Sometimes, I think I spend more time with my head in the clouds than down here in the weeds. I’ve always found the sky to be “knock-me-on-my-ass beautiful.” Always looking up. And looking up some more. It helps me breathe.
This summer, thanks to time at a nearby pool floating on a raft shaped like a slice of pizza, I figured out what may be behind this obsession, what’s fueling my excitability: Holy shit, I realized on a recent spin around the pool. I’m on a planet!
Yes, we know this intellectually, but it’s another thing to spend time in awe of the fact. Wonder is critical to being a poet, and I don’t take it for granted. I’m so grateful for the reminder that we’re hurtling through space.
Collective human space travel is one thing, but my attraction to clouds isn’t all science. Sometimes clouds can be messages from The Other Side. It’s true. Or at least what I want to believe.
The photo with the wisp documents what I’m calling the “Let It Be” cloud, and its story involves a bit of magical thinking. Here’s the scene:
I’m outside on a recent evening revising a poem in my Gertie manuscript. The poem, which is about mourning my mother, features a Beatles’ tune and a catch/release fishing metaphor. Deep in the edits (the poem has never really “worked” ’til now), I look up at the sky — and spot a fish hook cloud (or chemtrail/contrail).
It is, of course, a sign. A sign she’s still here? A sign I’m doing good work? A sign I’m doing good, period? I don’t know. I don’t interrogate it at all. I just enjoy the thrill of it. The “dropping all resistance” of it.
Summer so far has called for more than floating in the pool. Chris and I had a fabulous time on a 4-day camping/paddling trip over the Summer Solstice. Weather was mixed, but as you can see, we did get some sunshine. And in one of the photos, you’ll also spy my poetry manuscript, which I am actively revising again. (More on that in a bit…)
On recent Artist Dates, Jill Crammond and I have been talking about wanting to live creative lives, to buckle down and put in work, to feel like poets, to be part of and contribute to vibrant creative communities.
There’s one problem with the wish: I think we’re already doing it LOL (I took my poetry manuscript into the Adirondacks, for crying out loud!)
As I was putting together my last recap of creative activities, it hit me: I’m doing more than I think I’m doing. So why does it feel like I’m not living a creative life? Is there a disconnect between how I’ve romanticized creative life vs. what creative life actually looks like? What does it really mean to live a creative life? Maybe the only thing I’m missing is the belief — the confidence — that I’m doing the damn thing.
Maybe I need to reconnect with the thrill of it.
Maybe I need to drop all resistance to it.
And maybe I’ve been so focused on the single mantra “Don’t Quit!” that I haven’t caught up with the fact that I’m no longer white knuckling the creative life .
There are different varieties of “Don’t Quit.” One is in reaction to rejection. And wow — I’ve had a couple solid years of NO’s. It would only make sense that I’ve been hanging onto “Don’t Quit” as a stubborn response to so many doors closing.
But there is another kind of “Don’t Quit,” and it’s driven not by fear but by love and passion. Maybe that’s the magic of living a creative life.
A recent installment of Erinn Batykefer’s Substack “The Long Pause” has something to contribute here. In Erinn’s interview with Kelley Beeson, author of Undress, a chapbook from Lefty Blondie Press, Kelley recalls a question from Big Magic: “What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?” Reflecting on her prior focus on publishing alone, Kelley reflects, “[Publication] became my main engine in writing. Yuck. There are other, more interesting reasons to write.”
More interesting reasons to write. Yes! ❤️
We’re creatures on a planet careening through the universe, by the way.
Speaking of “more interesting reasons to write,” how about a Gertie manuscript update? Last month, I told you I’d moved, finally, from “not sure I want to jump back into the process” toward the decision to keep fighting for the book. This month, I have jumped back in. I am in the fight.
I’m deep into revision of individual poems and have stumbled onto a brand-new structure. The work has required big cuts (killing lots of darlings) and the radical acceptance that prior versions weren’t doing what I’d hoped they were doing. Despite some nods from presses, the manuscript still needed lots of attention. The year I stepped away from it gave me enough distance to see that clearly. It also delivered the wisdom this next iteration really needs.
It’s also been an exercise in clarity. In asking, Does this say what I want it to say? Without a doubt? In other words, there’s a more interesting reason for these revisions. Yes, to get published, but also to capture the energy, trajectory, story, power, etc. I want to share with the world. (And I believe, more than I ever have, that I have the skills to get it there.)
