She loved Nancy Drew as a kid and since age 10 has not stopped
reading. She wrote her first poem at age 12 and was delighted her
mother thought she had copied it out of a book. This maternal utter
disbelief locked in her sense of fate. In high school she was a bad
girl, rejected and abandoned by 'the group,' hence the angst and
freedom in being 'an individualist.'
Enter the Goddess of the Change o' Life bringing menopausal
hormones off the chart, wildness returning with a vengeance, creativity
at an all time high, poems, screenplays, many first chapters of novels
crowding for attention, family and social norms at a low. Chastened, sobered,
and o so much wiser, she volunteers teaching homeless moms Japanese
flower arranging. She lives one day at a time. She writes daily. And
prays often.
Where I want to go is to relieve what is inside me, the thing that
wants to be said. I know when I've gotten there; sometimes it's what I
thought it would be, other times, no big wop. Once you have felt the
flow and the surge of the ride then the getting to the end is just
that. It's not about creating a 'product,' not a means to an end, the
thrill is the ride itself.
What works for me creatively is to keep writing no matter what.
All art is discipline, perservance, and if we do it long enough and
make all the usual mistakes, then in time we learn, we naturally get
better and better. I also like to read a lot, a great variety of
stuff, but good writing is better for you, like good food. I
dialouge in my writing with every thing I am reading. I don't worry if
anything makes sense; theory is always available, parallel universes
for example, o yes, that's rich. Let the reader make the connections.
You can't avoid the core of your passionate obsession, so no matter how
much you dress it up or put it in armour, still stay close to it or
your writing is going to be superficial.
From Cheri Smith
All around, thick dark ashes, smoldering, suffocating,
an ashen choir hums anti hallelujahs, a small feathery beat
the only persistent rhythm: broken, broken, broken…
And so it is for eons of broken time, or so it seems,
in all skies known and unknown, broken mountains fall
into seas; continents arise, species are born, broken, die,
the ashes mount, the ashes mount on what is beneath,
and only the beat remains.
No day is day nor night, night but neon grey sameness
Broken by memories of gold flecked mornings, stretching
and flying, the very essence of being, is it not, broken,
the nest, every stick lovingly gathered, broken, the babies,
their soft little bodies, their open pink mouths, attempts to fly,
the pride, the sorrow falling like mountains, broken.
Death would be relief, the dreaded choir
at last shutting the hell up, the tedious waiting over, has not
every facet of this been examined, endured, then endured some more,
endured yesterday, the day before, the year and the eon before?
And what of today, the great sooty stinking now?
Grey frustration with intermittent black rain is forecast for today
And will extend to infinity and beyond, no movement
will be allowed or possible, no motion of mind, limb, no desire and
finally no fear, for what more is there to lose?
Finality is this crowded hell, where not another ash can fall.
There is no space left to suffer one more thing.
Then it came: Who is thinking this? Who sees itself
trapped in this sooty grave? It was not a little jagged ray cleaving
another facet of the black diamond of despair. No. It was not a ray expanded
and a shaft, upwards of luminescent escape. No.
It was full flight, instantaneous, wings spread, soaring, it was blue sky,
everywhere birds singing, it was a voice, not me, not the me, singing, lifting
and ascending delirious and serene, it was peace, happy chirpy busy innocent simple
flight. The I bird, the bird I thought I was, caged, smothered,
nearly dead from every dark emotion, that cage was broken,
broken, broken!
"Hey Stoopid!" the skinny kid said. "Dontcha know that School's Out?". I didn't like being called stupid, but what could I do? So I said, "Sorry, I was Lost in a Dream, Somewhere in a Jungle, where the flowers were really pretty, and the birds are all singing..."
"Hey!" the skinny kid said, "I'm Eighteen and not getting any younger. You Drive Me Nervous, man, get out of my way."
"Would you like some coffee from my thermos?" I asked.
"Sure, man, Give It Up" the skinny kid replied. "Tastes great. What's in it?"
"Poison", I muttered. "No More Mr. Nice Guy."
(rock on, Alice!!!)