RachelVB.com

Category: Writing Life

  • shorts

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    part of me want to stare off into a wall, through a wall, stare off into the space of it. I haven’t felt like writing much today, at least not poetry. I have something working and it’s short, something for submissions and the short ones are hard because even the ‘a’s’ matter. Everything within a…

  • Thanks, Uncle Stevie

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    Rach; “Rejects” = You are a writer. No “Rejects” = You are watching TV, sleeping, doing chores, … et al. Keep up the good work! -Steve

  • out on a limb

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in , ,

    Sometimes, like today, I feel like I feel feelings too much to function in a normal world. The everyday work. The chaos. The cellphone world. The internet world. The connected to wires and everything connected back world. I can hardly handle my own feelings let alone reading about, seeing, being a witness to everyone else’s…

  • Ebbs

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    I’ve been running around poems the past week. Unable to settle on one I want to sit with. It’s all feeling. Sticking your hand into murky water, waiting for a bite. In Oklahoma they call this noodling. I’m not a big beefy man with hairy arms and cut-off camo, but I still feel like I’m…

  • My place among the music

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    I didn’t read much poetry when I was younger. As a child, I didn’t find myself lost in words as I hear some writers were. I don’t know if I had a favorite book (perhaps “A Light in the Attic,” or “Misty of Chincoteague” – the story of a family raising a filly born of…

  • Readings

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    I’ve always been a shy little bunny or maybe I’m better as a fox. White breast, face flushed. How old is she? She seems old (er) than me. She uses words like visceral in conversation. She’s naked and doesn’t seem to mind. Is embarrassed and doesn’t care. Is that what getting older is? I’ve been…

  • 'Negative Capability'

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in , ,

    Melissa Green wrote a comment last night about Keats’ ‘Negative Capability.’ Keats’ says it when man, ahem or woman (collectively) “is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” It’s an “emotional state characterized by indecision, restlessness, uncertainty and tension resulting from incompatible inner needs or drives of…

  • Why do we do this again? – me

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    “It keeps us the most alive.” -C

  • Not like the others

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    What happens when you can’t finish a poem? When it’s not like the others? When it doesn’t know what it wants or how to be? When you feel tired even feeling one of the words, the same line you’ve been staring at for a month and it’s lost all meaning? Was it not supposed to…

  • The happy artist?

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in , ,

    It’s my first day back at work today. And usually the first day is OK. I’ve carried over a calm that I always hope will last, but as the weeks go on something usually starts building and a big fat invisible elephant likes to sit on my chest and get in the way. I had…