Category: Nonfiction

Poetry is difficult, and I understand that as well as anyone. I’m guilty of not reading the craft of condensed literary art– I’m too busy making my own. I don’t think that’s a crime, though I do feel as though I need a little push and pull in that reading and writing relationship (as it pertains to poetry).

As that thought rolls through my mind, I make another excuse for myself. To read one’s poetry is to peer into their psyche at that moment in time. Some poems have been dashed out and you can feel the emotion dripping from the page. Some are meticulously molded and caressed until they’ve become their own emotion, their own being. I appreciate it all, I truly do. So I’ve decided that since I’m a 22 year-old artist, my time is best spent inward and focused upon the constant reinforcement of my personal craft.

By this point, my early inspirations are solid. So now I must draw from that insane bird’s nest in my neocortex. This excuse placates me considerably. I will read poetry in time, when my own creations are living and breathing among the others in the community. An author only truly realizes his / her potential when their word babies are sent off to frolic in the playground with their peers. Then the responsibility shifts to maintaining a comfortable level of awareness; keeping an eye out in the neighborhood.

In summation, I will continue to write poems. Poems are fun, lovely, colorful, evocative, rhythmic, short, comical, universal, tragic, satirical, whatever you want them to be. They’re fucking brilliant, pardon my French. I’m a bubble in this world, and my poems still reside there. I’m grateful to my reader base (Yes, I’m talking to you!) for gracing my page with your presence. You are the reason I strive to create innovation and invent new language. You. I hope to speak with more of you in the future, to give my gifts to you.

I love this place called Earth, this unfolding forum of higher ambitions that won’t cease as long as we take our responsibilities as thinking beings seriously.

-Aidan

I spent my educational life pursuing beauty for the sake of growth and maturation.
Now I enter the professional world, which seems to have simplified into the basic pursuit of survival.
I have to ground myself and convert the skills I gained from poetic thought and colorful patterns into profitable systems for comfortable living.
I have to compromise on several (if not many) of my steadfast principles in order to compete on the standard level of business.

So be it; I enjoyed a glut of time for ruminating and thinking, and the next logical step is doing.
I’ve been launched into the dog-eat-dog society from a nurturing upbringing, and not until I find my footing in this ever-morphing, needlessly challenging social structure can I fall back on my idea-based existence.

Now it’s just a matter of doing.
2013, are you with me?

-Aidan

2013 will be an odd year. It also contains every digit between 0 and 3. If you happen to be as oddly superstitious as I am, you understand where my fixation comes from. Uneven years have a way of putting me on edge, and I’m grateful to them for that. It’s time I light a fire under my ass.

Now, would I call this a New Year’s Resolution? Probably not. I’d rather call it a New Year’s Anxious Argument with Myself.

So self, here’s the gist of what I want me to do:

-write a helluva lot more poetry

-hone a short story factory in one of the lesser-used recesses of my brain

-seriously scout creative writing MA/MFA programs in Chicago

-submit submit submit

If I can carry out these tasks, my life will progress steadily and my fulfillment will rise considerably.

2012 was an even keel kind of year. Nobody was sure whether or not we’d be burning in a pit of hellfire by now, so they stuck to the program.

No more, people. Be adventurous. You hear me, self?

-Aidan

I shall begin a full-scale editing bonanza of the drafts I’ve put on this site.
I don’t expect I’ll ever be finished.

-Aidan

In the recent past I’ve considered myself a bit of a pen aficionado, always on the lookout for the magical utensil that will write and draw the ideal letters and lines every time. Now I believe I’ve found that pen, and it’s cheap enough that I’ll never be long without one (if I ever let my supply run so dangerously low). I dislike dropping brand names, but these pens will float my boat for a long time, so I figure I might as well let folks know (and since this is just a dinky personal blog without serious exposure, I think I won’t have too much of a guilty conscience about it). And considering the amount of time I’ve let this build up, now the pen won’t be nearly as cool as I’ve let on (which is what I was trying to do in the first place). My mystical utensil is nothing more than a Uni-ball Jetstream RT 1.0mm. It’s smooth and consistent and doesn’t smear and writes straight lines and has an excellent hand-feel. There’s really nothing more I could ask for in a pen.

Now that I have that branding drudgery out of the way, I can impart to you just what my life embodies since completing my treasure hunt. I have a unified source for my creativity: a box full of a dozen of these buggers. They’ve been regulated in the market to sell for no more than 3 bucks per pen, and each pen has an identical action and lifespan that regulates my own process.

I will invariably leave pens in several different locations, just so I can remember that each of those locations is a spot where creation happens. I won’t have to worry about which pen I’ll be using that time, because I’ll know exactly what line to expect. This will free me from qualifying my work as a product of different media.

My work has always been pen on paper.

Now my work will always be this pen on paper.

I move forward in a straight line with a single source,
just as a painter finds his brush and oils and canvas.
I’ve always wanted my craft to be simpler than that.
A blank sheet and a sharp ink are as close to perfection as I’ve ever seen.

Thanks for reading.

-Aidan