devils and daughters

Last week, we took in a double feature of two of this summer's ample horror offerings--awesome in a season when you you usually can expect really only to find the latest Marvel/DC/Disney schlock and big shoot em' up action flicks. There is much more to come from the previews I am seeing before movies this summer and I am here for it--coming from all corners, including a lot of indie films that look not only spooky, but artfully done. 

I had high expectations going into Maxxxine--to be expected considering how much I have been waiting for this last installment of the trilogy every since buzz started circulating around the time I was writing horror content for Game Rant. Especially since seeing Pearl which may be a horror movie unlike anything I've ever seen with its cheery 40's musical aesthetic, ample gore, and Mia Goth, who plays things perpetually with just enough vulnerability and batshit craziness in every movie she graces. This new one did not disappoint in any of these things, and added a swirl of 80's cocaine-infused magic set in the shadow of the Hollywood sign...complete with killer cults, sleazy sex clubs, and a menacing creepiness lingering under the film slick facade of LA. The villain, of course, turns out to be closer to home, in the form of Maxine's estranged preacher father, who has been hunting his daughter for years and now has started a crusade against motion pictures and the pornos where she got her start--the evil and seductive allure of showbusiness and Hollywood being the center of his obsession. 

The second film., Longlegs, we saw at another cinema amidst stormy weather and tornado alerts on a night with over 20 funnels spotted in the city's environs (and on the way home encountered limbs down and furniture from a beachside cafe blown onto LSD. ) This one had some really disturbing trailers and teasers popping up since early this year. People have described it as a satanic take on Silence of the Lambs, and it definitely has a similar feel.  It might have been the presence of lead Maika Monroe, but it also visually had a feeling not unlike It Follows in terms of camera shots and mood--a movie I adore.  This film is a slow creep toward revelation, with Nicholas Cage in perhaps his most unhinged performance (and that is saying a lot.) Also terrifying enchanted girl-sized dolls that serve as vessels for evil spirits. 

While the main character, an FBI agent pursuing a bunch of strange murder/suicides in this one is not the daughter biologically of the villain (at least not the main villain), But because of her mother's involvement in the crimes (done to save her own daughter), the villain does become a de-facto father-figure to the heroine and she has to face off with the evil (though not in the way you might expect.)

This similarity of the two films, the dynamics of daughters and fathers/mothers, good and evil, made the films oddly a serendipitous par to see the same night, even though we didn't know it going in.  In the first, Maxine is lost and struggling adrift and under threat, a threat that comes from her own family. Ditto with Longlegs, where the threat is something in your own home. One a deflection and prevention of "evil," used as a justification for crimes, the other evil incarnate already in the homes of its victims. 

on becoming a poet

Maybe I am just feeling introspective and wise after officially hitting what is somehow middle age for real for real, but I got to thinking about what advice I might have for a younger me. Not really personal (that would be another list altogether and totally name names..lol...) but things that might be able to help a fledgling poet. None of it is terrible novel or revolutionary, but offers something to think about and are things for sure I really wish someone had told me when I was staring out.

 1. Community is Everything but Also Doesn’t Really Exist

Community in the writing and art world is important. But at the same time, there is no such thing as  "THE poetry community" or the "THE writing community." More like there are multitudes of communities and groups of practitioners that dot the lit world like tiny constellations, some connected by style lines or people or publications, others just existing all on their own. .It can be divided by genre. By location. By types of poems you love and write. Maybe even by subject matter. By aesthetics and MFA schools and bars or bookstores you like to read and hang out in. When I first moved to Chicago, I felt like I was simultaneously part of three different communities, none of which overlapped even the slightest. There were the web poets, who were popping up everywhere in the new bloom of online journals and poetry blogs. There was the more open-mic centric community of local poets in Chicago, who were also distinguishable from other groups of local poets like poetry slammers, who read more competitively at places like the Green Mill.  Even the local community was subdivided with some poets, like me, who crossed back and forth depending on style. More traditional poets and more experimental poets who each had favorite reading venues and journals/presses of their own. And then there were the MFA program poets and instructors I encountered in grad school, who had entirely different sets of idols and publishers and journals they were trying to get into. Some people, like me, moved back and forth between these groups, or straddled one or two, but mostly they were distinct. There were entire groups of poets I only found out about later writing very similar work but that were more insular. Entire pockets of Chicago poets I had no contact with until years later. Poets I shared a city with who I had never met even though their work and styles were actually very similar.  

