kindle my need to write. Then, something happened. Doug Holder published a poem titled  "Insect".



Insect (2001)

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation
But instead I was a fly
caught on a no-pest strip
in a dirty old
kitchen in
Mississippi
 --------------------------


Nifty.  Of course, the proponent of poems never being finished, just captured as various snapshots, I'd break it differently now. Perhaps like this...

Insect (2016)

I’d love to be a fly on the wall 
for that conversation
But instead I was a fly
caught on a no-pest strip
in a dirty old
kitchen in
Mississippi
---------------------

Between 2001 and October 2014 I wrote 615 poems, and had 184 of them published. I also published two books of poetry and three chapbooks. Friends were amazed at how prolific I had become. 

So what happened between October 17, 2014 and now? I finished a novel, "The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan" and am about to wrap up "Grand Slam's (A Coming of Eggs Story)". See it in pictures HERE. I also decided that my poems require too much help and I doubted my ability to write them on my own, as I, as a person, feel more accomplished the less help I get. So the longer it went, the longer I was fine without writing. 

Harris Gardner, Poet and Curator of BNPMF

Then I received a call from Harris Gardner inviting me to read for Boston The National Poetry Month Festival at The Boston Public Library, which I let go to voicemail. I'd not written anything in over a year and I couldn't foresee recycling, once more, old work. The next day I returned his call with full intent of declining the reading, but a funny thing happened. As he was talking about the festival, I felt I could write some new work before the April 7-11th event. I was, as they say in poker, pot committed....even able to accept help from another poet, and I came up with the following:

Throw Questions Out in the Air like a Lasso (2016)

Hatred is a burning siren

warnings of a terrible twister

out there, it’s only one. Earth

tilled by machine We need soil,

water, fertilizer to grow a single weed

left bent. Throw questions out in the air

like a lasso. Cowboy, when the closed rope

loosens, it’s impossible for the horns to catch.

----------------------------------------------------

Nifty. Of course, it's short, but I've started and I am full of gratitude. Hope to see you all, out on the road.

Dire Memories, Pop Culture, What was big on the night of Dire Literary Series #1?

 Tonight is Dire Series #179 and it's the 15th Anniversary of the Series.

Some Facts:
1) We've never been snowed out. Though today we're getting 6-10 inches, it's going to stop at 3 PM and we will be open.

2) I've never missed an evening because of sickness,  traveling, or had a substitute host for any of them, although some of them I may may or not have been there. Blackouts were ROOOOUGH.

The series started at The Cantab on the first Tuesday of every month, February 6, 2001. Lasted two months

 For the next 177 months, after a month off, the series moved The Out of the Blue Art Gallery and has stayed there. The gallery has moved twice since...

168 Brookline Ave until September 2002
106 Prospect St until October 2014
and now at 541 Massachusetts Ave,

#1 song: Shaggy feat. Ricardo "RikRok" Ducent - It Wasn't Me



#1 Movie: The Wedding Planner



Apple realeased

The attack on the World Trade Centers hadn't happened but 2 weeks earlier, this did:



and one day earlier, Kelly Ripa joins Live! as a permanent co-host with Regis Philbin.

Television's Top Ten 2000-2001

Rank	Show	Network	Airings	Rating	Share
1	Survivor	CBS	14	16,9	26,6
2	ER	NBC	32	15,4	25,2
3	Who wants to be a millionaire? (wed)	ABC	21	13,7	21,6
4	Who wants to be a millionaire? (tue.)	ABC	24	13,0	20,7
5	Friends	NBC	33	12,6	20,5
6	Monday Night Football	ABC	13	12,6	21,4
7	Law & Order	NBC	30	12,3	20,3
8	Everybody Loves Raymond	CBS	33	12,3	18,2
9	Who wants to be a millionaire? (sun.)	ABC	28	12,3	18,4
10	The Practice	ABC	27	11,7	18,9

Dire Memories: 15 Years and Always in the Opposite Direction

Has it been five years since I last wrote of Dire Memories? A lot has happened at Dire since, but also in the crowded world of writing events in greater Boston and beyond.

