'tis the season

Winter is a beast. It's not even winter yet. But it, already is a beast.

I'm a little homesick, I'm not going to lie. I've never really been this homesick before. A friend said he never experienced homesickness. I guess I could say that before now. Maybe it is the winter. Maybe it is I do not get enough vitamin D, or essential sun rays on my face and shoulders, because they're bundled up in layers upon layers of clothing.

I haven't really had a reason to get dressed up and go out. I've been a loser and staying inside. Granted, I get sucked into going out after work or a poetry reading, but I've not had a date or a real time set out to go and explore, to live, to just enjoy life and being alive. The cold does not facilitate this, either, as I just want to stay in my bed, in my room. Inside.

On the writing side of things, who are you reading? I realize this is a question I've come to hate. I'm always "reading" someone or something, but I dont really know what this means when folks ask it. Generally, this comes on the heels of me saying something like, "Yeh, I just put together another manuscript" or "yeh, I just did a poetry challenge." or something. I don't know. Do they want to know who is influencing my work?

I came to the conclusion that I read more fiction when I'm working on poetry. I read poetry to pass time on the train. (truth told) I read poetry when I am working on a specific poem and I remembered a poem I read in passing or a poet that I could look at to get my gears turning. But, truthfully, outside of Mahmoud Darwish....who I haven't read in a while, and I haven't even read the one book I have all the way through...is probably my knee-jerk answer, because people look for an answer a name, a book. As if they expect you to have an answer. I don't ever have an answer, but I say Darwish to appease them, to move the conversation along.

Is that bad of me to say? That I don't really read? That I expect people to read, but that I don't read. That's the wrong way of saying what I'm trying to say. I read. I could have a full on conversation about the last books of poetry I've read. I could give you my opinions and such. But it's hard for me to say "I'm reading x" when really what it seems they want is a favorite poet, which I do not or cannot say with assurance that I have. A favorite poet. And this puts me a crazy position. Because I know there may come a time when I will be interviewed or asked questions or people want to know the origins of my genius. And I guess, what I'm saying is that my foundation is not from reading. My foundation is from talking to people. To engaging. To writing and writing and writing. It is in the communities and conversations I build. It is in thinking about history and how to tell history in a poem. It is watching the world outside.

It does not come from a book.