2. Leap First, Figure it Out as You Go

There is one school of thought that you should, as an artist, make sure everything is perfect before you do things like sharing work publicly, like via open mics or publications. That you should take certain steps and measures before undertaking things like submitting work, compiling books, applying to programs and awards and residencies.  There is another, one I espouse regularly, that says just fucking do it. Want to start a poetry journal or small press? Figure out how to make it happen and do it. Want to start submitting your book to presses or indie publishers.? Do it. Want to start a reading series or a writing group? Go for it. Sometimes, things get stuck in the planning stages or the preparation stages and never get out of it. Never wait until you're "ready" or you'll be waiting forever. If you wait for permission or someone to tell you you’re ready, you may never get it. Figure out the best way to start and roll with it. My worst ideas have sometimes turned out to be my best ones. Everyone warns against the writer who publishes too early, when the work is green, but I am a poet who feels that way even about my more experienced work sometimes, But then it changes / is always changing.. All the work is a document to the time and era of you as a creator, so honor it and stop worrying about achieving some imagined perfection before you start taking your work and writing career seriously. 

3. Don't Get Distracted by Goal Posts and Miss the Ball

I write this knowing full well I was once guilty of this in spades, and maybe, even occasionally still. It's a slippery slope when you are just starting. At first you want that initial publication if you haven't yet gotten it. Then you want more--bigger name journals and harder mountains to climb. Then you want chapbooks and books and prizes. Teaching gigs and fellowships and residencies.  You want to be taken seriously. You want “legitimacy.” These things are all nice to have and fun to pursue, but they should just be frosting on the cake of what you are doing as an artist. Certainly not requisite and not the focus of how you get your work to readers. If you wait for that big goal--that premium journals or big prize, you may be waiting forever to feel like you have arrived. You have arrived the minute you put serious efforts into getting words on the page and finding readers (and for some people, maybe even that second part is superfluous depending on your goals.) As you go, the goal posts get harder and further apart and so many poets I know sort of float in between them. It leads to dissatisfaction and sometimes, stopping the writing altogether. 

4.  Be Careful with Mentorships

Great creative friends and mentors can be invaluable when you find the right ones. Even if they are just the people you can talk projects and shop with. There was a trend on FB among younger women writers I knew from around 2009 onward, though it started in blogs much earlier, who kept looking for guidance and mentorship with male poets, who were usually older. They had in common that they were usually claiming to hold some magical key to the poetry world or the publishing community. Inevitably, even in the best scenaroio, these led to weird dynamics and terrible relationships/marriages and sometimes outright harassment, stalking. and sexual assault. I don’t think men experience this quite as much, but I do know it's possible. I've also seen and experienced writers as gatekeepers or teachers who view other new poets as rivals in some fucked up way and then proceed to just give really bad advice and shit talk behind their backs the poets they have taken under their wings. Be careful of these relationships. Your friends and cohort will often be your best cheerleaders and your best critics, as will the things you read and poets you admire from afar.. 

5. Promo is a Bitch, but Make it Fun

There is an almost unspoken requirement, in both indie and traditional publishing, that you are responsible for promoting your work in a time when agents and publicists and other people who used to be responsible for these things have fallen by the wayside or are not really attainable for most poets.  Many poets feel like social media promo is ever at odds with time they spend writing, especially if that time is also  limited by day jobs and families and caregiving. Like it's some other thing that doesn't ever yield enough for the time that you put into it. And this may be entirely true, but so much changed for me when I started looking at the endeavor of sharing and promoting work as its own kind of creative outlet. Over the years I have, in the interest of poetry, taught myself web design and graphic design and video making, all things I otherwise would probably not have delved into. They are a kind of creative fun that is not necessarily separate from my writing and artmaking. Now they are kind of second nature.