The Dire Literary Series, when it began in 2001, was a one of a kind fiction series. Basically, for long running series there was Stone Soup, The Cantab Slam and The Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam, all  poetry events. Dire was a fiction open mic where you could and still can read for 10-15 in an open mic. We had beer, Dire de Mayo, and even an open bar, (drink as much as you want for a set donation price). The series was described as a party in your living room with drinks or a friendly neighborhood bar with readings. It was a series that went where others did not. Basically that was the gimmickry, from 2001-2014, but first and foremost it was about the fiction and poetry---the talented and big name features who came as our guests. We have featured Pulitzer Prize Winners, Massachusetts Book Award Winners, Poet Laureats and PEN New England Hemingway Award Winners. Features have come as far as The Himalayan Mountains and as close as Cambridge. We have been incredibly lucky to experience such talent and diversity.

Slowly, the series evolved, and my fear of it not surviving as one big party proved to not be based in reality. People came for the features, the open or both of those. The features were all published authors with books, but there were a few exceptions, which were people I knew as amazing writers. At the time of their features, this list included Steve Almond, Billy Geraldi, Bruce Machart, Rusty Barnes, Nadine Ryan and Teisha Dawn Twomey. All of them now have books, many of them more than one.

In the fall of 2014, The Out of the Blue Gallery's location at 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge was faced with a huge rent increase. The little gallery that could, couldn't with it's small size, generate enough revenue for triple the rent. They had tried various ideas in that small space such as intimate musical events, yoga and body painting. They even changed their name to Yarrow for two months, where there was less light and less art on the walls.

Shannon O'Connor reads at Dire at Yarrow. Yarrow??

Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts and the rest of the county, more and more series popped up, most of them featuring special guest writers or poets but also, receiving equal billing for the evening, was various gimmicks--music, karaoke, age ranges, dressing a certain way, celebrating certain made up occasions and various drinking things to do. (See or google  AWP off site events) Often a tagline of "get drunk and hear"...or "enjoy a cocktail..." It all seems pretty cool to me on the outside, but internally I thought, why not just stress the writers and their accomplishments first? Could it be fear based, perhaps the people running the event don't think good writing will draw their crowd, because perhaps their crowd isn't much for literature. Is there a fear that just plain good writing won't draw people. I know bookstores present readings and the attendance is solely based on the author's ability to draw a crowd. On the extreme end of this example would be Steven King. Somehow I doubt any sort of gimmick is needed. Tonight: Bowling and Steven King--followed by drinks at The Beer Frame Lounge, where the first drink is free if you wear a costume....

The new, Out of the Blue Too Gallery opened in the fall of 2014. It's right on Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square and it's huge (the former location of Blockbuster). The mere size allows flexible set up

They brought Stone Soup, (now run by Chad Parenteau) and Dire with them. They brought the hard work of Tom Tipton and TJ Edson with them. The brought in artist studios, music and live band nights, nearly every night of the week, at a time where live music venues are closing. They have a liquor license on certain events, but other than that, Out of the Blue Too is alcohol free, no BYO, but totally by the book. The Dire, itself was now strictly based on writing, but I did let Nadine Ryan, when here book was released take over Dire and boy, did we do some funny/interesting/ skits, improve and the Match Game! To find out more about that happening, click HERE.

At it's onset, The Dire Reader Series (as it was known then) featured two 45 minute features and eight 15 minute open mic, which has evolved to three 10-15 minute features and 45 total minutes of open mic. we also moved from 8 to 7 PM and we are out at 9, home by 10 PM even. Dire will continue to evolve as long as there is an interest in reading and writing. Who knows, I may get crushed by the next wave of party-type events or interest may wane. Currently I'm booked nearly all through 2016, but if interest wanes, and as Arnie Grape says, "I could go at any time." It's been a great fifteen years and here's to the next fifteen.

Don't you miss Letterman's Top Ten Lists? Here's the Top Ten viewed blog/news posts of 2015

THE Big news. I do not get rich by blogging or writing for that matter. In fact, logspot finds my site ineligible in the world of google ads. So conclusively this is all for your and my enjoyment, odds leaning toward mine.

So here is the annual Top Ten most viewed blog posts from this blog. There are a few ties and all the Top Ten have links back to the original post.




