When a lot has been on my mind when I first start writing, the poem is likely to emerge as more of a brainstorm filled with what was floating in my surface conscious.

That wouldn’t be poetry so much as a clearing of the mind. A poem that is more likely to be published is one written like a story: it needs a theme, a title, a first, third or omniscient narrative, good rhythm never hurts the pacing and can be rightly jarring when discussing the mysteries and horrors of life and death.

Sometimes when one reads a poem, there are ideas that seem obvious metaphors to only the writer along with pop-culture references and the writer must be reminded that the reader does not have ESP, or the same world view, despite watching the same TV shows. Often, when the mind races competing ideas against each other, I find the symmetry and order of form, whether it be a sonnet or a haiku to be just what I need for my imagery and passions to take coherent shape by following certain syllable and rhyming rules. Uninformed poets might think such forms are stuffy and inhibitive to one’s creative powers, triggering memories of brilliance and spirit in school or in some other institution setting where one was ridiculed for their enterprising spirit.

Rather, think of the different forms of poetry as exercises and discipline that can only help your art. Tools to make you eloquent and yes, your brilliance and elucidating passionate epiphanies understood. Many teachers of poetry, including published mentors, will often use music as the simile and metaphor to explain how important learning formal discipline is to your writing. It’s all in the intrepretation of course. The definition of poet, the definition of poetry. As the recent slogan for the Pittsburgh Slamtorum put it, “It’s Your Word Against His.” As religions and especially the mainstream one in America knows “The Word” is God. So when you argue my word against your word, it’s my God against your God. My ideas, my passions, my experience against yours, and charisma and tradition often trump logic and reason for the good of those whose world you can wreck with your words. Definitions are so important.

Poets are no less up in arms about their interpretations and definitions of poetry, poets and poems than are any who read or speak the spoken word because it’s all what we see, read here, think and feel when we communicate the ways in which humans do. Hey, if all the religions and even those claiming to be of the same religion are tearing each others guts out don’t expect it to be much different here. There are the laymen, so to speak, the blue-collars and the criminals, and those who went to school far from the nitty gritty and so have no street cred and each discredits the other.

I would now like to add the metaphor of the fighter, the warrior. There is the disciplined martial artist and the trained soldier who have been trained formally but not seen combat. Then there are experienced fighter who is schooled in combat formally via martial arts, or in a national military or domestic security whether it be the government paid police force or the private mercenary sector: spies, bounty hunters, security guards.

There are the working class heroes who are warriors by virtue of the neighborhood the grew up in.

Then there are the various warriors on the street level who have plenty of experience as goons, thugs, murderers, assassins, all valuable tools in turfs wars, but not all have formal training. They are romanticized as rogues, robin hoods, modern day feudal lords just trying to eke out a living in the “The Man’s” cruel world.

Then there are of course, the posers who adopt the look and language of the gangster, hoodlum or pirate, but would never want to be part of the action. They are happily content to play Grand Theft Auto, perhaps have a few acquaintances who look scary, but eventually do something “respectable” and settle down. And real street warriors with experiences are genuinely annoyed by posers. The Poser street warrior/criminal warrior knows this and pay the actual warriors respect when in their presence by dropping their eyes if not their bladders to the ground.

vis a vis

There are plenty of literati poets who think slam poets should be a smudge of DNA on a graffitti stained wall on a New York subway.

Vis a vis the nitty gritty slam poet verses the literati.

There are plenty of the poser literati poets who can write perfect technical form but the inspirational height and depth eludes them and they chase it the way men centuries ago chased the green fairy and the secret to turning lead into gold.

Likewise, the universities and educational institutions who train many students in their arts educating the poor and rich just as the martial arts and military schools do, train many artists and soldiers but most of them continue the arts as a hobby or their soldiering from the desk. (In the latter case, there is an exception in times of war.) But very few traditionally become the epitome of everything it means to be a poet, or a warrior. Few reach those Zen moments or frenzied levels of vitriolic violence. Because so few can balance the passion, the inspiration, with the discipline and form. Because we as a human whole need to link or right and left brains better. And that is what, fitting poetry into forms does. I will illustrate this in the blogs to follow.

 The New Year.

Snow is wet sugar coating the concrete cookie outside.

Inside I’ve been using Youtube to watch more presidential interviews.  After all, this is the year where Americans see if the cronies in the upper echelons rig the elections again. I watched the powerful speech given by Barack Obama about the United States of America entitled one voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmUUYo9o9eg

I would like Americans to take that to heart. But it seems that too many have become wrapped up in being so proud of where their ancestors came from before they came to America that “America” the country all of us together does not matter so much. It must if this great nation is to flourish.

We must be able to appreciate our rich cultural backgrounds and not take for granted the opportunity to create the nation our children will live in together with hate or love.  We must take the history of the world and wherever our ancestors have come with the good and the bad.

The bad and the good, how do you define those core concepts for yourself? As styles of living, or purely moral choices? It seems that a large majority of Americans are so worried about losing parts of culture they’re forgetting culture is largely the myth invented by those before us to give meaning to the world around us until we’re wise enough to understand why we really do certain things.  There is no one culture in the United States. We have a rich plethora of cultures floating around in a petri dish. There is no superlative metaphor that encompasses who every American is and will be. 