6. Teaching is Not Always the Best Way to Make a Living

I get it. We love books and words and teaching feels like one of the best ways to make a living and still be immersed in it.I have two kinds of writer friends who teach, One are the adjuncts  who spend a great amount of time working underpaid and part-time with no benefits at multiple institutions and barely have time to write. The others are tenured and established, but spend so much time devoted to students and advising committee work and administrative things like department chairing that they also bemoan never having time to write. Many have turned to other lines of work entirely.  Some are very dedicated teachers and are really good at what they do, and by all means, see teaching as a passion and calling, Others are just hoping to make the rent and really want to focus on their writing instead of wrangling undergrads into writing essays they don’t want to have to grade. We all have to have jobs usually, unless blessed by well-paid spouses or trust funds, but teaching is often proposed as the first line of inquiry when making a living (and academic institutions sell this by employing grad students to do the dirty work for little to no money, locking them into the system.) I had a grad school teacher at DePaul who warned me that she saw on the horizon for the college/university teaching track in the next couple of decades. In my case, the subject was literature,, not writing,  but it still holds true across the arts and humanities. She did not see it getting better and warned me I should know what I was in for as I pondered getting my Ph.D.. It was 1999. It did not.get better but far, far worse. And yet there are a wealth of skills that use writing and poetic abilities, even outside more obvious flight plans like freelance writing and editing. Libraries are great places to work as are non-profits. PR and marketing are something that fit nicely. If you love academia, while my experience was underpaid and overworked, there are administrative and support jobs that are more stable and have a fixed work week. Look for something that doesn't deplete your soul but fills your bank account and you will be fine, even if that means writing in the in-betweens. 

7. Find a Way to Engage the Community and Give Back

Whatever you feel is your community, your people, find a way not just to take, but also put something back in. Not everyone wants to or can start journals or presses, but in that case, talk other people's books up, write reviews, teach community workshops or start a reading series. So often I meet poets who seem to expect that the world  is just waiting for them and their work to show up and be awesome. When actually, you're creating / are responsible for creating  the community that you want to be a part of. Otherwise it doesn’t exist. Not everyone has bandwidth for larger work loads, but everyone can do just a little something to help their lit community along, even if it's just boosting a social media post or writing an Amazon review.

8. Write and Read A Lot

I often encounter discussions of productivity and how to still feel like an artist or writer in those following periods. Fallow periods are good for growing and planting, even if the harvest is small. But even if you are a slower writer, and take a longer time being happy with your results, you need to keep going and feeding the creative machine. It doesn't always look like we think it should, writing entire poems or stories or publishing, More often it looks like living and thinking creatively, reading and observing, thinking out loud. You don’t have to be churning out poems on the hour or daily, but don't’ put aside your work entirely for months or years at a time. Keep it close, ponder it, go over it, stay connected. Because life is crazy and forging out that time to really focus is so rare, it is easy to lose track of your creative mojo so easily and lose momentum. Even if it doesn't mean getting words on the page, foster and feed your creativity every day by reading or doing other kinds of art or journaling. 

9. There is No One Way to be a Poet

When I was in my late 20s I watched carefully and intently the poets I knew who had begun to do the things I wanted to do. who seems to have it all together. Getting those high tier publications, landing book deals, winning prizes, and garnering rave reviews. Everyone else was wondering when it was going to happen for them. Were worried that they weren't on the right timeline for success or that they started too late or had been playing the game so very long with limited wins. There seemed to be a traditional path, especially among MFA poets–the ones I was reading, the ones I knew and studied with. You waited for someone to notice you and lift you up and maybe some people did, but even that was no guarantee you'd stay there. Second  and third books could be harder to place. Writing trends go in and out of fashion. So many mid-career poets are wondering what happened to the energy and enthusiasm they perceived around them in their early days. But then again, if you looked around there always poets who did not seem to be on that particular track, or maybe picked some aspects but disregarded others,  Who cherry picked the best parts of the poetry world and business, or others who eschewed it altogether. These poets were often as worthy of emulation as the ones you were looking to.  Some had much better and happier relationships with their career. Watch those people too. There is not one way of being a poet and also no one way of "making it" whatever that means. 

10. Don't Be an Asshole

This one should go without saying, but just don't. Don't berate editors in lengthy response e-mails who didn't take your work for their publication. Don't use people for what they can give you and then discard them. Don't approach poetry as a transactional thing, like you publish me, I'll publish you. In over twenty years at this things, the worst cringe-worthy moments were watching people beg, barter, crawl, and trample their way to a top that doesn’t even really exist. 

notes & things | 7/21/2024

I've been working on an actual writing related post for this space, but somehow the week has involved gasping for breath amid freelance doings and press doings and a lot of things falling due all at once. In between, however, there have been cinema outings (a double feature of Maxxine and Longlegs--both of which I highly recommend and may write more about later this coming week.) There have been luxe croissants for breakfast and frozen custard in bed after 1 a.m. in delicious flavors like peach and lemon. Summer feels slow and fast all at once and its strange to be moving in on August. My mother always said summer might as well be gone as soon as you hit the Fourth of July, even despite efforts to hang onto it. Soon, I'll be longing for fall, maybe less this year since we have actually have A/C now and the dog days less dogged, but it will inevitably happen. 