 This year's list isn't dominated by much of anything. It's a nice well rounded list of types of subject matter. So here they are, in reverse order

10. Nick Flynn, Gregory Pardlo and Rachel Eliza Griffiths riding with me to MassPoetry 2015--and yes, I really screwed up the filming

Reason: People love great poets being interviewed in cars, just as much as they like Jerry Seinfeld in cars with comedians. Besides screwing up the filming, there was something screwed up later in the year which that wonderful car was involved in...being run off the road
.

What totaled looks like.

9. What happens when a good friend takes over your Dire Literary Series for her book launch.

Reason: I had nothing to do with this. Nadine's books is new, fresh and great. The launch was fun and people freaking love game shows. 

9.  Poem of the moment, "But you forgot, To remember" up today at MassPoetry

Reason: The tie in with MassPoetry and Billie Holiday helped.

9 The Newton Writing and Publishing Center Opens

Reason: People love parties and pictures. Writing Centers that offer help, workshops and events are helpful to all writers.

7.  NEW blog from me, The Dead Market Writings

Reason: When on-line publications die and there is no archive, what are you going to do, cry?

6.  RHP publishes "After the Afterlife"--what happens after you die gets fictionalized.

Reason: Most viewed blog about any of my published work of 2015.  People like life/death experiences and the afterlife. Hell, they like death. Even Dead Market Writings made this list. They like Freud. Adler and Rogers. They like cleverness. Win.

5. The making of a novel, "Grand Slam: A Coming of Eggs Story" draft 60%- word counts 0-45841) and motivational media.

Reason: People are into process--the "how to" get something done. I'm not because this book is still not finished. Revision can be a huge avoidance.

4. The finishing of a novel's first rough draft, "Grand Slam: A Coming of Eggs Story" Word count 45,841-76,758

Reason: See #5 blog. Oh, but this one got more views so that's even more true.

3. Not much news, so let's remember Thieves Jargon and activate the Whaaaaay Back Machine for a strange little story.

Reason: People loved 2009. They loved Thieves Jargon. They loved the long google-able list with their names on it as well as the names of EVER writer ever published by Thieves Jargon.

2. This is my story and I'm sticking to it....Essay published in The Sobriety Collective

Reason: Best news of all. Five years of sobriety on November 6. People were interested in that--attraction, yes?

 

 

 

And the number One most viewed blog post of 2015

1. On Franz Wright death and e-mails/wonderful exchanges with Franz

Reason: Franz was loved as a man and as a poet. His exchanges with others have been notoriously volatile.  Not with me...only fond e-mails and exchanges

2015 My publishing year in review----and it was a small one.

As the sun sets on 2015 here's the Total Output for the year
 Fiction 5
Poetry 4
Essays 1

 It's the least published output in twelve years, but much of that was because of the writing of the not yet published Grand Slam, where the stats can be found here
  "The Making of a Novel...."
and here "The Finishing of a Novel's first rough draft..."

2015 was a time where I did not submit my work very often. So, here's to 2016


 SHORT, FLASH AND MICRO FICTIONS 
 
""How She Traded Up on Damnation", August 28, 2015 Tell Tale Inklings I
"How He Was Left"

"After the Afterlife" June 27, 2015 Right Hand Pointing, #188

"The Prominent Father" February 25, 2015 Oddball Magazine

"Touching All The Bases" February 3, 2015 Breakwater Review




POETRY
 
"A Poem For Forever"
December 16, 2015, Oddball Magazine

"The Fifth Bloody Mary on a Sunday Afternoon"
November 14, 2015, Ibbetson 38

  "The Night Wind"
October 16, 2015, Muddy River Poetry Review

"But you forgot, To remember"
March 9, 2015, Mass Poetry Website, Poem of the Moment


ESSAYS

November 10, 2015, The Sobriety Collective
"Timothy Gager's Story"

"A Poem for Forever" published in Oddball Magazine is about a Higher Power

The story behind the story of this poem is comparable TJ Edsen's accompanying photograph. Central Square looks like it's bathed in stained glass---church-like, but the photo can't completely capture the senses of someone actually walking through that ally or even sitting in a church, just as our senses in life do not completely capture the range of all of our senses in death. What? Well, read on.

