Just a quick update. An online ebook has published a poem of mine, "beautiful, and nothing hurt"
The outfit is called Caffeine Presse, they were formerly Wednesday Night Writes, and I am really happy with their treatment of the poem. It looks really nice on the page.
Here is the link to the e-book.
http://issuu.com/wednightwrites/docs/caffeine_presse_online2/1?e=9477927/9490655
My poem is on page 8.
This was one of those poems that was a long time in taking the shape it needed to take. It was originally a two page monstrosity, overly didactic, and kind of a download of only quarter formulated thoughts and unconsidered emotions. I had to get a lot of distance from it, and sometimes the best way to get distance from something is to hack it to pieces and build it back up.
The contrast between start to finish is pretty dramatic. I am happy with the end result and embarrassed by the beginning.
The title, incidentally, comes from the epitaph in Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five:
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."
Ironically, enough, also about getting some distance.
