Standing Apart
Location: Rochester, Southeast Minnesota
In this issue:
- A Thank you!
- Excerpt From My Daring New Book
1. Thanks to My Seminar Attendees
Almost two dozen folks attended my series of writing and publishing seminars in Rochester, Minnesota during the month of August.
I truly appreciate each of you who not only attended, but participated enthusiastically, even though I bludgeoned you with a ton of information that I’m confident you will use. But hey, a leopard can’t change his stripes (yeah, I know).
I also appreciate all of your purchases of my books. Please let me know what you think of them. Authors live and die by reviews, and I eagerly look forward to any accolades, of course, but I especially need critical reviews as well. That’s how you and I grow as authors.
I am also grateful to have been asked for an encore performance at 125Live! next Spring, kids, so as Arnie would say, “I’ll be back!” Some of you have also requested a seminar on writing, reading and critiquing poetry. Let me think about that. But in that very spirit, I offer you a sample from one of my latest books below. Consider reading something different. Do you dare to venture out, intrepid soul?
C’mon, “it don’t hurt!”
2. Excerpt From a Daring New Book
If you haven’t yet realized, it takes guts to publish a book—any book. You risk “putting it all out there for the whole world to see.” Inevitable doubt crawls all around and through me as I ask myself:
- Will my readers hate it?
- Is the entire idea of my book dumb?
- Even if the idea isn’t dumb, is my writing going to ruin an otherwise good book idea?
- Will I sell even a single copy?
- Add your own personal poison to this list that could be short or long, depending on your own temperament.
This list can be lengthy, especially if you venture far from your comfort zone, like I did with this book. But what’s life without spice? To me, that means a willingness and an openness to take literary risks! If reward seeks me out, that’s nice, but that will not hold my spirit hostage.
So, as harebrained an idea as it seemed, I decided to publish a book about poetry. “What?” my mentors exclaimed. “Yup, poetry, but with a twist. I’m going to first write a guide on how to read and interpret fine poetry, to better appreciate what I call this art form’s “sexy anatomy.” And then, I’ll include a brief subset of my own collection so readers can more effectively rip my work to ribbons with their newfound knowledge!
“That’s a really dumb idea,” I was told, “Stick to your genre,” they said, “this book will never sell.”
“I do not care.” I was adamant about this. I’d scribbled verses on napkins and reams of discarded paper when I worked as a third-shift computer operator decades ago. Collected them all, and finally digitized them (as we used to say).
Some people collect tattoos. I write poems… on paper… and with a keyboard—they’re easier to edit than tattoos.
Further, I was taught by esteemed poet—John Sibley Williams, serial winner of the prestigious Pushcart Prize for Fine Poetry—that it is a privilege to know what a poet was thinking when they composed the poem after you read it, or hear it performed. “It is a window into the poet’s soul.” I thought including that very window after each verse might enhance the readers’ experience as they read my new brain-fart of a book (of which I am now quite proud).
Toward that end, I would offer a few words of “author’s advice” before each piece, as well as a brief essay after each piece that would yield clues into that poem’s architecture and the insanity that inspired it.
I’d also embellish each piece with an original image relevant to each poem.
Now that would be a unique book about and of poetry!
I was told, “You will further shrink its already niched-down audience.” I said, “I do not care! I gotta do this.”
This is my vision for “The Poetic Detective.” See the book’s synopsis here. It is now available worldwide (gulp)—my third book published in 2022.
But I still kept asking myself, “What, in my particular Hell, am I doing? I have so many novels yet to write. This is a distraction. I’m already seventy-two years old, and I’m running out of frickin’ time.”
But then I remembered another aphorism from one of my other revered mentors, “Never quit,” she’d say, “That includes never quitting on an idea if it is your passion.”
So, I’m putting it all out there with this book, kids. Think what you will. This is my biggest personal publishing risk to date—a window into my wildly imperfect soul. Think less of me if you will.
This is an exercise in personal courage, and I feel great!
With all humility, I offer you this verse, an excerpt from my latest book, “The Poetic Detective:”
A Profile in Personal Courage
Author’s advice:
The solitary image of an elegant creature stands on just one leg in darkness. While beautiful, it seems ill-defined with a shadowy and cool color palette of finite colors. This creature is unsure of himself, looking within his own hollow heart for answers to arrive at some conclusion about his inflexibility. We must find this muddy declaration ironic as others have always viewed him as the essence of flowing grace.
This eight-line poem, though using metaphorical imagery, is self-evident. Even so, I will offer you a few insights why I used some unusual phrases in the brief essay that follows the poem.
* * *
A solitary soul stands alone so preposterous,
no longer a mere reflection, now a beacon.
A cacophony, their platitudes ring so boisterous,
bounce around him like so many who have weakened
to temptations of easy mirrors grown squalid,
he’s polished his keen vision to a deep stained-less screen,
their certitudes still echo behind, he greets a less solid
footing, slipping and sliding on a cellophane sheen.
* * *
Poet’s Notes:
I am exceedingly proud of the image I created and selected to introduce this poem. This abstraction of a great egret captured a blue ribbon (first place) for me in the 2011 Florida Council of Camera Clubs statewide competition in the Creative Photography category.
Of far greater significance, this effigy portrays that which is strange and misunderstood, even unrecognizable, yet esteemed in a corner of our mind, maybe in spite of appearing foreign to our concept of “normal.” Still, we find beauty and grace.
This poem ponders a man with a closed mind, believing only that which supports his current beliefs. But an unspoken event opens his aperture. We do not know what or why. Maybe he doesn’t either. Let’s explore the rationale for the language I chose.
When we follow what we are certain to be “true,” that is the precise time to challenge why we are so sure of ourselves (“no longer a mere reflection”).
That stand may isolate us from our peers (“A solitary soul stands alone so preposterous”). We may do so despite the surrounding noise to the contrary (“A cacophony, their platitudes rang boisterous”). We may even share our discoveries with others (“now a beacon”).
Even though the strength of our newfound convictions may cause others to see us as feeble pariahs, we remain strong (“bounce around him like so many who have weakened”).
The simple path of the benign follower (“to temptations of easy mirrors”) no longer draws our hero of newfound courage and morality. In fact, they have become a sordid taste to his evolving social palate (“grown squalid”).
He has, for an unspoken reason, clarified his view of himself and what he now recognizes as the impurity of his earlier motives (“he’s polished his keen vision to a deep stained-less screen”).
With the old platitudes haunting him (“their certitudes still echo behind”), he second-guesses his new attitudes (“he greets a less solid / footing, slipping and sliding on a cellophane sheen”). End of poem.
So is that it? What else? As in real life, some applaud someone else for taking a stand if he’s transforming himself, but we do not see the entire story. We cannot peer into the future, nor can he. The rest of the story remains a mystery. This is where your imagination takes control. Go wild.
Oh, you will have observed an a-b-a-b rhyme pattern. Not subtle. Neither is our new intellectual drone-now-hero, even though he may not feel like it. He has transformed at great personal expense. Doing the next right thing can be painful… and fulfilling. Unless he caves to social pressure once again.
Which way will your wind blow, my friend?
So until… and wherever (from SE Minnesota, for a few more days)…
Gene (and Kay)
