Saturday, April 30, 2011



I wrote three drafts to poems last night. I was up VERY late. Thank god the workshop was rescheduled. I may work on revising them today. I thought about posting the drafts up here, but I've decided it's best if I don't. Time to slow down and revise.

There's an article about Centro Victoria up at la bloga which I suggest you read, as this group will do a lot to support Mexican-American artists and writers in the future. Of that I have no doubt.

Thursday, April 28, 2011



A good day. I revised a problematic poem titled "Feeding Season," and I think due to some insightful suggestions, it is a much better poem now. It has more details and more interesting line breaks, and I suspect could improve even more with time and care. I'm growing impatient, so maybe it's now to hold back and revise. Now this leaves me wondering if I should send the manuscript back now or at the end of the summer. I think I will call to see if they read over the summer or not. Yes, I will do that. I'm scared I've been taking too long.

I've written a number of new pieces, but think I will work on them throughout the summer and send them out in the fall, since that's when most magazines start reading again.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011



Today, I am learning patience. I like the way he says in life we look back on the journey with a new light.

I just love this song!!!!

I just love this life!!!

I am trying to write poems tonight, but first I must cook dinner. Then I'll just let the feelings roll on by. Someone said they didn't like the word "flow" in poems, so I suddenly feel like using it.

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Here's something I just wrote. I may take it down. Not sure.

Today clouds graying and a blue sky hangs below
beautifully indifferent to the coming storm.
I drew a window with what’s hidden behind a curtain
and what’s open, penned with colors and pastels,
rubbed to a stained glass look. And even what’s seen
hides what’s unseen. Longing for magic, words that pop
but all that comes is a strange silence. The spring trees
still look like autumn, and winter is estranged in my mind.
Today clouds largely over the blue, and the bare trees
Sprouting only buds, a boy, a young man wearing a bandanna
rips off a branch for stick, it is green where the life was torn.
The ripping upsets us, though we use furniture and all kinds of abuse.
We wear abuse daily, but the sky saves us from ourselves
And the trees go on in their beauty, traumatized or not,
They grow on, teaching us a stillness, a way to wait and praise.

Peace and patience. I know I need to work on them.

Monday, April 25, 2011




Many Mountains Moving took two of my poems. Yay! I need to write some more poems and send some more poems out. Yet again I sent a snail mail submission to a magazine that has an online submission manager. But luckily they took some poems. I'm off. I have a working printer and semi-online access at the end of the month. I realize that writing this summer will be pertinent. I really need to zero in and focus on the poems themselves. It feels great to get some work accepted after so long being out of the action. I feel like rock-n-roll. I feel good. The poems taken are new ones which are not in the second manuscript, so I think I'll start a third. Yipee! I love having the opportunity to write for it is a privilege to be able to write, to have the time to write. Any one who says otherwise is crazzzy.

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I will be going to Canto Mundo!!!! Yay!!! Thank God I got that worked out. I'll be driving with my mom. Right on!!! She will stay with my sister in Dallas, then we'll head back to El Paso to visit with family.

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After 2008, I thought I would never be able to write again, so having two poems taken is huge for me. I feel very, very blessed despite the IRS and Colorado State Taxes, but I'm still grateful for I have some time to focus and write and read which has become more difficult for me to do over the years, so people liking some of my poems means a whole lot to me.

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Sunday, April 24, 2011

Review Published

My review of Maceo Montoya's THE SCOUNDREL AND THE OPTIMIST IS UP AT THE EL PASO TIMES.

Poems Accepted

Just got news I had a few poems accepted by a journal I respect. Yipee.

Friday, April 22, 2011

No arms, No Legs, No worries



My cousin Joe Loya posted this on facebook, and I think it's wonderful to watch. Believe in yoursef!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Here comes the summer around the white cloudy bend.
Today the clouds are moving slowly across the blue and the old
telephone wires criss-cross to nowhere across bare tree branches.
And where’s the surprise? Nothing to no one, I’m alone.
And where does her anger come from? We are but solitary days,
the questions of need roaming through us the deepest.
Here comes the summer sun through the clouds and I know I’m alive.
There’s no need to worry about others dissatisfactions.
I am the moment’s worryless dance, the way the summer heat
comes to us like a strange dance. We are worried and unhurt.
The past traumas lead us out into an open sky, and emptiness
flings itself through us a image, emptiness flings through us a strange curse.
We are like leaves, flowers and the trees, our counterparts
in this still existence, where movement often gives us fear.