Work continues on CARNIVAL GAMES, a project which continues to grow both visually and textually. There are others that flit around my mind that make little bits and starts even while my head is down on this one. I have managed to establish some equilibrium again between paid (ie. the writing I do for others) and unpaid creative work (the work I do as an editor and writer/artist) and that means my days feel far saner, though packed tight with good things. I've been drafting at least one poem a day again, though now its in the afternoon during my informal lunch break in instead of mornings over coffee (or well, my morning, anyways, that starts around noon.)  Art things still tend to happen in the dead of night after a usually late dinner.

I spent the latter half of the week considering reviving my now-slumbering Patreon, and had some really good ideas for subscriber perks like bonus video poems, deluxe hardcover editions, special book art projects, but in the end rather like offering things up a little more freely. Don't get me wrong, income from creative work is amazing what little of it comes the way of poets, but nevertheless, the decision of what to put behind the paywall and what to put in front of it, would likely just be too annoying to have to make every month. I like sharing work--whatever it is--and will continue to make things available at no cost beyond the things you can purchase in the shop. I feel like adjusting my attitude last year about what I am doing al this for has made it much more enjoyable. Instead of the push to promote, promote, promote, I've started looking at it more like  my weird little inner museum you can totally visit for free, but if you want a souvenir (a book, a piece of art, some postcards or a journal), the gift shop is to the left. Not always to be looking at times of slow sales or comparing a new book's figures to the last one (whether in a good way or a bad way) or wondering why sales are slow (and worry if its the economy, attention spans, social algorithms or, good god, do I just suck?..lol...) So for now, the Patreon will continue to slumber, as will the Paper Boat, my newsletter, which went underwater when Tiny Letter closed up, but which I still would eventually like to revive. A Substack feels redundant since I already have a happily homed blog here (which will somehow be celebrating its 20 year anniversary next spring.) but maybe something else.  

I did spot a new flip book platform through another writer who had posted an e-version of her book there. Issuu was charging me $30 a month and pestering me constantly to upgrade to a higher tier (and still putting ads in) so this is a much better option for e-zines at only around $50 for a whole year (and its so much easier to read without constantly having to zoom.) I spent last night uploading everything there and changing links over on my website. I was even able to upload a few that were previously just pdfs hosted on the dgp site like eleanor and the machines and ghost landscapes. A couple weeks back I was filling an order and realized I was completely out of honey machine copies, my Plath cento chapbook, so it seems a good time later this year to release an e-version of that, maybe around Plath's birthday in October.  (though you can also find those poems without the collages in SEX & VIOLENCE too.)

winged things

 

see more HERE...

notes & things | 7/8/2024

While there does not seem to be much to celebrate about being an American these days anyway, our plans for cookout fun out of town were thwarted by automotive issues and vet visits for J's mom's cat. Still there was karaoke on Saturday, which I went with to take photos for his impending website/social media, but afterward wound up at the emergency vet til well past dawn yesterday with a very sick feline, who the jury is still out on the prognosis. Which means we slept the rest of the day away yesterday and accomplished nothing of note. I also may be getting a cold though it could be a/c-induced dryness. I am staying in the next few days regardless just in case its the vid, which is apparently running rapid this summer.  So far just some throat weirdness and no fever or achiness that indicates anything serious. Which means we've also postponed our plans to see Maxxine until next week, which is fine since I am on the broker side of brokeness this weekend til I get paid again anyway.

Today, J is making me soup with matzah balls & beef pierogi (after he unfairly got me addicted to kreplach and its harder to find unless you go to a deli.) I once took pride in my chicken soup recipe, but have learned I would much rather have his version. Since I am home, I still do most of the cooking for us, which I would be doing for myself anyway, but he is always much fancier and gourmet than me (I am a fan of many, many shortcuts, including frozen microwaveable mashed potatoes and pre-made sides.) For the holiday, I made ribs and sweet corn in the oven, which is not quite the huge fried chicken picnics we had before my mom and aunt were gone, but still tasty.