 At 17, I had a NDE (Near Death Experience), which words cannot accurately describe, as the experience is so far outside the margins. I tried to here in the short story "Still Water Runs Deep" (2003), found in Short Street.

He fell lifeless, gravity pulling him slowly to the bottom of the ocean. Too tired to swim, but not giving up. Letting the water embrace him, soft, a gentle force against his skin. Mind over matter…Mind over matter…Mind over matter. This must be what a meditative trance is like.

He spread his arms, and he breathed the water’s oxygen—warm, like a hit of the best brandy in the entire world. The warmth radiated throughout his entire body. Is this what it’s like to die?

Just keep relaxing, his mind told him. His mind. The physical effort had now disappeared, and his entire existence felt different somehow. It was as if he were online with his mind, using his brain in a new way—or was it his soul he was using now? Information was being accessed. Pictures were clear, presenting themselves to him: the tile floor he knelt on as a six-year-old, spinning to get dizzy, simulating his first time drunk; the center of his Sit-N-Spin; the label of the first 45 record he ever owned, a yellow-and-orange checkered pattern (Tommy James and the Shondelles) turning around and around.

His mind was boundless, filled with the knowledge he had acquired in his life. Filled also with something else. All the knowledge that could potentially be acquired soared through his lobes and synapses. It was information he had no right knowing: the Theory of Relativity, Freudian psychoanalysis, methods of combustion, construction of an atomic warhead, human anatomy, Pythagorean theorems and every language ever known. All of it was right there. He was becoming mentally aligned with the universe.

Fifteen minutes ago, on his sailboat, it had been only a feeling, perhaps a faint sense of…something. He certainly couldn’t have anticipated the boom shifting, cracking him on the head and knocking him off his fishing boat. If it could happen now, he would have already known it was coming.

But floating outside of his current body the ability to foresee the accident was just a Catch-22. All his senses were being replaced by total knowledge.

A large, glowing hand appeared in the water. It seemed non-threatening, seeing a large, glowing hand floating near him. He instinctively knew it was the Total Entity, some sort of God coming to carry him away, showing him a choice he had to make. It seemed laid out, and simple. It was a question. Should I stay in this body or should I go into the hand of The Entity? It was the only piece of information in his entire being he seemed to question. Should I return to the body I know, or should I go with all this knowledge to where I’m being led?

Immediately he was separated from his body, which slowly sank into the ocean.

It was something far short of the actual experience. Years later I tried it in a poem, today's "A Poem for Forever".  Very often when I start a poem it'll start somewhere and then go wherever it wants and as a writer I let that happen and then THAT becomes the poem. This one ended up religious, spiritual, and about G-O-D. It felt odd, but it also felt, this is all new territory and a pretty decent poem. So here it is.

Ibbetson 38 released with a poem of mine and a wonderful cast of poetic characters.

Ibbetson Street 38 is out with a fabulous list of poets. It's a great publication per usual and you can pick one up on Lulu here.

Included is my poem, "The Fifth Bloody Mary on a Sunday Afternoon"--brunch for a bad marriage. 

 

List of Contributor for Ibbetson Street  38

HEY POET 1
Keith Tornheim

THE PEARLS OF AN ARTIST 2
Louisa Clerici

DOURCEUR/SWEETNESS 3
Ida Faubert/tr. Danielle Legros Georges

TO MUCH OR NOT ENOUGH 4
Wendy Drexler

RETREAT INTO THE COLDEST CAVE 4
Marge Piercy

THE WEIGHT OF YOU 5
Emily Pineau

MID-SHIFT, AUGUST 5
Julia Carlson

LAST DAY AT THE LAKE 6
Judith Katz-Levine

TEA AND LIME 6
Irene Koronas

LONGING 6
Ruth Chad

MASHA’S EAR 7
Dorian Brooks

AGLETS 7
Gary Metras

JESSIE’S GIRL 8
Valerie Loveland

MILLIE 9
Lauren Davis

THEN COMES 9
Robert K. Johnson

SLOW MOTION BALLET 9
Susan Tepper

ICE SKATES 10
Ted Kooser

ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE 10
Lauri Soriano

BLUE-HAIRED GODDESS AT THE BLACKJACK TABLE 11
Steve Glines

FROM THE COLD 11
Lainie Senchel

THE FIFTH BLOODY MARY ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 12
Timothy Gager

