At home ... but not
I went to a poetry reading at a local high school tonight. My friends Em and Eric invited me. Of the two schools represented, Em and Eric's was certainly the most poetically gifted. Though there were some nice surprises from the other school.
Sure, I live near Chicago and I could go to a poetry slam any night of the week, if I wished. But it's Chicago, and I never really feel up for dealing with the pretentiousness.
It felt like home to sit in the high school auditorium under dim lighting and listen to the students read their work. I'm ten years older, but I still miss that easy camaraderie, that supportive environment of being surrounded by other artists.
I miss the spikes and the painted-on tears and the mail-order-molded-to-fit fake fangs. I miss the sex-and-death poetry, the my-heart-is-on-a-plate-with-a-fork-in-it poetry and the kill-cute-and-fuzzy-bunnies poetry. I miss the interpretive dance and the barbershop quartets.
I miss keeping a guitar around, not because I play, because at any given time one of my guitar-playing friends might drop by.
I miss the community of people which self-identifies as "artists." I work with self-identified writers and designers, but for the most part I don't get to breath words and color and metaphor with these friends outside the working day.
My art, my writing is a solitary practice, now.
I went to a poetry reading at a local high school tonight. My friends Em and Eric invited me. Of the two schools represented, Em and Eric's was certainly the most poetically gifted. Though there were some nice surprises from the other school.
Sure, I live near Chicago and I could go to a poetry slam any night of the week, if I wished. But it's Chicago, and I never really feel up for dealing with the pretentiousness.
It felt like home to sit in the high school auditorium under dim lighting and listen to the students read their work. I'm ten years older, but I still miss that easy camaraderie, that supportive environment of being surrounded by other artists.
I miss the spikes and the painted-on tears and the mail-order-molded-to-fit fake fangs. I miss the sex-and-death poetry, the my-heart-is-on-a-plate-with-a-fork-in-it poetry and the kill-cute-and-fuzzy-bunnies poetry. I miss the interpretive dance and the barbershop quartets.
I miss keeping a guitar around, not because I play, because at any given time one of my guitar-playing friends might drop by.
I miss the community of people which self-identifies as "artists." I work with self-identified writers and designers, but for the most part I don't get to breath words and color and metaphor with these friends outside the working day.
My art, my writing is a solitary practice, now.
2 Comments:
"My-heart-is-on-a-plate-with-a-fork-in-it". That's classic. Sounds like you had a pretty hard-core high school experience, Abba!
Have you considered joining a writers' group? It's less solitary and way more fun than a) procrastination (what I'm doing right now) or b) loneliness at the keyboard. You don't have to be a lonely writer/artist. It's just harder as we grow older to reconfigure our creative communities. If I were in the Chicago area, I'd write with you. Love, Kella
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