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Poetry on the Line, Stephen Mead

8/10/2014

Writing, even publishing, poetry, is not something I've ever been able to take much pride in. When a person is not an extrovert there is something disconcerting about putting a part one's self out there, especially when that self is fluid and what is out there was not intended to be written in stone. Words can be used against the writer, and that is especially painful when the words have come deep from the interior. It's as if another person coming across one of my poems will suddenly notice I have a conjoined twin sticking out of my right cerebellum, waving little fingers and toes and saying "Hello, out there. Hello." I always expect another person's first response to be, "Hey, put a hat on that, will ya? You're scaring the children!"

When it comes to writing/publishing, lines from John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" come to mind, that part about: they hate you if you're clever; and they despise a fool...But, to paraphrase Anne Sexton, "Yes, to be a fool; perhaps that requires the greatest courage of all."

Facing one's mortality, even one's failures, also requires something akin to courage, and those are other things writers pretty much can't help but do. Most of us are constantly on the cusp of disappearing, of having our voices derided or ignored. Even when writing about healing, most poets work with injury, striving for the best, but not necessarily confident that the end results measure up. In many ways, silent indifference is expected, bad press, the critics of negativity, yet to be prepared for any of those things may toughen the skin, and make the opposite a nice surprise.

Being published is like going on a blind date in a Seer-Sucker Suit, gold chains, and feeling immensely grateful if your date doesn't dash out the bathroom window and leave you with the bill. I know I have most likely annoyed many an editor by being so grateful that he/she has actually found my work worthy. To have that sort of viewpoint is unintentionally insulting to the editor, however, as if I am questioning an editor's taste or stability. Are you sure you want to publish that? Did you take your medication today?

I suppose the reason I've kept such lousy track of where poems have been published and when, is a classic textbook case-scenario the preceding paragraphs plainly illustrate. Still, when reading/accepting work, most journals do not want work previously published. It may only have been published on a Great-Aunt's blog and read by her Bridge Club, but don't you even try to expand your audience with that material again here! Who do you think you're trying to fool anyway?

This is why I began the webpage before you: after a few decades of poor record-keeping while still actually managing to go on being published, an attempt at getting organized seemed to be in order. Dunt-da-da--da! (Big trumpet blast there.) Researching poem by poem had its downside though, and that was learning how many journals are defunct; and wondering why, how could it happen; how could those little indigenous tribes of scribes just vanish; and did anyone notice, did anyone mourn? I suspect the truth is that though the world is more literate than during Shakespeare's time, the number of readers is outweighed by the number of writers, and they in turn are outnumbered by all the other forms of media luring the masses away from their boredom and troubles. Still, until brain chemicals are balanced globally in culture after culture, I do remain confident that those old souls who like to read will be around, as will those old souls who like to write.

I call this page "Poetry On The Line", with not only that thought, but a specific image in my head. I grew up in a rural area and loved the smell of fresh laundry, loved especially the outdoors clothesline; taking the wet garments out of the old pitcher-white, blue-rimmed metal tub (eventually a plastic laundry basket), affixing them with the wooden peg-like holders, even the ones which had hinges that occasionally snapped apart, nearly putting an eye out...

It seemed another kind of cleansing, watching the fabric ripple and flap, gathering in the smell of sun and breeze, and bringing all of that earthy goodness indoors for drawers and closets. For some reason the image of earth's secrets stored in laundry makes me think of the lost art of letters and then, of course, poems. So I put my poems on the line here as all the world over others do the same, and maybe at times we correspond while the laundry's waving, and maybe sometimes, immaculate white sheet upon sheet, the hieroglyphics upon each, decipher some sense of home in the larger design.

A Note on the Links to Poems: It is interesting I mentioned "home" in the introduction for much of my writing comes from a place perhaps more accurately described as "Dysfunction Junction". Also, there isn't really any sort of intelligent order to how I listed works, but I do want to point out, the works of others can be found on many of the pages given. I encourage the reader to explore while also wishing to express my Appreciation to the editors/web masters who have been able to keep these sites online.(A special shout out to karen corcoran dabkowski, poet in her own right who also became a boon e mail companion!)

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Poetry on the Line, Stephen Mead

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