Agonies of a Young Author

aka, big girls don't cry.

aka, big girls read classic poetry.

aka, Shelly pulled up her big girl pannies and went to Barnes and Nobles to buy big girl poetry. Namely, Emily Dickinson, Slyvia Plath, and Langsten Hughes.

I figured it was time to stop salivating over Wislawa Szymborska and go read some other people. Okay, I'll never stop drooling over "Nothing Twice" or "Could Have" or any of my other favorites. But I should expand so that I won't be writing in imitation of Szymborska for the rest of my life, which is of course what I am doing now. Not in the good, healthy, learning way either.

Maybe that's why my poetry is so bad. It's not me and it's not her. It's somewhere in between, and somewhere in between is a lost, frigid, desolate, unpublished sort of place. Heh.

Anyways, I have worked through the scholarly introduction to Dickinson, and the first few pages. I haven't yet touched the others, out of a misguided need to finish the entire Dickinson collected works before moving on to the next poet. Which will keep me poetically ignorant until the end of doomsday. *Note to Self: Ignore AR tendencies, amp up rational diversification*

I take it as a good thing that I have at least bought the books. It's a 12 step program:

1) Think of the books
2) Think of the books in connection with the thought of buying them
3) Go to the bookstore and forget to buy the books
4) buy the books
5) put books on bookshelf
6) take books down, move to couch, forget, reshelve
7) repeat
8) open cover
9) read intro
10) re-read intro
11) read first chapter
12) re-read first chapter through to the end chapter

Yep, yep. That's how it goes. For pretty much any real book of hefty worth and weight. Especially my textbooks. I mean, recommended reading. No, I mean extra research, I mean..... damn. Daddy don't read this part, 'kay?

Write Now:
What I'm listening to: ABBA "Winner Takes It All"
What I want most: schleeeeeeeeeeep!