Poetry

I've been inspired to write lately.

I get daily e-mails from The Sketchbook Project which is an amazing resource for writers and visual artists.  I can't even explain it's amazingness in words, you should just go read about it.  But in very short terms, they have a project right now called 5x5.  For five weeks they have a different genre of writing and you sign up for the week you want to participate in, pay a fee, they send you a sketchbook and you put an entire book together within that genre.  You send it back to them and they digitize it and put it on a national tour.

I misread the rules and thought the fee was for one writer to participate in all five genres - wouldn't that be awesome?  But in misreading, I accidentally signed up for the poetry genre with the theme "slow motion".  When I realized my mistake, I asked for a refund and it was granted, but they sent me the sketchbook anyway, already registered to participate.  UGH.

I peeked over at my bio description for this blog and there it is - POET.  I identified that way once...but I haven't been a poet in years.  In fact, the last thing I wrote that I actually consider a poem was written almost 2 years ago and the poem before that was half a year prior.

Truthfully, poetry comes out of me in my not-so-brilliant moments, when I'm fueled by an emotion that doesn't have a place in the real world - that can only exist on paper.  If I let it take any more space than the poem, it would destroy something in my life.  But motherhood has made me reserved, among other things.

Yet lately I've gotten some spice back.  I went out dancing with my girlfriends last week, I flirted with some gay men (the best) and I'm trying to remember some of the darkness I used to have within me.  That's the stuff that's worth a good read.

In the meantime, here's a fish!