I’ve tried a lot of art forms*, but poetry is one of the few that enhances my perceptions of the World. Poetry, especially writing poetry, clarifies things I didn’t know I knew. It spotlights those (often philosophical or metaphysical) dilemmas I’ve been struggling with. Poetry conveys what matters most to my benthic self.

As much as I love/d painting, I didn’t understand the World better because I painted.

Jane Hirshfield:

“Poetry itself, when allowed to, becomes within us a playable organ of perception, sounding out its own forms of knowledge and forms of discovery. Poems do not simply express. They make, they find, they sound (in both meanings of that word) things undiscoverable by other means.”

Poetry is a dissipative structure.

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[[Redacted]]

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I learn from writing prose, but I don’t, necessarily, heal. It often doesn’t illuminate what’s been spackled over, but festers underneath.

Poetry lances.

In prose, I’ve written about my mostly-awful childhood, [[redacted]], about relatives treating me with casual contempt but calling it ‘respect’ and lambasting me for not being obsequious in response. I’ve written over and over and over. I learn something new each time, but… it doesn’t fix anything.

But Poetry… changes me.

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And maybe that’s all that’s reasonable to hope for, since no relative who mistreated me has =ever= apologized genuinely, offered remorse/contrition, worked with me to repair my broken trust.

I don’t want to be part of a “family” where mistreatment and abuse are never acknowledged, nor are relationship ruptures treated as if they should be repaired, if not healed.

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My pain is a boundary. My pain delineates who is me, or on Team Mea|Conor; and who isn’t. My pain has kept me alive, kept me sane, kept me myself.

Anna Deavere Smith:

“Your pain can be a source, like the color blue, or orange, for that matter. It can be one of your colors; it can be a tool . . . As artists, we can tolerate, for a while, great discomfort in order to explore discomfort.”

My pain spurred me to become an artist, a writer, a poet: I define myself.

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*DANCE: ballet, tap, modern, ballroom; MUSIC: acoustic guitar, recorder, singing; THEATER?: acting, modeling for a photographer; DRAWING: pencils, charcoal, colored pencils, pastels; PAINTING: oil, acrylic, watercolor; PAPER: 2-d design, collage, paper garments for photography; MIXED MEDIA: handmade valentines, building miniature rooms, flower arranging, beading jewelry, collage, “balancing/sculpture” for photography; FOOD: baking, cake decorating; WRITING: letters, poetry [1980; 2011-Present], essays, photo-essays; FIBER: braiding, rug hooking, embroidery, machine sewing (from a pattern), knitting on a machine, tapestry weaving, floor loom weaving, fabric painting, fabric dyeing, hand sewing (freeform), quilting, knitting by hand, fiber jewelry; PHOTOGRAPHY: sense of place, Nature, portraits –nonhumans, ongoing series of Spouse, self; CERAMICS: hand-built vessels, tiles; FASHION: my own wardrobe building, styling models for a photographer;;; CONCEPTUAL ART.

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last edited: Taurus, 2025