i just realized that today is march 23rd & i have poems due by march 31st for my submission to the online poetry book for deviant-publishing. the rules? basically none. just can't be mature content. which i can handle. i'm just not sure what i want to write about.

this wednesday i'm meeting with my adviser at hamline to discuss my thesis for my mfa (master of fine arts). i've made some pretty tough decisions. i was going to try for two projects, a book of poetry & a novel, but i've decided that it's time to finish my degree so i'm shelving my novel for a while & i'm going to concentrate full force on my poetry book. which really needs a lot of attention. i didn't realize it had been SO long since i'd worked seriously on my poems until i started putting them up here & saw that many of them were quite "old."

while i do have enough poems to put together my thesis from "older" poems, & i even have enough centering on the topic of family/identity that i could do that i just don't feel right doing it. i feel like i wouldn't be completely honest using old poems. i need to do what is relevant to my life now, the things that are timely & speak from my heart right now. i also used to put alot of distance in my poems because i'd write them in third person or second person, i would try to keep the reader from really getting into my head. yes, i know, ridiculous with poetry, but still, i felt a compulsion to try to protect myself.

my thesis is going to be centering on issues of body image, gastric bypass, weight loss, eating disorders....basically all the stuff that has been bubbling up in my life in the past year. to go from writing personal, & yet very hands off, poetry to letting people get so up close & personal is a scary prospect. but kind of thrilling at the same time.

i've also really started to live by the mind set that if people are put off or deterred by something in my life then that's too eff-ing bad & it's not my issue. everyone has their problems, everyone has their struggles. it was makes us each an individual & not just mindless clones/sheep/lemmings ala 1985. i have an eating disorder, but that's not me. just like if someone has cancer they are not their cancer. it impacts my life because i'm in therapy & i'm trying to recover right now. & sometimes it takes a bunch of my energy, but i'm going to take that energy & put it somewhere positive: into my poems.