I started scribbling in Substack almost two years ago after talking to my pal, Chris La Tray about his venture here, The Irritable Metis. People were actually “paying” to read what he was posting. I thought, why not give it a whirl? (The posting. See what it was like. If it was something I liked. And maybe eventually asking for money.)
I started posting poems on Facebook in 2008 mainly because I wanted to share them with people. Why else do we write? And I’m not a good schmoozer or glad-hander. Like I’ll say something at some point which often ends “fairly meaningless to me” conversations and closes the door on that connection. Hell, most of the poems do that before I can open my mouth, so it’s a waste of everyone’s time to send to certain places. Researching all that takes time! And I really got tired of submitting poems, waiting to hear back, getting notes from a panel of grad-school editors on how to “improve” my fucking poems, etc, ya-da, so for months, sometimes over a year, my poems were hidden, copyright protected, insuring the sanctity of first publication credits. This was also back when most everything was still going into the mail. It was a chore, and I had plenty of chores already, the ones I was doing to pay the rent, eat, and buy beer. What time I had I used to write poems. So when my son turned me onto Facebook, I abandoned all poetic fame and fortune (heh, heh) and started dropping poems there.
Over the last fifteen years, many of my “Facebook friends” have thanked me for doing that. They’ve expressed how a poem triggered a memory or feeling in them that really was important to them, so important that they had to go out of their way to personally thank me for posting it. Well, after a few of those encounters, I was hooked. I’d always known there was no money in poetry. What money a poet was going to cobble together would come from teaching and hustling. I can hustle . . . on a job or as a teacher. I can hustle to help someone out, but don’t ask me to hustle in a self-promotional way. My fucking Old Man (who, yes, is still in my head) won’t let me do that shit. Why can’t I get over that? I guess I don’t want to. I agree with the son-of-a-bitch. And, yes, he did talk this way, another goddamn liability he handed me that I (think I) love and wear like a badge of honor. Silly. As he would say, “We are silly sonsabitches.”
Anyway, before I totally digress into another realm, the point of this little epistle is to say I am going to turn the money spigot on. The choice is yours. Can you afford to pay me something for squawking over here? I am not going to promise anything, so I’m leaving it up to you. You can pay for these words of sh-wit or just read them if you are mostly broke like me. I read Chris, Kareem, and Patti Smith . . . sometimes. That’s about all the time I’ve got. And I read Poetic Outlaws. I do not pay for any of that. So I understand if you don’t have the dough. Doughn’t worry! But my son sort of prodded, posed the question, wondered if I was going to allow people to contribute if they wanted to. So, this seems like the right time to let that happen. I have no expectations. I will continue doing what I like to do. That is my only rule.
I’m thinking of moving here to Mark My Words and posting my poems along with whatever I feel must be expressed because Facebook isn’t anything like it was when I started there. And since I’m always producing poems, plus all the shit I’ve already written, and all the stuff I love to read, this will be a comfortable spot to spew until I fade into oblivion. Also, now that my tour of duty as Poet Laureate is coming to a close, I will have more time to blather-about in this space.
It’ll take me a few minutes to get here, but this looks like the right move. Pam and I recently moved into a small place up the Rattlesnake. It feels really good. Peace has returned to our little world. And that’s where it’s at folks. Every minute, every day, I do my damnedest to be present. The past and the future are shit we make up. Life is right now, and as my old pal John Prine said, “ I wish you love, I wish you happiness. I guess, I wish you all the best . . . I got so much love that I cannot hide.”
Peace
That big ol’ dot in the sky is the damn-near-full moon over Jumbo, and that babe on the trail encouraging the balsam root bloom is none other than girl of my dreams.
Giddy up!
Thanks, Mark. Keep 'em coming.