Outside the karaoke bar near on the river walk, the city was pretty lively on Saturday night and the crowd inside large, though at some point after he was packing up equipment, I looked around at a pretty huge group of people, all of whom were silently signing to each other (likely a convention or gathering on one of the hotels downtown.) Since we were fielding phone calls about the cat after a few hours of loud music and singing, it was a relief. When I am out in crowds, I often realize how much I am profoundly uncomfortable and unable to think with too much stimulus happening all at once. I kept escaping outside to sit by the river in the quieter night as the late tour and party boats passed by. 

Midweek, we did get to see the musical version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a movie and book I was mostly unfamiliar with. As a musical, like some of the ones I've seen on stage and screen lately (Mean Girls, The Color Purple, Death Becomes Her,)it lacked a cohesive musical thread, but was still enjoyable for the plot and performances. Plus we scored inexpensive box seats that even still had pretty good views off to the side. We've been trying to plan for a theater night at least once a month, though fall is piling up with options and we may wind up with many more. Goodman and Chicago Shakespeare are the more cost friendly options, as well as the storefronts and academic venues, though there is some cool stuff coming through Broadway in Chicago--including Les Miz in December which we are definitely springing for since I haven't seen it in over 30 years. Having occasional nights free and clear is not even one of the best things about working for myself, but after two decades of second-shift alone, is definitely a bonus. Costly though, even high in the balcony, especially the musicals with redonculous and unavoidable Ticketmaster fees.. Any mad,  non-essentials money, is currently competing between new tattoo plans and and wedding savings, so it likely means we won't be able to do everything on the tentative list. 

Today, I am writing, writing, writing, and working on some chapbook assemblies that need to go out this week. J was up early for another round with the cat at the vet, so I slept in and just rolled out out bed and made coffee in time to start working the rest of the day. In addition to articles on DIYs and antiques, I'm hammering away on the carnival pieces, and experimenting with some new ideas in the image generator I'll be sharing soon (see above for a peek.)

  

from technogrotesque

 

read more HERE...

the bone palace

 

See more HERE...

notes on process

Occasionally, I will be working on a poem and the words do not even feel like my own. Maybe some communication from the ether or the netherworld that channels itself through my hand, down into the keys and onto the screen. Other times, the lines are hard wrought and feel more like sowing something, planting something in a dark little garden that may hopefully bloom by the end of the poem. Or other times like a machine that clicks and winds and begins to purr. I never know which of these things will happen in a given piece of writing. Or if any will. Or, if I am really lucky, all of them at once. 

Different things have taken precedence at different times in my career as a poet. The early poems were so hard and so fretted over. I barely knew what I was doing. I slogged along and each line felt like pulling something out of my body. I knew what I wanted and went hunting for it. Later, I would jumble the words and images and spangled contents in a bag and shake them out onto the page, much in the way I would make a collage. While this was not as difficult as the first few years of writing anything worth reading, it was still hard to have them fall into line in a way that made sense. That seemed like I wasn't just randomly making word salad.

There was a shift slowly over the last decade toward poems being more sound generated than image-or content generated. Like if I could just get the first few lines rolling, the poem would almost unwittingly write itself--that tiny machine--that hopefully would get me to the end point. Unlike the order of the early poems, or the chaos of the later ones, these poems somehow assemble themselves according to their own logic and feel much smoother going. So much so, I never quite trust them. 

There was a time when I was an undergrad that I loved rhyming. I call it my Emily Dickinson phase, since I was doing that ballad format end-rhyme shit that is kind of terrible, but I was very good at rhyming. While I moved thankfully past end-rhyming by the time I got to grad school,  I am still a girl who loves internal rhyme and slant rhyme and repeating sounds. Consonance, assonance, anaphora and all those other tasty poet treats. 

The other night, I was working on a piece from CARNIVAL GAMES and relished the particularly delicious combo of "strangle" and "mangroves," that scratched a nice little part of my brain and it was one of those moments I have occasionally, despite log days writing other things, of thinking and pining over writing other things, of feeling frustrated that poetry has such a small audience, that being a poet feels exactly right.