Not every American descends from pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower, let alone the explorers and tribes who arrived here before that. Americans are not all brave explorers or pioneers on a new frontier, entrepeneurs who build entire towns, or rebels of valor against tyrannical feudal systems, but some of us are, and some of us still carry on this spirit in our lives.

Belief in Manifest Destiny is very alive as can be seen from the deployment of our troops worldwide as well as our economic hold on other countries.

We Americans are not all stuck in wishing for whatever imagined golden age of the past their might have been: Victorian America, Colonial America after the war for independance, Pre Civil War or Antebellum America, The America before the depression the Roaring Twenties, and the America of the 1950s after the two World Wars, America of the 1960s, the Civil Rights and so-called Baby Boomer enlightenment through the seventies, the recessions,  the presidents, the 1980s — or are we all wishing for the decade, the era just before we were adults when we did not have to take responsibility for the world around us? When the political arena was far from us?

What of those of us who have distanced ourselves from our responsibilities, claiming ourselves, cynics, jaded, no part of this world, or that it is not our place to make decisions about the world around us?  That it makes no difference what we do, it ill not change the world.  That we do not want to change the world, that we don’t care about it, that there will always be a place to steal ourselves away.

It is becoming harder to steal oneself completely away from the rest of the world, even if one is determined to do so.

There are technological reasons for this even as there cultural ones and geographical ones.

 Though, even in the cities where people are closest together, it seems people find ways of separating themselves and coming together. Through economic class structure, religion and more. This will be further discussed in the next blog.

As the year draws to an end, I am watching a flickering montage in my mind of all that has gone passed, linking events together as one can only do in one’s mind to make an imposed order upon it. At the moment I have re-read The Vampire Lestat for the first time since I was in high school, and whenever I have just read a book by an author with a strong voice like Rice has, I tend to project that authors style of viewing their world through their character’s eyes using their prose and poetic approach. I want to experience the world through their eyes. Not just eyes, because when I read a novel, I use all my senses, including the metaphysical ones. After all, using my imagination, I really can transverse space and time. I think there is something mathematical and analytical trying to fit a fictional world view onto one’s life. Empirical.

That’s when it becomes a style, an aesthetic, a fashion, a costume, an act, a mask. And how much tragedy has been wrought because of a mask?

Many times a year we all put on a mask, a costume, adopt a persona, escape to a netherworld or fantasy by reading a book, watching a movie or playing an online rpg. I hope much of what we do in our actual daily lives is a part we’re in because we enjoy that part. New year is the time for asking that question: Does my wardrobe need an update? Which is really another way of asking: Am I living the life I want?

In fashion there have always been parts to play: The Lover, the Romantic likes a bit of flair and ruffle, a bit of drama and sensual textiles to show they are passionate. I love these Pre-Raphaelite designs at : www.renaissance-artist.com/victorian.html. The Tailored look often combines with Classical chic for professionals and those who like to comand and be in the captain’s chair and those who take orders. I remember the very basics of fashion personas explained in a book when I was a teenager in these stereotypical ways. Are you so easy to define? I like dressing up, knowing that every time I put on a dress or an outfit it was a chance to say something, or put on a costume so to speak. A dramatic.

A romantic and a passionate person, I own a velvet blazer, but I do not like everything with lace and all my skirts with crinkles and tiers and my hair fanned out like I’m Stevie Nicks all the time.

At the same time I do not like frumpy suits of sweats or am uncaring about my appearance even at home and have never that I can remember worn pajamas to the grocery store.

How far one can go to embody their vision of life. How rich a country we are that I can think of all these choices and wonder at them.

Since my youth I have wondered what it was like to think and feel and smell and taste what another person did. I am fascinated by awareness of self and awareness of other. The likenesses and differences. The subtleties. As I’ve gotten older I appreciate subtleties more. I have less patience with people who do not think or who remain willfully ignorant about what is going on in the world regarding human progress. I have more appreciation for empathetic people and people who think. I identify with Lestat in this respect.

I have had many good political discussions this year with family and friends. I enjoyed watching videos and debates on Youtube. I think of all the hopes people have had for who will be president and what will happen to our freedoms. How much is our president OUR president?

I wonder if I really have power as a consumer after hearing about vaccines gone bad, health plans suing clients for reimbursement, lead in toys, the Electric Car being killed and possibly resurrected, huge houses no one wants to buy , failed mortage lenders, and deploring lack of courtesy from surly receptionists and clerks everywhere. A person behind the desk at a doctors office has an obligation and duty to be a damn sight more friendly than someone at a bank.

I am thankful for people going green, and taking global warming seriously being mainstream, because Hi! I care that my children have an earth to inherit that is even more gorgoeus than it is now. Reminding me we almost scored twice on finding earth class planets this year.

Atheist books being on the bestseller list was a quite a snappy pop culture commentary. Thank the sapiens with sentience that there is still healthy skepticism.

