And while we're on the subject of Poetry... And men.
A few things, and then a story.
1.)
First of all, Magical Amal, Queen of the Goblins, is blogging for Tor. Tor must have made the correct oblations, offered the ripest pomegranates and persimmons, maybe sent her a box of Harry and David and a few Unseelie Skulls. Who knows?
BECAUSE IN RETURN SHE HAS WRITTEN FOR THEM THIS BEAUTIFUL THING!!!
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/04/how-to-read-poetry-101-whys-and-wherefores
And guess what???
THERE WILL BE THREE MORE!
BECAUSE! 1 + 3 = 4!!!
Which RHYMES!
So keep your eyes peeled. But also keep 'em close to your chest. Don't hold 'em out in the palm of your hand. It's too tempting. You never know WHO will come sweeping down to eat 'em.
2.
Papaveria Press has released my poetry collection HOW TO FLIRT IN FAERIELAND OTHER WILD RHYMES... into the DIGITAL REALM OF GLORY!
http://www.papaveria.com/2013/how-to-flirt-in-faerieland-digital-edition/
SO...
YOU COULD BUY ONE FOR YOUR E-READER!!! It has ALL the pictures!
Or barring that, spread the word. :) If the spirits so move you.
3.)
THE DREAD TEMPLETON has a Poetry Tumblr for International Poetry Month.
Today she presented a bit of THE WILD PARTY.
And if you've never experienced even a verse of that... Get thee hence!
http://oddrot.tumblr.com/post/47584446661/national-poetry-month-day-9-poet-j-m-march
And if you like THAT, there's LaChuisa's musical, starring Mandy Patinkin and Toni Collette, which I've always wanted to hear the whole way through myself, but haven't yet. Just bits.
BUT OH THOSE BITS!!!
***
And now my story. It's about poetry, sort of. And men.
There's a lad at work. One of those golden boys. Adored, fawned over, sort of telepathically pawed by everyone from the tweenies to the twenty-somethings to the everything-over-thirties.
And he's nice - mischievous - a good voice - with the easy ways of someone who probably caused ruthless rumbles between girl gangs in elementary school just by being cheeky.
In short, the sort of lad I generally have little to do with, because, well, everyone else is having to do with him!
But one day we got to talking, and he was kind. He demanded I sing for him. He asked me about my various interest - my audition, my writing. Later, he even looked up my byline online, which is not a step most polite people ("Oh, you're a writer? That's nice. Do you have anything published? Do you have any books?") think to take once they've escaped the confines of our polite conversation.
So that moved me right where my ego is. And he was a little more on my radar than usual.
I was flipping through my journal during the slow hours one afternoon last week, and came across a list of words I liked. He was in a position near to my booth, so I read him some of it through the microphone. Also, Dickens' description of Florence, which I found scribbled on one of those pages.
"Those are some nice words," he said.
"Yes," I said, "this journal is almost full. Story fragments. Bits of poems. Novel ideas. It sort of chronicles my whole last year!"
"Am I in it?"
I laughed. "No! Do you want to be?"
"Yes."
"Shall I write you a poem then?"
"Yes," he said, then hesitated. "Write me a poem to my beauty."
This was audacious. I suspected he was teasing, though his face was grave. So I gave him my Best Dubious Eyebrow and asked, "Do you really think you need one?"
And he said, in the oddest voice, "Yes. Right now I need to be told I am beautiful."
A few days pass, but I write the poem.
...Because I have so often written poems to the beauty of those I find beautiful. And so often they are UNSOLICITED. And then, of course, I present it to the Beautiful One, often with a disclaimer in the envelope, in hopes of mitigating the inevitable and damnable awkwardness. My philosophy on humans-as-muses is:
"Okay, now, Claire, see, CORAGGIO! The poem wouldn't even have been written without them, so you really can't get away with NOT giving it to them; it's just not fair; and besides, what if no one else in their lives EVER WRITES THEM A POEM? Tragic!!! And even if it's REALLY AWKWARD, well, you may be FAMOUS some day, and then they'll have something of yours to sell on eBay, so that makes up for the brief, initial awkwardness, amirite?"
(I should maybe pare down my philosophy some. But whatever.)
This has resulted in... Well. Most of my twenties.
Sigh.
But I am 31 one now. And here is someone asking. Someone who may think he's asking as a joke, but who sounded weirdly wistful and earnest at the same time. Someone who needed to be told he was beautiful. Maybe by someone who didn't want anything from him.
And I thought, Why not? So I did.
When he came to say hello in passing a few days later, I asked, "Do you still want your poem?"
He said, after a long pause, "Nooooo." But more like he didn't believe I'd asked the question.
"Okay," I said, slightly taken aback.
"I wasn't serious!" he protested.
"Okay," I said, shutting my journal and beginning to close my window.
And he slid his hand in there so fast it was like the Karate Kid VS the Box Office!
"No, I want it, I want it!"
I gave him his poem. In the break room later, he thanked me, said it was beautiful, said he liked it. And that the last line especially was true. And that no one had ever done anything like that for him before.
And then he asked, "Has anyone done that for you?"
And I laughed and said, "Oh! Lots!" realizing that, in fact, I have been SHOWERED with poems. My father, my mother, several of my brothers, my best friends have all written me poems. The first boy I ever kissed wrote me poems and songs. Many of my dearest writer friends RIGHT NOW write me poems... Or write me into their stories. Or drop Easter Eggs in character or text or circumstance that I know are just for me.
How wonderful is THAT? How lucky am I? How lucky are WE? How RIGHT it should be this way! More please, from ALL of us!
It's like National Poetry Month in my life ALL THE TIME.
And I just wanted to say to you, reading this...
Look. If you're asking yourself whether or not to write that poem, about that person or thing you find beautiful?
Please. Just do it. Worry later.
Or heck, don't worry at all. Like Amal noted in her Tor.com blog, there are people to whom poetry means life or death. And there are people (I have met them; they exist) to whom poetry is an awkward, icky, dessicated fruitcake (and the poet is something rather worse).
But somewhere between, there are also people who've never been told, in the most heightened and precise language possible to the humble wordwright at hand, that they are beautiful, they are noted, they are seen.
And you know?
It's spring.
***