Here comes the summer around the white cloudy bend.
Today the clouds are moving faster across the blue and the old.
This is the day of beginnings and healings. Who was the woman
whose hands sought to heal? What woundings teach us the divine?
We are but made-up words and breath and touch.
There’s little time left for us to feel.
Here comes the summer around the white cloudy horizon.
We are the bend, the vision that sees past the elephant clouds,
and though in her grave she lies, I’ll always be with her.
This is the day the small clouds drift in and out of animal images,
and I am once again six, sitting on the fence with a friend
learning the ways of the universe: change and change,
foreground, background, in between. How trouble sets us free.
There’s no need to worry about other’s complaints, I am finding
myself free of complaint--- Temperance has found me through luck.


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I think it's time I try to write some fiction and/or non-fiction, or something in between.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Don't be Shy

Please click on the link below to the ABR as Dagoberto Gilb and Ricardo Gilb's essay about the issue are now posted! They weren't up yesterday, but are up today.

I feel good. Excited to be part of this wonderful community of writers! Very exciting things happening when it comes to Mexican-American Literature. Please pick up a copy of the American Book Review, and as Dagoberto Gilb says, "This is only the beginning." I see good things happening.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

American Book Review

The Mexican-American issue of the American Book Review is out, in which I have a review of Diana Garcia's When Living was a Labor Camp.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Wrote a flurry of poems today. Some were about running in the rain and how that's different than writing in the rain, as it was sprinkling as I wrote. I feel good about writing again. It had been a long, long time. I'd grown disillusioned with what people call po-biz. Ugh, it just makes me ill. Now I'm just so glad to be writing, and I recognize there are many communities one can become involved with in fostering the art. I realize I write mostly in free verse and am excited to have poems out circulating both electronically and with the snail mail. I made a mistake of sending snail mail to one place that now prefers electronic submissions. Boy have things changed in the last five or six years regarding submissions. I feel free though I am living in abject poverty, seriously. I've applied for social security and am resting for the first time in years and it feels fantastic. I had no idea I was under such stress. And stress can cause us to make poor decisions, lead us into depression and cause us to forget to see the beauty in the world. Seriously, I am so glad to be alive today, writing and reading. Someone kindly sent me four poetry books!!! I'm thrilled!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Such generosity is a blessing in my life as I must rely on checking books out at the library. It's nice to have some to pass on to someone else or something. I like that gift-giving sense of economy and generosity. And now I am going to get back to the poems.

Sunday, April 17, 2011



Got some help with the manuscript today, which makes me feel better. Disappointed I can't embed more Enya videos. Oh well. I will work some more on the manuscript this week. Hopefully, I'll figure out what I'm doing exactly with it in time. I deal with some strong personal traumas, including the deaths of good friends and others. This is no joke. Now, I'm thinking of going ahead with "Seven" or "Seven/Seven," but probably just "Seven."

I got some good advice today which helps a lot! I've not felt well today physically, but will go to sleep early tonight hopefully.

I've been writing some new poems to the Enya cd, and will likely listen to other stuff and see where that takes me with poems.

Concerned for the health of a family member. Wanting to move to San Francisco, but realizing the unlikelihood of this with my income, or lack there of. I just like San Francisco better than NYC. I suppose its the hills. Not sure. My cousin, actually 2 cousins live in the bay area. But it's more likely I'll stay in the great state of Colorado for a few more years. Hopefully I'll be able to head to the mountains this summer somehow. I live close to the foothills in Lakewood, but prefer to head up to my favorite horse trail when I have enough gas. I hope to attend Canto Mundo in Austin this summer. My mother will be making it possible for me to get there. I can also see my brother and sister on the way there.

Ah, Texas. I actually miss Texas.

But I'm a Coloradoan for now.

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I'd post some poems I'm working on but have decided its best to send work out to journals at this time.

Missing interactions with writers, daily interactions, but as someone said, we interact with writers when we read their work, so I'll probably be reading some this week as groups are cancelled till the 21st, but I think my roommate may be wrong about that. I hope so. I like to have something to do, but less stressful than teaching or working.

I'm off to facebook now.


People liked my poem, "The Breaking," today in the workshop. It was less problematic than I had previously thought. So much so that I am now thinking of titling the manuscript, "The Breaking."

