Where Have All The Poems Gone?

I recently read Chuck Wendig’s post entitled, “25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing (Right Fucking Now).” It is brilliant, hilarious and above all, exactly what I needed to hear. It resonated with me and it made me realize how much I value my occupation as a writer.

More importantly, the article helped me recognize what I need to start doing, which is to take my writing seriously and stop publishing my poetry on a publicly viewable internet page instead of as an E-Book or entering it into competitions or as a submission to a publication for consideration. That’s not why I wrote it initially but I love it and it poured out of me like a saline tear in response to tragedy, so why not do something with it?

As I hack away at revising the poems I once posted here like a chef grinding the sharp edge of his or her cutlery against a diamond grade sharpening stone, this place will serve its purpose as a Blog. I will provide clues to all 7 of you who might be interested in knowing how to find the poems moving forward. Hopefully they end up in an accessible location such as your bookshelf. Or perhaps they will be buried inside the file system of your Kindle so you’ll have something to do when your flight from wherever to home gets cancelled or delayed for 9 hours and there is no one interesting to observe and the cafes are all closed and the shelves at little pop-up vendor booths are bereft of magazines with Kim Kardashian’s latest appearance at some invite-only celebrity event on the front cover.

I appreciate all of the comments, follows, likes and other forms of adulation I’ve received from those of you I know in person and those of you who I only know as an avatar; some amazing writers have left notes here. That gives me an immeasurable sense of worth. It’s enough to want to see just how far I can fall down the rabbit hole so here’s to taking the blue pill and lunging forward into that dark, scary void that is the world of publishing. Or was it the red pill? Oh, shit – why is the wall pulsating like a human lung inflating with spoiled air and flattening out like a balloon poked with a sewing needle? Damn you, Alice.

[I’m coming for you on the Amazon ranks, Amanda Hocking…]

Benjamin Green © 2012