Stronger

I’ve felt comfortable enough in the last few days to start looking at writing submission poetry again: mostly as I’ll be starting a new project for Patreon beginning next month.

RIGHT THEN

Have an announcement. I have the words 'published author' on my CV because , as of this year, I will have been published in two proper adult, grown-up places as a poet. THIS IS NOT ENOUGH, however, and so in 2020, I will be self-publishing MY OWN POETRY.

Thread! pic.twitter.com/LNeK5DaS1z

— S (@MoveablePress) April 21, 2020

One high-quality poem a week, for twenty weeks, is currently well within mental capacity. If I were a ‘famous’ poet, contributing to something like WRITE where we are NOW would be a nigh-on impossible ask at present. There’s far, far too much anger around the pandemic, nowhere near the levels of objectivity required to be considered as relevant or valid. I grasp what is needed to be considered as adult.

I understand now, perhaps more than ever before, the gulf between my world and the one I often aspire to. Therefore, there needs to be a structured approach to those feelings in able to properly quantify their significance. There is an idea on that front, however, for a contest that closes in August. If those words don’t succeed, that will become my own physical collection to sell in 2021.

I’m already looking forward to the next opportunity.

I also realise there’s a level of ignorance that needs to be addressed in relation to the mechanics of poetry: there’s been words here before on how I couldn’t explain adequately what a sonnet is without looking up the details. I was reading a submission guideline yesterday which referenced collection sizes with terms that weren’t even possible to Google, in order to understand what they meant.

There’s no chance when I’m up against stuff like this. That’s so far away from my world and life experiences as to be pointless for consideration. My journey, the inevitable mirror reflecting personal experiences, don’t include such places and people. I get that now, whereas before it would make me angry or frustrated. There’s no point in trying to become something you are not for validation that ultimately isn’t necessary.

These are harsh lessons to learn, but have to happen.

There’s a pandemic collection in me, but not like anybody else’s because I’m asthmatic, already riddled with anxiety before all this began. This is not some academic dissection of the realities that did not previously exist. I was scared back in December, watched the chaos play out over months with a grim realisation life was in more danger than had probably ever previously been the case. I still am.

My pandemic collection will be a very frightened beast indeed.