Some guy’s trip to Vegas aka Conversational Poetry

 Sitting in a waiting room, blogging, writing poems, reading poems, etc and this guy (on his laptop) gets a phone call and well talks so loud you can’t help but overhear everything he has said.   He went to Vegas!

The trip was all paid for.  He won $1500 gambling.  He gambled while his wife shopped.  He was there for a wedding.  He gambled with some friends.  He was happy to win because the trip was all paid for and he didn’t have to pay anything for it.  He said he felt like he won 50K instead of 1500 dollars he was so excited!

Besides reading and blogging, I can watch my App and watched a TV show ... I barely had the volume up and read the captions so I wouldn’t disturb the other people in the waiting room.  (Yes, I have ear plugs but I rarely use them because I forget to charge them, lol).  

As I sit here and listen to every detail of his ridiculous trip (Vegas for a wedding during a Pandemic?) I can’t believe I worried about me making too much noise.  But of course observing and listening is how some poets, like me, come up with poems.  

Often if I’m working on a story and get stuck, I may overhear or have a story told to me that helps me to fill in the gaps and/or to help me figure out how to make a bridge of sorts in the plot line to move the story along.

The guy is still talking as  I type completely unaware anyone else is listening to him.  See, there’s another poem/story idea ... how easy is it to “steal” any kind of sensitive information without even trying?  He’s mentioned posts, sources, and names!

Happy listening!

The Creative Process

The creative process.  What’s yours?  

It seems anything different is in this year.  Does that work for creativity?  

I know I need to do different things, visit places, read, etc to spark my creativity.  I haven’t traveled much this year, but I have done many new things like run / walk a 5 k for charity, blaze paths in the woods, hike around a rather muddy lake, take a picture for my new poem novel (“The Blue Eyed Side” published by Cyberwit in Nov 2020 with my cover photo of the Blue Ridge Parkway), learn to cook eggs (I’m a vegetarian, I eat cheese but not eggs), bounce on a trampoline, celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving, put up an artificial Christmas tree, and so on.  

There’s a way to keep new things happening in your life.  I had a couple of book signings this year - first ones ever wearing a mask.  I also did a live online poetry reading and sold more books from that than from anything else like it I’ve ever done.

Usually at Christmas, I don’t work on anything for any reason.  This year, though, Christmas is different.  I will see how creative I can and want to be.

Here’s hoping your Christmas is all you want it to be and that it’s a safe one.  ~Merry Christmas, LB

Living the Poetical Life aka What is Poetical Success

Hi, I’m LB Sedlacek.  I’ve been publishing “The Poetry Market Ezine” for the past 20 years!  I just decided to end it after 20 years because I need to have more time for other things that have come into my life.  “The Poetry Market Ezine” was a monthly online email subscription newsletter just for poets with poetry markets, contests, and news.  Usually, I would review a poetry book or chapbook too.  I always signed off here and there with “Here’s wishing you poetical success.”  

But what does it mean to be poetical?  What does success in poetry really look like?

I have a friend who used to talk about someone she knew who was an artist and who believed in living your life through art to express art.  Okay, what does that mean?  I believe it indicated supporting other artists and also attending arts events of all kinds - theatre, art shows, poetry readings, concerts, etc.

Wouldn’t you as an artist prefer to be surrounding yourself with other art related activities along with your own?  Yep, there she goes talking about inspiration ... again.

But I digress (and this isn’t a post about inspiration).  I believe in experiences.  I studied acting while living in Washington, DC - I went to a theatre school in Georgetown of all places.  Later on I went to graduate school in theatre and communications.  When studying acting, you learn several techniques.  One is method where the actor believes in really experiencing what the character goes through to play the part.

Experiences to me are key to my life as a poet.  I am inspired daily (not just by gazing off into the sunsets which I often do ... one of the benefits of living in the mountains is that you can see distance for miles hence very pretty skies, stars) by life itself from things I observe to conversations I have to things I read and even by some of my dreams (I have had some vivid dreams!).   I also have other interests, responsibilities and jobs so I am doing many other things besides thinking about poetry all day.  It brings me into contact with other  possibilities that I wouldn’t have without them.

Traveling and Swimming, besides reading, are two of my favorite things to do (can’t do much of either right now with the pandemic, but before that I did them both all the time) and from there I wrote many place poems.  Same with my love of taking pictures and then writing about them (see @poetryinla on Facebook or Instagram) which is pretty much my own version of ekphrastic poetry.

I like to listen to music, too.  I like to draw.  I enjoy the theatre.  It’s all a good blend, it really is.

Your success as a Poet is what you make it.  You have to grow, not be afraid, fly, have writing rituals, envision succeeding, say yes to opportunities, get out an experience art and life, and take off on your second, third or fifth act.  

I may not be publishing my poetry ezine any more, but I will continuing to provide Poem Critiques and I will keep writing.  I’m simply ready to take off in a new direction.  I’m simply ready to find success in a different way.