"He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator - though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed." (John Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse")
I am not a poetic genius. I don't even pretend to be a poetic genius. I write the words that come to me from that magickal place inside me, and that's inside us all. I say this not merely to dispell rumours of my having a God complex, but to assure those who think that they have no talent that they are mistaken. Anything can be a poem as long as it comes from the heart. Beauty is what's important, not the approval of critics. "'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'" (Sir Philip Sidney, "Astrophil and Stella").
Now I suppose I should move on to all that personal stuff. I'm 21 years old and I've been searching for my "poetic voice" for about 7 years. I am 5'9", have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. I attend a small, ultra-conservative (in my opinion) state college in New Jersey. I consider myself to be liberal for the most part, so needless to say I don't like the administration very much. But that is a digression for another time. In my former life I was an actor, but I am now retired from the stage (except for the occasional cameo to help out my director friends). I love cartoons. Especially anime. My favourites are Robotech (which is now out of print...such a pity), Sailor Moon, Record of Lodoss War, and (most recently) Gundam Wing. I thank those brilliant people at Cartoon Network for helping me to satiate my anime hunger.
Music has played a very, very important role in my life. Without it, I'd be lost. My tastes range dramatically. By far my most beloved artist is Tori Amos, specifically her earlier girl-with-a-piano stuff. And I happen to love her first, totally 80s, album Y Kant Tori Read (sorry Betsy). And as I am a child of the 80s, I found groups such as Queen and Guns N Roses to be almost required listening, so I ate that stuff up with a spoon. The whole Seattle "grunge/alternative" thing started while I was in high school so I really got into that and I still am, long after it has "gone out of style." Pearl Jam and Nirvana got me through some pretty hard times. They also became a sort of gateway into the heavier sounds of Nine Inch Nails, Stabbing Westward, and Rage Against the Machine. I'm also a big fan of "folkie" groups like Counting Crows and Ani DiFranco. On the lighter side, orchestral ("classical") music is where it's at. Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (a.k.a the theme from 2001), Dvorak's 9th Symphony, Holst's Planets, Mozart's Requiem, are just a few of the pieces I can lose myself in. Traditional Celtic music also captivates me. I have been known to enjoy "pop" music (it shames me greatly to say that I own both Britney Spears CDs and I have Backstreet Boys mp3s) from time to time as well. As you can see, I like variety.
If I feed my ears music, then my eyes feast on literature. I learned to read before Kindergarten and haven't been able to stop. As a kid I picked up lots of stuff by Roald Dahl and also the Prydain Chronicles of Lloyd Alexander. 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Alduous Huxley, the "Foundation" novels of Isaac Asimov and the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson opened my eyes to the evils of society. Ayn Rand (especially The Fountainhead) helped me to realise that being selfish isn't a bad thing. Frank Herbert's Dune called everything I had been taught about religion into question (and some think I've been having delusions of grandeur ever since). On the creative side, that which had the most profound effect on me was, without a doubt, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. That book changed my life. Given the opportunity I would pack up and move to Middle-Earth without even having to think about it. I'm a little embarassed to say this, but up until recently I didn't have much interest in reading poetry. Now I read whatever I can get my hands on. I like (in no particular order) Lord Byron, Rupert Brooke, Walt Whitman, e.e. cummings, Betsy Housten, W.B. Yeats, Edgar Allan Poe, and probably a few others that I can't think of right now. All of the above have influenced my own writing in some way or another.
I wrote a paper for my American Lit II class. The subject isn't important but I did a lot of work with modernist poetry. When we had discussed the poems in class I found the disjointed way they were written put me off totally. After I did a closer reading of them for my paper I discovered a subtle beauty in the images of brokenness. So if you're interested, check out T.S. Eliot ("The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men"), Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.
Cartoons are the foundation of all existent knowledge.
You should read Emerson's "Self-Reliance".
"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." Thus did Mark Twain preface The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Although I personally am not a fan of Twain, I must agree with this statement. Please do not attempt to find any deep hidden meanings in my poetry. If you do, that's great, please share it with me. As an English major, I feel that we as a society tend to over-emphasize the analysis of literature. And I hate it. I did not write my poems to hide some kind of political, religious, etc. commentary (granted, there might be some) nor did I write them to divulge some secret meaning of life (which everyone knows is to live it and not let it pass you by). I wrote simply because I wanted to remember what I was feeling at the particular time each poem was written. If I have something of a political nature to say, I assure you, it will be more blatant than a blow to the head with a 2X4. I do,however, firmly believe that different readers will see different things in the same poem because of the varied lives we live. I think what I'm trying to say through all of this rambling is that you should take my poems at face value. Enjoy them for what they are. And for gods' sakes, don't analyse them!!!
Some time later - Ok, metaphors and what-not are starting to sneak their way into my writing. Just go with it.
January 28, 2001 - And now for a blatantly political statement (hey it's my web page, I can do whatever I want). I've been thinking a lot about that moron that we have apparently elected president. So my friends, take a good look around you and appreciate the good life we currently have. Once the "great" GWB's Nazi regime takes over, it's all going to go downhill.
Questions, comments, requests?? All you gotta do is ask.
