WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

the odd neighbor

November 22, 2007

Solitude, The Bad Smell, & Trying to Feel Thankful

Solitude, from the odd neighbor [click for larger image] It’s Thanksgiving. I’m alone. It would be a day like any other, except it’s this day; this day to celebrate attachments, family, friends, community. Any other day, I am grateful for solitude; this wide emptiness I need for writing. Not all writers need this; some seem… Continue reading

Personal

bad smell, gratitude, illness, illustration, olfactory hallucination, solitude, Thanksgiving, the odd neighbor

Ancestral (Artificial )Intelligence

I do not use AI to write. For me, writing is how I think, and I prefer to do it myself. If/when I post anything here that I suspect or know to be AI generated, I will tell you.

I have changed this from Artificial to Ancestral, after Abi Awomosu @ Substack. This medium was made with human history, human thought. All of it, bright and dark. It is ancestral.

Poems

Please do not assume that I am the speaker/ subject of my poems.

In these times of creative nonfiction and fictionalized memoirs, I think of the poem itself as true fiction: it is most likely not factual, but it must be true.

It is likely to be — it is best if it is — a truth I did not know before I wrote, and may not understand even then.

A poem is my way of discovering (dis-covering) what I feel; sometimes, what I think — but it is not necessarily biographical.

the odd neighbor

Solitude, The Bad Smell, & Trying to Feel Thankful