NOT KEEPING SCORE

“The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street.” - James Jones

More collaborative poems with my mentor David Bromige… [Read more →]

‘There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write.” - Terry Pratchett

More collaborative poems with my mentor David Bromige… [Read more →]

“A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.” -Sidney Sheldon

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More collaborative poems with David Bromige, my mentor… and don’t ask me who Janice or Betty is. Or if you do, I’ll tell you they are perfect illustrations of David’s humor. Putting a name like “Betty” in a poem? Writing about a jazz singer we don’t know? David was always reminding me not to take myself nor poetry too seriously…

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“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” -Emily Dickinson

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To honor my mentor David Bromige, who passed away this past week, I will be posting some poems written under his tutelage or in collaboration. We would make a cup of tea, set arbitrary rules, and away we wrote~

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It is with extreme sadness and spiked loss that I mention the passing of my friend and mentor, David Bromige.  I wanted to be able to write a great spread of prose or poetry, honoring his sharp wit, playful creativity, and a life in words.

But for now, I will just provide this link and some quotes I captured during our lazy days writing poetry in the garden of his Sebastopol home… because sometimes things need time to sink in before the words come.

My love and support to his family Cecilia, Maggie & Chris.

DAVID BROMIGE QUOTES / FOUND POEMS [Read more →]

Dedicated to Robin (for the inspiring shock of wisdom) & Kate (for the courage of her own instant art):

I feel it all, the universe is changing, and this is a freewrite and already there is tension. There are nerves. I like that better: this is a freewrite and already there are nerves. Could I ever publish this? I’m scared to publish something so raw., unfiltered, naked….My words are woven like candy sacks, smooth and strawberry. She said that my moment I am so distracted by an audience, oh, how to perform. I will go away and cry now, always always crying. Oh, god, there goes the baby again - my mother would say, and chris would go looking for the baby. Under the couch is where she’d find me, my mom, because I was so small I’d get lost. Who needs all this we do. We do. We need all the details and the confusion, because otherwise we’d have nothing to write about. Three stormy women embark upon being writers, and they cross paths just in time. Just in time! I mean, who needs a yahoo when you have friends, motivation, ears and competition? The skull and cross bones are for another day. Tonight, I choose peace. Tonight, I choose the 8-ball of Knowing and all Majesty & Magic. Go along, you roudy boy — my mr. kerouac, longing and rushed from dusty New Mexico across this great grape continent, loving you, I am you, watching you, I am everything else. Who else? Who wants it all? Oh! Oo.! I do! I do! Fifteen tiny hands shoot up in the air — oo! –ooo! me! me! and the classroom falls silent. Everything is happening. Everything is here, isn’t it? Ah, you great glowing universe, you fluctuate in brightness depending only on my mood, but always, always glowing beneath my mud, aren’t you? Aren’t you? I love, I am love, I see love happen before me, and I am calm.

I feel like a working single mother, slinging hash until midnight, then stumbling home with three little mouths to feed, in want of love.
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So, I got a new job.

Technically, I already have a job: I am a Freelance Naming Consultant, but these days, with the economy in the crapper, things are a little slow. Normally, I would take the opportunity to just… work less. Which means writing more, traveling more, spending time with the fam more. However, after my recent tax returns, it seems I owe a little more to my dear old Uncle Sam than I expected– and, well, there went my savings…

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Wow.

I come back from Vietnam, don’t write about being home in California, skip right over my trip to Manhattan and almost forget that I’m preparing to return to New Mexico. I’ve been too busy being here to remember to write about all the “theres.” It’s been so long, Not Keeping Score, that I almost forgot what you looked like.

[Scene: a fancy restaurant. Dim lighting. Sounds of wine glasses clinking can be heard. SHANNON, 28, sits at a table across from BLOG.]

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Due to popular request, and the pokings of my own instinct, I’ve come back to California.

I had just secured a job teaching English for $20/hr (which is nothing to scoff at these days), had rented an apartment, and was learning important new phrases in Vietnamese, such as “How many rooms does your house have?” and other such necessities.

And then it just wasn’t fun anymore. [Read more →]