My Snowflake Rocks: perfection and art

Funny. On my way to get coffee this morning I thought about many extremely gifted poets whose work I admire greatly but who I might bypass in my search for inspiration (in art, life, death). I thought about me, more than twenty years ago, when I began writing fiction.

I spent a few years trying to write my first mystery novel that didn't fly (tried a few others that didn't fly), and found short fiction in the process. Being in love with Cheever's stories, Chekhov, Flannery O'Connor and others I am slighting only because I have the memory of one hand clapping, I felt honored, heck, relieved, to even be involved the process. The crossover from ne'er-do-well to writer, reckless and easy, justifies an oddlife.

I was in love with the smallness of the form, the Indian minature-ness, the possibilities a small story held for perfection. I crafted and rewrote, in hopes I could like God create a jewel. I don't say that's the case of the poets I allude to above, that they spend years rewriting or foolishly attempting to sing as an angel, but their end product, however wonderful, can't compare with my snowflake. This does not, and should not, bother any poet or writer. This is about acceptance appreciation and love of my voice. If I don't love it, how can I nurture it?

This is an assessment of my goals, not of others' goals. My goal in poetry is to find God, to heal the world, to create consciousness. I don't mind if my poems, carefully wrought though they are, or at least labored over, get wild and strange. I'm a little wild and strange and okay with it. Hey, I'm stuck with it.

(Caveat. I can only labor or a word in a poem if I am able to stay alert. I wonder if I don't sleep through some phrases, or give up, or OCD my way out. Total consciousness work, a perfection of its own.)

White paper snowflakes dangle by the counter and float on the walls at my coffee place. I asked about them this morning--when I came in it was just me and two kids behind the counter. They told me I'd get a free small coffee if I made one. As Jama handed over a piece of paper and scissors I felt a jolt from space. I'd been listening to Sun Ra at home. That'll prepare your mind to be a landing strip for the ships. I knew mine would be different and that if I TRIED to make it look like every other, or any other snowflake, I'd fail. It's been that way my whole life.

My snowflake looks like a tribal mask, simple, rectangular, jagged and if you don't mind my saying so, arresting. Yes. I'm bragging about my paper snowflake. It is, as one esteemed journal wrote in their we're not taking this batch but send another as you have an original voice note, different.

The short stories I wrote in the past are wonderful and careful. I futilely hope they can be collected and published. Whatever. But my poems are channeled. That's that and Merry Christmas, my children of light and affection.

First book advice: The Future Is Happy

Now that my first book, the poetry collection The Future Is Happy has its own page on the SPD (Small Press Distribution) website, I am ready to talk.

Now independent bookstores can order it, and independent book readers frequenting independent bookstores can buy it. This is big. At least for me. The Future continues to be available from Amazon, my publisher (BlazeVOX) and from me.

I'm a lucky duck to get published over-the-transom. I did try four or five contests run by literary presses or university presses, didn't win, knew I could not afford the fees and slightly mistrusted the process (not fair of me, really), so I started searching elsewhere.

When my manuscript was accepted I was given a piece of advice, as if advice were a cherry pie I could gobble down. A friend with three books out told me not to try for a perfect book.

"It'll lock you in. You'll always have to live up to it. Who wants precious?"

I appreciated permission to be imperfect. Those gem poems of mine were in the book, but so were poems a little more ragged - though loved by me. Who's to say in the long run which is a more meaningful experience of a poem? Well, the reader is to say. Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler. But really I write for greater closeness and salvation, corporate and always mystical.

The way is sure but it's got to be varied. So many are on the path.

Because my book was accepted during the ongoing economic meltdown, there were delays and more delays. By the time I received the first proof I saw a few things I wanted to change.

With Geoffrey's (my pub.) blessing I swapped out a few poems. As with any project, time away offers perspective. My reasoning in choosing new work, some of it written after the book was accepted, was to make the whole more whole, the more whole stronger, but not to make it perfect.

I am not a perfect person and less so a perfect poet. I am not a perfect poet and less so a perfect person. A stream of hot radiant light is focusing my next book. I have nothing to live up to, in following The Future Is Happy, but nothing to live down. I am proud of it, amazed it ever happened - I am sixty - and ready to be ready.

Note: Cover photograph by Susan Tamany.

SPD: http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781935402350/the-future-is-happy.aspx

BlazeVOX: http://www.blazevox.org/bk-ss2.htm