on writing: the first existential crisis of 2015

it's a little early in the year, right? to be wondering if i'm doing anything of value in this new year? 

well, no. i'll be working through this now:

i've been asked to be public with my work at an upcoming event. i want to do this, keeping in mind that while i'm not a stage poet, i'm still someone who writes and preaches that examples should be public and one should not turn down an opportunity. i'm doing it, and that's causing these anxieties. 

respect for poetry 2014. photo by maite jacobson

nearly everything i've written from april - december 2014, i find, is bullshit. i'm not moved; i'm annoyed, and not in a productive way. what will i have to read? nothing, because there is nothing there. in my phases of writing, i've successfully moved on from the "i'm displacing my misery onto other people and making it seem like they're the cause of things they don't have anything to do with because i'm not entirely willing to talk about myself yet" and i don't know what there was between april/december, but it was confusing and irrelevant. 

that is it - the confused/irrelevant phase, trying to stay angry when i was not. it's hard to give up disordered processes when you're moving away from the worst and transitioning to "Recovery/Recovered." i'm fairly certain that i haven't been ready to be okay with not being horrid to others when i'm anxious and being calm when i used to expect blackout rage. i haven't been ready to be myself in my writing when i have been in my conscious life. 

in the book poets talk, erin moure gives an interview about "excess" in writing (among other things). i've figured my staunch hatred toward my own writing could use some insight from authors i like. she says:

"But reading Rich and Piercy profoundly dissatisfied me. I thought, well, if this is what you have to do to write feminist poetry, then I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy it." 

i have this part highlighted from university, indicating that this made sense to me then, and has apparently been something i've forgotten since. interesting that now, since i've been out of school, i've written probably the shittiest poetry of my life. 

ironically, i've started to fit myself into what i think i "should" be doing, and not what i actually should be doing. why am i weirded out by using references to the dead white guys who motivated my critical thinking? why do i hesitate to throw out renaissance slang when i fucking love renaissance art? why am i not calling myself out more on these worries and hesitations? that ain't right.

essentially:

what have i been doing? writing away from the self.
how have i been doing that? focusing on things/feelings/people that are unimportant to/not me at this point in my life.

what am i going to do about it? throw that stuff away, start over. re-read what motivated me before (marlatt, irigaray, carson, de cleyre). use/remember re(-)vision, excess, fearlessness - things i consider the great virtues of my own writing/feminism/identity/etc.

what else? remember that i have my own perspective.

and be present/ready for january 14.