Ooooohhhh those smiling faces.

Friday, April 15, 2011



I self-berated myself in the last two posts, and I don't do that anymore. In any case, I printed out a copy of Seven and am thinking of titling it "Seven" again, and I'm thinking of keeping Latin section titles too. It felt re-affirming to have a hard copy for some reason, and in having that hard copy, I don't think books will ever totally disappear? I suppose that may only be for my age group, and I'm 46. Young kids seem to prefer electronic devices and texting, so my guess is they would prefer something like nook or whatever it's called. Many poetry presses are not offering their books in this manner, which I think will be detrimental during the transition. People actually read poetry in this manner NOW. And most contemporary poets aren't publishing in this manner as presses are slow about doing so still. I want my books to be able to be downloaded or whatever in this manner. Does anyone know a press which is on nook etc? I don't think many even read this, but again, it does me good to relieve stress here, and I think in more ways than one the blog has taken a turn towards trauma, PTSD, bipolar etc. and how those things intertwine to make one tick. No it's not about that, it's about survival and moving beyond that to thriving. It's about finding confidence when one hasn't had it, or has gone between grandiose thinking and severe depression.

People still talk community, but for some, that's very narrow and others very broad. I prefer those with broad vision. VISION to see others outside of a narrow clique of 8 or so "friends". Thank god I am recognizing those that are supportive beyond a small group, beyond mere talk of support. I really have some HUGE support out there and I've been trying to get the support of people who just won't support me. There are many supportive Chicano/as who move like ghosts through the talkers and provide real action, assistance and support. I used to call this blog Chicana Poetics but changed the title. I maybe shouldn't have changed the title. I let myself get discouraged by a few, a very few human beings that made mistakes in their own grandiosity and since then that's changed. They have become about supporting others, but this wasn't always the case. I'm sorry to say this, but some folks screw others unintentionally. So over all, I've decided to write and maybe review a few books. This is my effort to support others whose art is working for me and move on to doing some good work.

I am finding community here in Colorado, but it's a long travel time, so I don't know where it will go. I'm trying another poetry group on May 5th.

Tomorrow I head to Westminster for a poetry group, which is way too far north for me to be attending. We'll see if I can make it through the rest of the course. Gas prices are obviously outrageous, and I'll have to take 3 buses to get there.

In any case, the main reason for my posting today is that I will no longer berate myself here or anywhere else. It's hard work. It's a long story.

I have an interest in the poetry of Witness, or poetry of trauma. I want to read Carolyn Forche's anthology on it, and more so I want to try to write about it, but it is very difficult.


But I can do it!

I think I can. I believe in myself. I will say these new hoaky words every day here on out.

Thursday, April 14, 2011



I realized the poetry group I'm to attend doesn't start till May 5th. I have another group of great poets that meets on Saturday, and hopefully I'll get a poem work-shopped. I have to take the bus. No gas money.

It's a problematic poem in my manuscript titled "The Breaking." I really hope to get some feedback on it, and make more copies by Sat. My second printer broke, but I exchanged it for a new one. Thank God. I really need a printer. Someone said to make the poem more dream-like using dream language, which is what I think I had initially, but I will play around with it and hopefully get some good feedback in the workshop.

Some frustration when I am not writing. I notice when I write I am just more happy than when I don't write. That said, I'm going to go try and write something.

I really love Enya, which possibly offsets my love for Dylan in some way. I am very thankful to the people who gave me the Enya CD. It's very soothing music to listen to.


Who am I kidding? I am boring!!!!!! ha

Wednesday, April 13, 2011



Today I didn't write at all, after having written two flat-footed awkward poems yesterday. Well, it's only 10 pm, so maybe I'll write something now.

It is raining here and so dark that I have difficulty driving at night. I wonder if I need glasses. I can't see a damn thing in the dark. One poem I wrote was about how darkness improves our ability to see. Maybe not in my case. It will be a relief somewhat when I get rid of the car in July, after Canto Mundo. I really can't drive anymore.

I am still making cards, drawing and trying to write poems. I really like Positively Fourth Street, despite its harsh tone. So much truth to it that it stings, and I'm probably on the other side of it now. If that makes any sense.

Feeling free to be me? Yes, somewhat.

All I have planned for is Canto Mundo and writing more, revising more, reading more. I can't afford AWP and nobody wants me on their panel anyway.

