Carolee Bennett –> poet. artist. crankypants.
I was totally surprised when I started evaluating progress on my official 2016 writing /poetry goals. According to my mood related to writing in 2016, I believed I’d failed every goal I’d set. Turns out, I totally nailed it.
The Fast Company article says creative folks need three kinds of creative circles — a scene, a network and a community. No matter how you label your support system, I believe in what he has to say. I do think relationships balance out the solitary, internal work we’re called to do.
When I find a phrase, an image or line that shows me something new, I believe in transformation — of the moment, of the object, of the self. And when I put them together into a finished poem, the whole world starts to make sense.
When a poet can pull off intimacy and distance at once, the poems stand out as something truly remarkable. Sad Math by Sarah Freligh is full of poems like that. As Sandra Meek says in a blurb at the book’s beginning, these poems are “nervy and frank, hilarious and heartbreaking.”