I Got that Summertime Sadness

I have decided that I am going to try to write every day this summer. In fact, I am challenging myself to a few things this summer. But, the one that applies here is the writing. Specifically, the writing of poetry.

While I want to get back into prose and fiction, poetry has always been a stable way for me to express myself while I have struggled with pain or with joy. Poetry became my way of communicating when communication was the hardest, and it is still the easiest way for me to say what I feel, whether through original work or through the words of others.

So, this summer, I want to try to do two things:

I want to commit to a haiku a day on twitter, just to get the creative energy going.

Then, I want to write one poem (outside of the haiku) every day.

Because I will be striving to meet a goal every day, each and every poem is not going to be genius--if any of them can be said to in the first place. So, there will be some weirdos and some downers and some straight up baddies. (same with the haikus, I promise) But I believe one out of every few will at least be something to be proud of.

Also, usually when I write one, I write another, because I get the rhythm in my head and can't get it out until I make something new with it. So, it may be more like two or three or twenty. There is, as there always has been, absolutely no obligation to read even one. Although, sometimes the only way I can say something about how I am truly feeling and express it well enough that others might understand is through this medium. So, if you are interested, please pay attention.

Otherwise, this whole thing is for me. My brain isn't as creative or imaginative or curious as it was when I wrote most of my poetry. I need to whip it back into shape. I hope my whipping is a topping you can enjoy. ;)

Comments

I-5

On a chilly Sunday evening in mid-January, two young women rolled up to the TransAmerica Title Building on the outskirts of Salem, Oregon, just off Interstate 5, to clean the office. It was their usual Sunday job, though today they had gotten a bit of a late start, having to shower and stop for gas, so they didn't arrive to the business complex until after nine p.m. The office had wide, welcoming windows on every wall and, with the bright florescent lights flipped on, the effect was to create a fishbowl-like scene, the women bustling around in their duties like two busy, little fish. They'd left the door unlocked and entertained themselves by chatting to each other, the two of them best friends. They were Shari Hull, twenty-years-old and the daughter of the owner of the housekeeping company with which they were both employed, and Beth Wilmot, also twenty and a fairly recent transplant to Salem from Spokane, Washington. She'd come for work, and along with steady pay, she...

By the Barrel of a Silver Gun (I-5 Part Two)

In early February of 1981, authorities from Salem flew down the Interstate 5 corridor and assembled with detectives and law officials from northern California and southern Oregon. Each detective had a crime, or two, in their jurisdiction matching a particular modus operandi , and the list of incidents just kept growing. When they gathered, they had no idea the scope of the mystery they were unraveling or just far it was going to reach. It started with a robbery. On December 9, 1980, in Vancouver, Washington, a gas station was held up at gun point, the female attendant left alone in the store. A man entered wearing a brown coat and a fake beard. He demanded cash and brandished a small, silver gun to prove he was serious. The cashier obliged. A few days later, in Eugene, Oregon, on December thirteenth, a Baskin-Robbins was robbed by a man holding a silver gun and wearing a fake beard and a band aid across his nose. In Albany, Oregon, a drive-in was hit on Dec...

Wah Mee Massacre

On a chilly February night, five days after the start of the Chinese New Year, 1983, three young men walked into one of the most renowned, high-stakes gambling dens in the heart of Seattle's Chinatown International District and walked away with thousands of dollars of cash in their pockets and fourteen lives hanging in the balance in their wake. The club was the Wah Mee, a sixty-year-old casino and bar that catered exclusively to Chinese clientele and hosted the highest-stakes illegal gambling in the Pacific Northwest. The men were 22-year-old Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak, 20-year-old Benjamin Ng, and 25-year-old Wai Chiu "Tony" Ng. Willie Mak was born in Kwangtung Province in mainland China and immigrated to the US with his family in 1975 when he was fifteen. By 22, Willie was a high school drop out, working various jobs in and around Seattle, and had a penchant for gambling. He was well-known in the International District gambling clubs, including the Wah Me...

That Bloody Girl

Search This Blog