In the end it comes down to the appearance of this thing we call "success." I'm learning that success isn't all it's cracked up to be. It can be like trying to take a drink of water from a fire hose. I like people who flat out state that there's nothing to gain in poetry. Somehow, it's true. I mean in anything really. We are limited in our capabilities and those limitations can create havoc when we try to meet unrealistic goals, but I am thinking there are a lot of realistic goals I can set myself up to achieve, but what is success really? Everyone is your friend when things are going well, but if there's real life difficulties, financial stresses ect. people disappear. The goal is to be like a duck, smooth on top, but paddling frantically beneath the water. Somehow I think poetry is the whole duck. Sometimes the duck is frantically paddling up stream, sometimes he's flying awkwardly downstream, sometimes he's floating gracefully, and sometimes he's just plain shot dead. There was a goose in Denver with an arrow shot clean through his breast, and the news commentator said they couldn't catch him, but he seemed to not be bothered by the arrow. Yeah, right, just an arrow sticking out both ends. It doesn't seem to look too bad. But none the less, goose, duck, bird or any other metaphor, as a poet or as a human being there are times when you get stuck.


Peace.

Sunday, April 10, 2011



You have a right to need things from others.
You have a right to put yourself first sometimes.
You have a right to feel and express your emotions or your pain.
You have the right to be the final judge of your beliefs and accept them as legitimate.
You have the right to ask for emotional support (even though you might not always get it.
You have a right to protest any treatment or criticism that feels bad to you.
You have a right to negotiate for change.
You have a right to say no; saying no doesn't make you bad or selfish.
You have a right to choose not to respond to a situation.
You have a right, sometimes, to inconvenience or disappoint others.
You have a right to want things.

from the DBT Therapy Skills Workbook

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I really am getting into Enya and so thankful for the people who got me the CD.

I bought some construction paper to make people cards.

It's a beautiful, beautiful day. Still getting poems in the mail and writing new ones.

Cheers.

Friday, April 08, 2011

Today I wrote a poem about plants and women tentatively titled: "Woman as Afterthought." I am bummed I can no longer post videos, only link to them.
In any case, yesterday I wrote 3 poems and today the 4th, so now I need to work on revising them. Battling discouragement as a poet. I mean, Lord, the bullshit is just sooooo prevalent, but instead I will focus on the new poems and probably sending the manuscript out in the next week or two, somehow, as I am utterly broke. I may possibly wait until May 1st when I get my check. Yet, not having to teach is helping tremendously. I am less anxious, less overwhelmed and eager to write. I have a lot of anxiety and am, according to many, chronically shy in person. My last reading was a total flop as I'd grown so discouraged about po-biz, I felt no need to write, but the fact is, I need to write. I need to get my thoughts down and play with words. But more importantly, writing, the actual process of sitting down and getting something on paper makes me happy. I find it most often utterly pleasurable.

My writing group meets tomorrow and I will try to use the last of my gas to go. :(
Luckily, I will no longer be responsible for the car in July.

Got my hardship deferment for student loans in the mail today.

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My roomate is still very sick. Luckily I haven't caught it. We'll see.

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I am looking forward to reading some books and doing reviews. I need to order some press catalogs or request review copies. Hopefully, I'll soon find something I can review. My latest review is scheduled to come out in the El paso Times this week or next. It is on Maceo Montoya's THE SCOUNDREL AND THE OPTIMIST, a very good book I recommend.

I've spent some time on the bus and recognize more and more how a life in academia can be very offset from the lives of everyday working class people. I am blessed to be able to spend my days interacting with every day people who have to work long hours. I am very blessed to finally have time to write. Speaking of that, I need to get back to it.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Enya

I like this song a lot. I plan on writing about my experiences on the bus downtown today. There was a homeless woman sleeping and a woman with tatoos helped a frantic woman begging for a free ride get a ride to the Jeffco action center, so she'd have somewhere to sleep and some food. I myself have been there, so I think it's some fodder for a poem or poems. I'll see.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

All Good People (Your Move) by Yes



C likes yes. Maybe I have something to learn here. Wrote a rough sketch of a poem tonight about the contrast between the Chihuahua Desert and the high plains of Colorado. No, it was more about secrets and how language play and even poetry can be a charade to hide oneself from oneself, a mask if you will. Yes, it was about secrets and forgetting.

Ugh. Secrets. Forgetting. I could elaborate, but it seems best to try to write another poem.