INK 12
Beverly Boyd

DINING OUT WITH OUR ZOMBIE 13
Thomas O’Leary

THE MASSEUSE: TO A DANCER (after a sculpture by Degas) 14
David Ruekberg

I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU 15
Lyn Lifshin

PAIN-SHAPE-STEVEN 15
Nina Rubinstein Alonso

NEW YEAR’S DAY 16
Philip E. Burnham, Jr.

NIGHT BECKONS 16
Kathleen Aguero

TRACKS 16
Michael Casey

NOVEMBER WEATHER 17
Llyn Clague

IN THE ACT 17
Kirk Etherton

BENEDICTUS 18
Melinda Kemp Lyerly

FORTUNE COOKIE 18
Brendan Galvin

THE GREEN DRAGON FARMER’S MARKET 19
Molly Mattfield Bennett

THE SEEKER 20
Joanna Nealon

HILLS POND 20
Miriam Levine

FIRE WALTZ 21
Nick Vittum

GUIDANCE FOR ACHILLES 21
Dennis Daly

LOST ON THE LITTLE ISLAND 22
Alexander Levering Kern

SHIPWRECK ARTEMIS 23
Karen Locascio

HYPOGLYCYMIA 23
Lucy Holstedt

HUGH 24
Eric Greinke and Glenna Luschei

FLOUROSCOPE 26
Andrea Cohen

THE THINKING OCEAN 27
Michael Estabrook

BAD MOVIES 28
Michael Todd Steffen

A WOMAN LAUGHS 29
Charles Coe

THE WIND TAKES OFF 29
Pui Ying Wong

A GRAVE PLIGHT 30
Harris Gardner

SEEING OUT THE YEAR 31
Linda M. Fischer

AND THE WINNER IS 31
Ellaraine Lockie

CLOSER 32
Margaret Vidale

BON VOYAGE 33
Bill Dill

FEED FORCES 33
Rich Murphy

THE TEACHER’S PRAYER 34
Afaa Michael Weaver

NUNC 35
John Skoyles

CASA DE LUZ 36
Krikor Der Hohannesian

THIS TIME 37
Jacquelyn Malone

YOU ARE A RIVER 37
Deborah Leipziger

PRISONER OF MY OWN KINGDOM 38
Beatriz Alba del Rio

THEY’RE NOT THAT UNUSUAL 39
Teisha Twomey

BOOKISH 39
Rene Schwiesow

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her Daughter Mary Shelley 40
Lawrence Kessenich

This is my story and I'm sticking to it....Essay published in The Sobriety Collective

 How it was

NOVEMBER 6, 2010

I’m coming out of a blackout at The People’s Republik in Cambridge, Massachusetts and I’m in mid-sentence. I know where I am because I remember coming in with some friends earlier. I can never leave early enough. I confused where this sentence is going to or even what I am talking about. I don’t know where my friends I came with are? Did they leave me here? Why? Stupid question because I know even if I wasn’t remembering specifics of this night. Bad behavior leads to lost friendships.

How do I get home? Oh, that’s right, I remember I drove here. 

Today. Here is my full story, the continuation of the above excerpt, written text of what I usually share as a speaker.

At various times here at my blog, or during interviews or other essays I've talked about my sobriety. Usually it's around the time of my anniversary date. On November 6, it is my fifth anniversary, which is a big one, a nice round number.

As a writer, I'm also a reader. As a sober person, I'm also a reader. I'm a regular reader of The Fix, which one day, brought me to a web site, new to me, After Party Magazine, from one of The Fix's editor's Anna David, author of Party Girl.

We all know how the internet works in times of boredom. You start out searching for apple picking and by the time you are done you are on serial killer pages. This wasn't as drastic, as After Party Magazine took me to the 20 Best Recovery Blogs. Here I found The Sobriety Collective run by Laura Silverman. Here is her story, and thanks for publishing mine.