Ah books, arts,science, all our aspirations.

Does the bestseller list reveal what Americans are discussing, thinking, feeling, or is it revealing what they are entertained by? The entertainment that is fed quickly in one ear and out the other, or the entertainment that people want imitate? I’d like to think people, especially Americans are experiencing subtle revelations that all add up to a life & planet changing epiphany for the better. It seems tradition defined as that superficial rote glaze over rut ritual to make a person not have to think about thinking, because it was good enough is good enough and will always be good enough is what’s winning in the mainstream now. But assuming that was good enough is good enough and always will be is wrong. For starters, that view takes for granted the present life and what our forbears went through. Are you evolving or devolving? You want to honor the humans who have come before us learn about their struggles and loves and triumphs. Pick up a good book. Read it. Ask if the vision revealed therein is a ripe prophecy for our time. Is it time to resurrect old gods, sacrifice new blood to the god you have, or chart your own course? It’s a good time to decide. Get some perspective, if you’re fresh out. Time to whip out the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.

Shopping on Christmas Eve at Borders I spotted what I’d been waiting months for. Wonder Woman as written by Gail Simone. After a disappointing year for Wonder Woman fans on many fans, after reading this issue with Ms. Simone at the helm I am looking forward to an exciting year. She said back in November that it was her dream job, and she is living the dream. Simone has got chutzpah, moxie, hips, the whole bit, to pull it off. Anyone who says, “It’s no longer a little niche industry of white guys who hang out in comic book stores and don’t have girlfriends.” should be given accolades. Hopefully other people in the comics industry have actually been paying attention to who attends the Comic-Con, for instance. That’s another article. In the meanwhile, with her talk of making the lasso the most powerful weapon in the DCU, and that, “It makes Wolverine’s claws look like Popsicle sticks.”

Simone has a lot to live up to.

It would be a lot for any writer taking over a huge mythos like Wonder Woman, but it’s been a tough couple of years for Wondy and her fans. We were promised a movie, finally getting Joss Whedon what we thought would be a green light writer. There was even a TV Guide poll as to who should play Diana. Unfortunately, Whedon immediatley gave off signs he would go south when he decried the entire pantheon of WW villains as being lame compared to Batman’s. Then came Wonder Woman playing scapegoat for killing Max Lord and her mission failing. They judged her by the value’s of what some call Patriarchs world and I call a Bureaucratic one. Diana is from the age of Heroes, when it was all right for heroes to kill. I doubt I was the only reader wondering if the next thing to pass would be the rape of Wonder Woman. Yah, let’s do that to sell some comics just like the Death of Superman and DC can have a penthouse style fold-out spread. That’s what I want my daughter to see littering the internet. The rape of the female hero who is supposed to be able to wear basically a bathing suit of body armor getting what the pimps think she deserves.

When I first heard about that possibility, I thought the person who conceived of this idea should have to be a woman in that situation. I wondered why DC hadn’t done it before. And it still seems a matter of time before they would do it at least in a what if setting. Perhaps a clause with the Marston estate has kept them form this course. If they did that, it would be saying to little girls everywhere, look at us we can even rape Wonder Woman, we can rape your dreams, that means we can rape you in your dreams. That’s where the culture of fear goes. Raping WW is like raping the All-American Cowgirl Icon, for WW is an icon of freedom and democracy, as well. I would hope if the WW being raped storyline was ever written it be done so that people could see how to be strong after it. It did happen to Hippolyta.

Wonder Woman fans are NOT your typical comic book fans, to be sure. Feminists, fans who love adventure, pop-culture fans who started reading WW after seeing the series on tv as a kid and were hooked for life, Greek mythology, gay men and women alike, those of us who still believe in democracy. Gloria Steinem might not have been Gloria Steinem Feminist icon if it weren’t for WW. And how about the way a certain future universe of Amazons was written by Frank Herbert, a man who loved giving the lie detector test invented by Marston? Doubtful.

As to what Simone has in store for WW it could be romance, surely plenty of adventure and a version of WW that might finally see the light of the silver screen. She did say in at least one interview that if she was at the helm of WW there would be no doubt WW is one fo the most powerful heroes. As for the romance aspect, I welcome it, it has been a longtime in the making. Everyone has been to afraid since Perez had it to do anything with Diana other than flings. I have to say I would like Diana to have a romance with someone ala Batman and CatWoman, a rogue who is not necessarily a villain. I like that her partner is named Nemesis. That whole bit with the gorilla saying they were ready to mate has me smiling in a way I haven’t in along time. The way Diana handles the gorillas Grod the Mastermind sends against her as a test for Superman is classic and will be aped in the years to follow. And the mystery of Hippolyta keeping yet ANOTHER secret from Di. Who is the Dragon? Remembering all the great action-packed character driven plots and mysteries, the subtlety of the dialogue in Birds of Prey that Simone wrote, I can only feel good about the year ahead for Diana. Gail Simone is the Brainiac of woman writers at DC. Hail Simone! Scribe of Themyscira, Queen of Comics, Her Majesty Gail Simone of Detective Comics.