How’s it going y’all? Been a busy last week for me… Getting ready to move back to Idaho and everything associated with that. Now, I’m back where I started when I first moved here. On my dad’s couch at his office. Interesting how things come full circle isn’t it?
I got to speak with a special someone my last day here and honestly I was very at peace with that interaction. She talked about possibly coming back into her neck of the woods to visit the next time I was in the area. Which admittedly is something I’d be very interested in. As much as I realize Evansville is my home? It hasn’t felt like home in a very long time.
My time it’s almost 1:00 AM, flight out at 6:59 AM. Yet, instead of sleep I’m up writing. I’ve been busy doing a good deal of that recently. My priorities in terms of projects for myself are a book of my poetry and photography as illustrations.
While I’m already a published poet, that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to put out a book of my own. So currently, my attention is being divided between several aspects of getting things ready for this project. I’m in the process of selecting certain photos that will serve as illustrations of my poetry.
I’m also trying to arrange the poetry in a way that for me fits chronologically. While I’ve written, re-written and edited certain poems there’s always more. One of the problems I’ve been running into is that when I write sometimes time passes in between poems. At which point you tend to accrue more experiences, which in turn leads to more poetry. Sometimes about another topic having nothing to do with the emotional theme of your previous works.
This collection of poetry spans a time period of a decade. I graduated high school in 2010 and I’ve been writing since then. Throughout that time I’ve had lots of experiences. Some good, some bad, all can be learned from.
During those years I went through some very dark times. Some of the topics I’ve touched on here in my blog previously. That in mind, it’s a look at my experiences from high school all the way up to current. I look at this project as taking my own personal copy of a cassette tape from a therapy session, putting it in the player then playing the tape while hooked up to an amp.
I’m putting my emotions and experiences on blast for all to see. It’s quite empowering to be honest. As of the date of writing this I’m much more at peace, I’m got goals in mind for the near future and I’m thinking this is a good place to start.
I’m starting to think about name ideas for the book and there’s one I’m heavily entertaining at the moment. I will say though that as of now there’s thirty six pages written. Thirty six! That’s before even putting the photos for illustrations in! Along with that I’ve started going through a process I learned from about a year ago.
Take a photo, think about where you were, what was around you, what you were doing. Use a photo to recreate a memory, then when the memory is refreshed? Write about it. I’ve got pictures of so, many, things. Concerts, nature, landscapes…
Several of these photos have spawned new ideas for poetry. Some of the new material I’ve been working on is a newer style of poetry I’ve come to enjoy. I believe there’s at least one haiku in there as well, in spite of the fact I have very little experience in that style. I took risks in my time writing to do as Ezra Pound would suggest and make it new.
While getting ready to do this project and in fact. Even before I took the leap and started this up, there was a poet I had heard about. Stumbled across a youtube video of him doing a reading of one of his books and was inspired. So I took another leap and bought all three of his books. I can safely say I wasn’t disappointed.
His name? Atticus. You can find him on social media too which, ironically is where he got his start. While reading one of his books I realized I very much liked his style. Very minimalist, very compacted and emotionally dense poems. I decided to try doing this with some of my poetry and there’s at least a few that I believe have accomplished this.
I’m proud of every single word I’ve written, and continue to write for this collection. Every single word was meant to be scratched into notebook pages. Sit there, be edited, then further revised. I feel that since I left school at the College of Southern Idaho my writing has continued to be slimmed down.
Filler words started being scratched out, I started streamlining my poetry as much as I could. The process of getting to this point has challenged my abilities and views as a poet. When this collection is finally released you’ll see the streamlined version.
However, I think I may even write a poem about the emotional experience of putting this all together. It’s now a labor of love and I’m too deep in to stop. I may even take a photo of the very rough drafts. Lines through lines to be omitted, editing marks, scratched out words here and there. Punctuation edits too; I want people to see that poetry, like life is VERY rarely clean from beginning to end.
My friends, a new chapter is beginning and I think I’m liking where things are heading so far. I hope y’all are staying safe during these times; take care of each other. Going through life alone is rarely advisable, check in with your friends and family. Could be a time to reconnect, there’s always time for new beginnings in my opinion.
Peace be with you my friends; Rapha Yada.
Richard
Holy Water, Burning Man 