Thursday, November 17, 2011

SPEAK! / red plaid

Heya tonight is Speak! Word Iz Bond event at the Company House http://wordizbondcollective.org/speak-series/ (this site is never up to date, eek but it gives you a taste of what its all about, their Facebook page is more reliable :)and I am going to be performing during the open mic, time permitting!

It has been a productive writing day for me. The script TRAILER TRASH *finally* goes out tonight to all my lovely actors, I have been waiting for it to be perfect, but since we know writers can edit forever and still never be satisfied, I have decided to let my (horror) baby out into the world. It is about time. Sigh.

Babies have been quite a theme of late. 

Tonight I am planning on performing "Baby Mama/ Lit" a piece I shared with my lovely writers' group The Wired Monks a month or so ago. It is silly and fun, here's a taste:

"I don't wanna be your baby mama / but that don't mean I don't wanna / be pregnant with your stories / forever/ or whenever / I feel like letting them drop / pop pop / pop goes the weasel/ to save the damsel in distress / but her hair's a mess / and she's not his type / would up too tight / anyway / I'm big with them / synonyms / of wild free sex / forbidden texts / to tell your mother / you'd never fuck her / whatever Oedipus says / you bow your head / to the power of it all / my belly to fill up to devour / pretty pictures in rhyme / it's time...

My piece "I am cigarettes and I hurt babies" may also be on the agenda for tonight. It is new and may need a few tweeks but it feels fitting anyway:

"I am cigarettes and I hurt babies
and not just the ugly ones
bloated bellies and scabies
but the perfect ones too
with all their fingers and toes
and rosy cheek glow
I hurt them too
because I can    thank you
Philip Morris..."

Today also feels like a red plaid day. I have a long wool skirt and a houndstooth scarf that when worn together make me feel like a hunter or a lumberjack. Not too shabby methinks.

Poetry is not dead but rather vocal and maybe a bit angry or angsty. Amen.

Do something nice today. While doing research on cigarettes and of all things gang rape (don't ask, a long story, I need some horrible graphic research for a piece I am working on), I found too many atrocities on the Internet. Surprise, surprise. So hug a stranger, maybe wear pink instead of sombre black and grey and think how lucky you are not to be imprisoned for political and spiritual beliefs, all that Occupy stuff aside, you are alive and I am pretty sure you got to eat today. 

Love each other.
Mar










Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Digging through the garbage for returnables/ worth the effort

Writing is hard work. This has been said. This will be said again.

Writing is also terrifying, uplifting, hilarious, insightful, mood-altering, vulnerable, deletable, lasting, and relentless.

Some of my writer friends lament the existence of their old journals, unpolished stories, teenage poetry and B- papers on the origins of the species as though they were physical sign post failures of mind and spirit. I wrote this, this was true once, what did I know? They have promises from loved ones to burn and destroy upon death, the only words left the publishable ones and the epitaph. The writer is both extrovert and hermit - read my words but only when they are perfect and know I had something *important* to say. It is so easy to paralyze oneself for fear that words and images will be taken out of context, will mark the writer as illegamate, as ignorant, as foolish.

I have allowed myself to be paralyzed. But just for a little while.

I quit writing every few years as though that will somehow make things better, as though writing is an addiction to seek therapy for - I've done it, sought therapy, burned poetry, stopped buying pens and pencils, tried to shut off the stories that come and come and come, relentless beasts! Story will not go away no matter how hard I try, no matter how I try to demote her as  some sort of mental deficiency - Doctor I have these voices in my head...

My beautiful creative writing teacher at U of T, Elizabeth Ruth, made it clear to me, how dysfunctional the writers internal world can be. It is a gift and a curse and there is nothing more satisfying than getting down on paper what has been puttering inside one's head for minutes, hours, days.

There has been a piece that has been particularly dominant the past little while and I don't want to write it but I know I must because it will torture me otherwise. It leaves me feeling dark and vulnerable but maybe when it hits the light and the page it will become something else something multi-faceted and not at all as scary as I imagine; this is the truth for most things, fear of the unknown.

There is a soft spoken man in my neighbourhood who gathers returnable bottles for exchange. My roomie and I leave a bag outside for him. I met him for the first time today while I sparred with a crossword puzzle. He said, "Lady, you've got to know what you are looking for, digging through the garbage, well you know it's worth the effort."

I couldn't agree more. I want to share something with you...

Mar