the year of wanting nothing

 

As the last year closed out and another began, I was hesitant to set anything like creative resolutions beyond some loose plans. Some zines, a couple new books, to continue publishing poems and pictures and making videos as I spent much of last year doing. 2023 was a lot about looking at the ways I engage with the literary world. Or maybe more about the way the work itself engages with the literary world (whatever that is or means, since, in fact there are many, multiple, literary worlds. ) Moreso, my own attitude and feelings of invisibility, of not quite fitting some sort of established route or bill, a feeling that I've always had, but that intensified once I had the freedom to consider it a little more. To turn it over in my mind a bit more since leaving the library, where much of my creative endeavors were much less focused and intentional and much more mimicry, established paths, or winging it. 

Where then to go when you set out to be more purposeful, when those established paths and roads seem not at all right or, even if right, not really getting you anywhere. Or rather, discovering that there really is nowhere to get to.Or maybe more not really anywhere that you really want or need to be. About mid-way through 2023, I had a dream, which I don't really remember the contents of, only that I woke up a with a distinct sense of how much it sucks to be a poet. To face things like rejection or invisibility, all things that come with all genres. But worse, to face these things for poetry, which has no real audience or gains beyond maybe the works itself. I go through these stages where I think of quitting it entirely and moving on to write other things like stories and essays, and yet, somehow, like a 3am drunk dial, wind up back at poetry's door. 

The first few years of this feeling, which intensified after the pandemic, were troubling, though now I've come to expect these waxings and waning. That despite my occasional desire to throw out the bathwater, that the baby is still good, even better, is still squalling and breathing and more filled with life than anyone knew. 

One intention that I started in 2023 was to expect nothing. To want nothing. At least to want nothing beyond good work and a chance to share it with others. To only strive to find new ways to connect with readers directly (especially since that seems to work the best I've found). This didn't mean I didn't put myself out there for journals, publication opportunities, etc (I actually sent out a slew of things in the summer that landed a few publications late this year and forthcoming)  but moreso the way I viewed submissions and the process of sending them. Less as a way to distribute work (which I can do myself) and gain editorial validation (which don't really want anymore.) More as a way of connecting with other writers and community  (which is also how I see my work with the chapbook series and the press), sort of like a gallery show in the art world. Something curated and nice, but not the publishing bottleneck it sometimes can be. Certainly not necessary to connect with readers. The end result is probably the same, but it feels less hopeless and demoralizing somehow and has returned some of the joy with which I engage the world. It's a tiny difference in framing no doubt, but it has made a world of difference in my enthusiasm levels when it comes to distributing and sharing work.