Maybe in time the one I wrote can be tightened up a bit. The language of trauma is flat, I said before, and I think there's some plain-speech involved with the reality of violence. Poetry of Witness is what they call it I think, but it is poetry of trauma. In any case, I'd like to read some, but don't think I can. The poem as is gets a little prosy.

A bit tired of the angry polemics of politics everywhere. Yet, I remember the horror of injustice, but I wonder if people's obsessions about it are tied to their own issues.

We learn what we learn? In any case, I'm thinking about deleting all the previous posts again. Blogging is pretty much dead.

I submitted to Psychic Meatloaf. It sounded like an appropriate place. Glad to be rid of worrying where and how I publish, somewhat. The weirder the journal title, the better?

Water Shows The Hidden Heart



Night still black. Still feeling the loss of time. Wires hang above lifeless in the coming cold or warmth. I can’t remember who I am, my name flees in the sound of the wind. Loss comes in waves and freedom its close companion. Free. Freedom in the days. Everyone says let go of the self, but the self was uprooted at an early age, broken and unacquainted with justice. Fairness, he said, was not yours to have. There are a million sounds in a piece of music. We dream with our hearts. The streetlights glow in part through the dark curtains, and I am drawn in. I am sending poems through the quiet neediness. I was but the believer in small miraculous squirrels, blackbirds scattering through the pines. I am waiting for the sound of truth, the sound of beauty and many say both are dead. I watch the clock round its way late and I’m wondering what will come, what will come, what will come?

Some nights you feel alone in such bleakness. I heard the late night comedian chuckle and the din of -morning calling. I am un-awakened in the prime of my life? There’s a heated weariness to what I’ve lost. And letting go, the peace that waves through us like thinning clouds. I was dreaming the sunset over El Paso’s hills, sky of light, blood red, pinkish. Some nights you can’t find solitude, though you’re lonely as can be. Night has fallen through my dreams. Night has wrapped itself about my bones. I heard a whisper of need, a man on the telephone. Dreamt of friends too lonely to call, the river and the stream where blackbirds flew in time when she died, by the hundreds, as if to say, breathe, breathe again before you attempt to sing.

*

Still at midnight, reflecting back on past day lit clouds. The thin ones, others billowing, rising like cobras, silence takes its time. Where am I going? I’m lost in past hurt like a wounded child. I believed in love once, and suddenly it blew my face off.

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I feel stuck tonight, writing proves difficult. Disappointed in past mistakes, mistakes I re-do quite readily. I feel in some ways a failure, but it's time to take time off from the hectic pace of the world and rest. Maybe I'll be able to write tomorrow.

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Led Zeppelin/ Rock N' Roll



I sent the following poems to a journal today:

"The Silent One"
"The Good Dream"
"The Prodigy"
"Meditation"
"Grandparents"
"In Between Notes"

Hope to start doing some writing, generating some new work. Mostly I've been revising. I have to get back to revising the manuscript this week too. I think "The Good Dream" is pretty good and "The Prodigy" needs some work, but I sent them out anyways because I wanted to get some work circulating, lots of work circulating. Didn't realize the one was missing something until after I sent it out. I love that you can submit online now. Geez, it's been so long since I sent work out, that the process has really changed.

G has bronchitis, so I really hope I don't catch it. ugh.

Will go to El Paso, Texas in July and try to make it to Canto Mundo. Not sure I can make it though. The key is to keep writing, no matter the difficulty. If I can't make it I'll be bummed. I look forward to seeing fellows new and old.

Discipline! Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!


I wrote a large number of poems about sexual abuse, violence and trauma which I have difficulty sending out, but maybe I should just send them out. I don't really know what kind of journals would be open to such work. Maybe such work needs to be in prose instead of poetry. The poetry of trauma seems of necessity to be flat, matter of fact. It's difficult to explain, but I've heard that before and it does seem to be the case. Also, the bigger problem is that maybe people don't want to read it. Maybe it's meant for others who have undergone similar trauma in their lives. Violence leaves a great deal of turmoil and difficulty coping that maybe only someone who has undergone it can understand. One forgets events, that come back years later and wakes one from the fog of forgetting. I know this to be true, but I also know that an audience unfamiliar with such things might get lost. I don't know. I will look at some of these poems tonight. The worst thing is I still struggle with embarrassment. Hopefully, I will get over that. I have a large number of poems I wrote at Yaddo that deal with this and it was horrific and I am not sure how an audience would react. Maybe I shouldn't care, just put the work out there and see what happens.

Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!

I dropped my printer and it fell into several pieces. Luckily my mom is sending some money so I can buy another one.

I feel good about writing these days.

Onward!

I need to try to write something tonight. I think I'll feel better if I at least get a few phrases and/or lines done.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER



Well, I feel better now from the previous post. Nobody really reads this stuff, but it helps me blow off steam and begin to believe in myself and my poetry again. I dislike syncophants and kiss-ups who base everything on perception of power.

Very sick of the lame goings-on in Latinadad, but I have the support of good writers and good poets, and they know who they are, so in the end, we must just write the next poem and live.

I plan on doing both to the best of my ability here on out.
I'm taking the day off. I attended the poetry workshop, and it was really good. I'll get back to the manuscript tomorrow and later this week. Two people that were going to give me feedback haven't gotten back to me, so I'm hoping to hear from them in a couple of weeks, if not, I guess I'm on my own, but they both have given me very insightful feedback on a few poems, so I will be thanking them in my book, which will eventually come out I sense. I hope to add some publication credits to the book soon. I sent out a large number of submissions as I know how difficult it is to get into journals. I'm curious about what the feedback will be. I remember when I first started sending work out. Things have really changed as you can now submit poems online. Wow, it's much easier to send a file than to mail a batch of poems, but I have mailed a number of batches, and am waiting to hear back. Then I'll send another wave. :)

The poetry workshop is a good group. Everyone in the workshop has publication credentials and two others have published some books. I sense it will be of great help despite the long drive to Northglenn, CO.

I feel part of something poetic again, and it feels very good.

Originally, I titled the blog Chicana Poetics and have wondered if I should change it back, but I started out with news and discussions about invisibility of women poets of color, particularly Chicanas. I find the poetry industry more interested in men of color/ Chicanos than women, and I can't help but notice that we are in some sense fighting invisibility within our own Chicano/a community; moreso, some are only interested in engaging with people they perceive in a position of power or strength. People should be more careful about whom they shun. Anyone at anytime can start publishing like a madwoman. And more importantly it may be good stuff.

Overall, I'm feeling most excellent and blessed. It feels so good to be writing and sending work out. It's a wonder I did any writing at all when I was teaching as an adjunct. I was utterly overwhelmed, and I think single Chicanas have a harder time wading through the stress of supporting themselves and not having a partner to encourage them, but we are blessed with friends and I have a few who have stood by me when I flipped out, others, fair-weather do not understand some things about bipolar or trauma. It seems everyone's your "friend" when you've just won something. But mostly they are in a ridiculous clique of perception over reality.

I may post some videos on bipolar to educate a few folks who seem to think I've grown antennae or something. Nope, I have struggled with this since I was in my late twenties, and only know can I see the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

My forthcoming collection deals with trauma, the repression of violent trauma, and the damage that that does to one's psyche, coupled with bipolar, you get a real mess I think.

In the end, I am free to write now, so all that difficulty in 2008-2009, when I became ill and quite difficult is over. I plan on taking care of my health here on out, and I am slowly developing confidence in my work and words.

Gloria Anzaldua died in poverty I think. Did she have a secure academic position towards the end of her life? I heard she was either an adjunct or a student. It saddens me, the hypocrisy of academia. I guess for now I am done with that pursuit, and I feel more free, eager to write again. It's nice to associate with poets again though too, but too many poets are posers who only associate with people they falsely believe can give them a step, or few steps up the academic ladder of po-biz. In the end, the poems have to give flight to a reader's consciousness. I find many kiss-ups praise lame work. And I was all in knots over it due to my own issues, now, I see that crappy work doesn't hang around too long and good work makes its way.

I've put up with a lot of b.s. from some who assume that since I struggled so long, I would never get anywhere. I was a finalist for the national poetry series in 2003, and I have published in some impressive journals. I can do it again. I will do it again.

The weather in Colorado is sunny and crisp and it feels as if everything has changed for the positive.

I think I spend time ruminating about things, but I am working on letting things go, forgiving and moving on.

A few folks who shall remain un-named, maybe ;), have been playing their cards way wrong when it comes to art and creativity. It's not about playing unfairly or providing invites to the right people in a clique. It comes down to writing well.

American Prayer (Hour)