Writers

Happy vibes cause writing does truly help. The Duck actually suffered a little insomnia last night because of stress from work and a dip in her sales leading to her repeatedly bashing on herself even in her dreams. Sigh.

So thank you words and poetries… Plus feel free to try this out ! Rules are :

Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, Line 4

Line 5 (repeat of line 2 in previous stanza) , Line 6, Line 7 (repeat of line 4 in previous stanza), Line 8

Last stanza : Line 9 (line 2 of previous stanza) , Line 10 (line 3 of first stanza) , Line 11 (line 4 of previous stanza), Line 12 (line 1 of first stanza)

I accidentally write something that might be great

With no thoughts, no utterance, I jump

Into the abyss of words and dreams and failures alike

Scribbles that somehow brought me to this place

With no thoughts, no utterance, I jump

Muffled beneath, then estranged from

Scribbles that somehow brought me to this place

A space of hollow refinement and escaping transient

Muffled beneath, then estranged from

Breeds the madness of a searching renegade

A space of hollow refinement and escaping transient

Words delivered by no god other than the ancient tongue

Breeds the madness of a searching renegade

Who fears death before he has written all he has

Words delivered by no god other than the ancient tongue

Only an author of an abstract face

Who fears death before he has written all he has

Whether recieved poorly or well from 1,000 to 1

Only an author of an abstract face

Hoping against hope for words to outlast his fate

Whether recieved poorly or well from 1,000 to 1

Into the abyss of words and dreams and failures alike

Hoping against hope for words to outlast his fate

I accidentally write something that might be great

Today was a strange day.

I hitched a ride with a stranger. I attended the Vancouver Writer’s Festival. I visited Granville Island for the first time. I cried when talking to one of the feature’s authors on the street. I walked around all alone for 3 hours.

I’m home;

Let’s begin properly –

Today was a strange day, it didn’t start off particularly good, but it did begin with a lot of firsts.

For the first time, my school bus was not just late, it did not appear at all because it got stuck on the island near my house. Woot. So, at 8 am I hitched a ride for the first time with a Korean woman whose daughter goes on the school bus also. Except her daughter wasn’t even there, so it was just her and I, this strange woman and moi. Hi, I’m Sarah, nice to meet you.

I mentioned I used to frequent the church near us during conversation. She thought I was Christian and said God must have sent her to me. I didn’t correct her. I am grateful though, and much more open minded to Christian Korean mothers. They don’t all hate you.

I arrived just on time for my field trip to Granville Island, for the Vancouver’s Writer’s Festival. I didn’t know what to expect. I find I do a thing where I am more acutely fascinated with the fact that the authors, musicians, whomever, famous person, is so alive and real and completely alike with their photos from when I search them online. I don’t know. I don’t look excited, but I’m really noting every little thing. Weird huh. Like standing stone still for 5 hours at a rock concert. No sis, I assure you I am having fun, so please stop shaking me. Sigh.

Resuming,

There were three featured authors, each with their own flavor in deliverance.

Alison Wearing – She wrote “Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter”, a little excerpt from her self monologue :
“Look, just think of your father as you always have. He likes to bake croissante, he has curly hair, he’s gaaay.” – Shrugs – Says a leather clad man at the picnic; Dancing in the basement with an old friend – “So your father is a faggot, at least he’s not a lying sonovabitch who has a secret son somewhere on the East side that we’re not supposed to know about” – and this man is the town’s central pill, the lawyer, the family man. I loved her. Dancing and all.

The next author was Tanya Evansons – First thing I wanted to note was that her voice is so melodic, it just sounded so smooth to listen to. And I was right to assume because she is also a great vocalist when she did choose to incorporate that in her poem readings. She told us about a time when she went up to Banff in the Rockies, attending some other gathering of herding artistans. She decided to clear her mind at the time at this cemetery. After a few moments, and she still could not clear her mind she decided to leave, but then she looked up. On the tombstone before her read : FEAR in big block letters. She wanted to shoot herself. Are you kidding?
She was standing in front of the family plot, the Fear family.
She was thinking all these things, when in fact the entire time Fear had died right in front of her, and she had almost missed it.

Don’t we all ?

Lastly, Corine Raymond.

Secret confession? When he first spoke his beginning sentences, I was not hooked at all. The inquiry of something new had died off, and the laughter had wasted itself out after an hour. Having said that, he made me laugh the most.
Rare for the Duck, because she has a god forsaken laugh that you’d note easily. I call it the dying goose.
This man, 40 years old, is a comic book nerd fan since age 5. His absolute favorite? Spiderman.
Summary : “He’s the Charlie Brown of the world. The big loser who does the hardest work and doesn’t get shit recognized for it. Look it, the Avengers are funded by the government – Spiderman does his own laundry. Superwoman is half god half royalty. Spiderman only has two costumes, and half the time wears a dirty smelling one. Superman is practically godly since he’s invincible. Spiderman has to sell pictures of himself in costume to a guy who posts them up on Newstands to bash him. So he’s got a crappy boss, a job that he doesn’t get recognized for; he saves New York daily, that’s practically the only difference between him and I.”

Of course.

As for lady killer skills, his friend once asked, “Do you own all these poetry books to get girls?”

Nice huh?

But he actually did read aloud to a girl an entire story on the beach of Spain somewhere. Amen.

After the show, I walked around and got lost in a man made island, and awkwardly opened conversation with Tanya when I saw her on the street with the host. I asked her, “What would you say to the people who say, ‘I write, I read,’ when someone asks them what they do for fun, what do you say to all the Charlie Brown’s of the world?”

I began crying, perhaps because she said she used to be extremely depressed as a teenager, perhaps because as of recent I realize once again I’m not that entirely okay with the fact that I still answer like I do. That I feel so completely out of place and awkward – in the negative way and that sucks cause awkward is one of my favorite words – around certain people.

I don’t even really remember exactly what she said, which sucks for me, but it was just the feeling of being so vulnerable.

I walked around some more and got myself a turkey-feather-dipping-pen with 3 sets of tip changes and ink. I’m happy. I met people who re-reads books like me. I met people who speak and write for a living. I met myself.

But if you decided to skip all the above and scrolled up and down the screen to see if its worth your time, here’s what happened.

I wander
On this foreign island
And encounter a man riding along
Atop an enormously tall bike
Like those in Cirques De Soleil.
I smile,
But I think he winces at me instead
Was I mocking?

I cross the path
Of screaming children.
I catch myself
In a private corner
Watching fat gooses grooming
Then turn round the street to find
That it was in fact
Not that private at all

I mingle with the artisans
Their measure of truth
Between the two buildings of their school
They all smoke and discover
Daily, the ingredient to life
So cool.

I take my order
From a man with a Beatles hair cut
I note his bright blue eyes
He would be attractive
With a conventional hairstyle
But otherwise, because he does not
I remember him
Enough to write this.

Granville Island.