Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Talent is what they say you have after the novel is published and favorably reviewed. Beforehand what you have is a tedious delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done after the play is produced and the audience claps. Before that friends keep asking when you are planning to go out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you had after the third volume of remarkable poems. Earlier they accuse you of withdrawing, ask why you don’t have a baby, call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s, take workshops with fancy names when all you can really learn is a few techniques, typing instructions and some- body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks a license to hang on the wall like your optician, your vet proving you may be a clumsy sadist whose fillings fall into the stew but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.
Today’s poem is taken from the collection Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy, which was published in 1982 by Alfred A. Knopf.
I love love love Marge Piercy. I was first introduced to her work as a high school junior via her poem “Barbie Doll” and since then I’ve been delighted with each new discovery. I hope you love “For the young who want to” as much as I do.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
For those of you who enjoyed reading my haiku on here, all sixteen of them are now available in one place on Wattpad. Enjoy!
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
So, all of you who keep up with this blog know that I’ve started posting original poetry on here. I’ve been writing poetry for years and have even had a few pieces published, but it took a lot of soul-searching for me to just start dropping new work on here. That said, a few months ago I went through a period where I wrote a bunch of haiku. After reading through them, I decided I’d like to share them here. Here’s the first one. Please go easy on me.
Haiku I by Fred Slusher
Blood martyr sing-song Slow whistling tunes of bones Bring me a new war
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
You’re all bluster & melodrama Empire State of Eden’s Rejects, Mama You can still be a racist even though You voted for Obama (Twice)
And I take meds to be a little Less me in melancholia Debutante in repose, Rhinoplastied nose your dad Bought you in Santa Fe but
I had to keep my ugly And my secrets and my sighs tucked Like a melody on a dusty piano While you were in Reno Getting turnt & twisted on the boulevard of broken dreams
You told me in aught three my Songs were poorly written but I kept Sparring with my demons & writ My lonesomeness into dust & made myself free
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.