As a result, the current poem-level and manuscript-level revisions feel muscular and transformative. It’s not so different that it loses what the editors and presses who liked it may have seen in it. It’s just getting better at delivering.
And it feels like I’m getting Gertie ready for something bigger than I imagined in earlier drafts. It’s a joy to be at that level of excitement, and I think it’s making me better at revising. It has certainly made me more dogged! Gertie won’t be ready for some 7/31 deadlines I wish I could hit, but I think I’ll be sending it out again starting in September.
Would you believe that while I was coming to all this faith and possibility, one of my kids published this YouTube video:
“You deserve it all.”
“If you’re not scared, you’re not dreaming big enough.”
I’d like to think he got some of that from me. But parents, haven’t we’ve all had moments where our kids level up ahead of us? This is one of those. Who’s teaching whom at this point? 😭
As a reader of this blog, you know I enjoy creating lists of poems and other poetry resources/writing inspiration for you. I have collected prose poems, letter poems, list poems and odes. I have celebrated poems using anaphora, poems with octopuses, poems with Barbie cameos, and poems about apocalypse.
Before I close out this post, I want to share a project that’s in a similar vein to what I do here. It’s by another poet. (It doesn’t always have to be about me LOL)
Check out “Write More Villanelles,” a website from powerhouse poet and literary citizen Dustin Brookshire! It features villanelle-focused videos, articles, interviews and even a template for writing a villanelle of your own.
I’ll end here with my notes — and photos — from the June’s creative activities. (Remember, if this kind of thing doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip it.)
JUNE 2025 WRITING
- Typed dozens of free writes from writing journals from fall/winter 2024 and winter/spring 2025
- Started (and consistently tended) a fresh round of revisions of my Gertie manuscript
- New poem drafts X2 (both of which are new additions to the manuscript)
- Free writes X3
- Legwork/research, design, editorial planning and writing toward a new social media project celebrating poetry and poets (anticipating a September 2025 launch)
JUNE 2025 ART-MAKING
- Work on and finish “Canary #1” painting
- Sketchbook spreads (painting) x5
- Plen air sketching x1
- Power lines sketches X3
JUNE 2025 BLOGGING
- Completed a post re-capping April/May creative life
- Worked on upcoming posts, including resources listing sonnets, “self portrait” and “how-to” poems
- Created and published an Instagram carousel to promote the June poems from my Poems for Every Month of the Year blog post
JUNE 2025 INSPIRATION & ADMIN
(I could have placed these under their respective art or writing categories, but I’m trying to be honest about if I’m consuming inspiration more than I’m doing the work.)
- Daily Morning Pages
- Summer poetry workshops with the Madwomen in the Attic x3
- Zoomed with my private “Second Best Witches” writing group x2
- Prepped and delivered a painting for a local art org member show in Troy, NY
- Created artist bio, artist statement and artist CV
- Prepped and delivered a painting for a group exhibit in Saugerties, NY
- Updated the “Artwork by Carolee Bennett” page on this website/blog (UPDATE: This is now found at caroleebennett.com/art)
- Watched webinar on developing a playful mindset in art making
- Artist’s Date with Jill Crammond
- Ass in Chair Collective (an online creative co-working space) X2
JUNE 2025 READING
- All Fours (novel) by Miranda July
- closer baby closer (poems) by Savannah Brown
- The Book of Alchemy (creative nonfiction) by Suleika Jaouad
- Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift (poetry anthology) edited by Kristie Frederick Daugherty
- Jane: A Murder (hybrid) by Maggie Nelson
JUNE 2025 SUBMISSIONS, PUBLICATIONS & EXHIBITIONS
(I’m back to submissions after months of nothing, nothing, nothing. These are all art-based, but I’m proud to be sending out work of any kind!)
- Entered “Canary #1” in the FENCE Member Show, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY (exhibition runs June 18 – July 31, 2025)
- Submitted “Canary #1” to Asterales: A Journal of Arts and Letters (the piece was accepted for Issue #3, publishing on my birthday in July 2025)
- Submitted “December Afternoon Snow on Ogunquit Beach” painting (and the sketchbook pages that launched it) to a call for art. (It was accepted and will appear in a group exhibition, “Sketchbooks: Working Out Ideas,” at The Sketchbook Gallery of the Jane Street Art Center, Saugerties, NY (exhibition runs July 5 – August 2, 2025)
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