black heart valentine coal collective

preface.background

Hey! Hello! First off thank you oh so very much for checking this out. I cannot thank you enough for that leap of faith, and will do my utmost to ensure you do not regret it.

I desperately wanted to do a new series after finishing prism wave & limit. The only problem was I had no idea what I was going to write about or focus on. So I just started writing regardless, sorta doing the whole fake it until you make it thing, hoping things would fall into place.

And so far, they have. This series seems to be shaping up to be abstractly topical. 1o9ol (old old series) managed to be fantastical and outlandish, and Prism Wave & Limit (old series) was more personal and confessional.

I have never been good at being topical, like sitting watching the news coverage about something, getting all emotional and then banging out a piece. But I am trying to embrace that more now. This series touches on different topics such as poverty, hardships, inequality and the rights and freedoms we do have and what is beyond us.

Inspiration was initially borne out of reading Cold War memoirs and then has expanded include the trajectory of lives and what defines that, choices, moments, chances, missed chances, the struggle to live and succeed, and how that determines where we fit in the world. All of these choices that shape our lives are based off of our beliefs and values. So as I get older (early twenties) I begin to see how something might be great for one person, but not so for another in keeping with their respective priorites and sense of responsibility or integrity.

Anyways, I hope this series turns out well and that you enjoy it or can at least appreciate it even if you don't like it. Please feel free to comment and share you thoughts and input. I am often not right and only have my own experiences to draw from. So whatever you feel I am not seeing, please call me out on that.

Also I ask that you please be patient because I write slowly. Inspiration is often a trickle not a stream and my stupid schedule doesn't help at all, so it takes a while to get a whole piece done. I like to think what is written is very good and held to a high standard. But that does not change me being not very prolific. I suppose the benefit of writing poems is that each one is sort of its own little capsule, so people don't get mad like if you are writing a story which sort of hinges on chapters and continuity and take forever to update.

I never know if a preface is a helpful thing or if it is just a turn off. I like to let work speak for itself. But in fairness, my voice and persona is a foreign thing to you. So it seems better to ease into it so you have an idea of who I am and what I write about; akin to guiding you down a river on a raft instead of pushing you in unexpectedly.

And on that note, happy reading.

4/21/17