Monday Oct 18, 2021

Colors of Life - My Story

A speech I gave over the weekend prompted this week’s episode. Poetic Resurrection is in its third season and I realized I haven’t told you my story. How did I get started in poetry, writing, and acting?

I grew up in Chicago to loving parents who stated “follow your dreams”. My parents were the working poor, but during the holidays we had live music parties with family and friends. Therefore, I wanted to be a singer-songwriter. My poetry became lyrics for songs I wrote in the 80s. Yes, I’m dating myself. I was a punk rocker. I even had a fanzine called LOZT and at the time, I was. I interviewed and photographed bands like the Clash, Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Cure to name a few. After this, I realized entertainment journalism wasn’t for me, even though it was fun for a while. After recording a demo, performing in a video, and a few shows. I realized that I just enjoyed singing and the music industry which I loved was not right for me. I had pursued music for so long that I felt I had to keep at it, but I didn’t.

An actor friend had a medical problem and had to stay home. He offered to give me free acting lessons, and I said yes because I thought that would help my music. I was hooked. I fell in love with acting. I started with theater and then musicals. Got an agent and started acting on TV and film. I’m still doing it.

Throughout all the different avenues in entertainment I’ve tried, my passion has been poetry. I wrote poetry, just to write it. I’d put it in a drawer and save it. It was my therapy. In 2016, I decided I wanted to publish my poetry. The poetry dealt with raw emotions. I contemplated using a pen name, but then I decided I needed to get over myself and use my given name. I hired an editor and researched publishers. I realized a manuscript takes six months to be read and then they’d tell you yes or no. I didn’t want to wait that long. Basically, because I was afraid I’d changed my mind about publishing. I went to Amazon Kindle because it was easy to publish a book. I was on the phone with the rep from Kindle and she kept telling me to press publish, which is the enter key and she had to tell me three times because I thought about how everyone would know how I felt. My traumas, my heartaches, and some humorous experiences. I pressed entered and ended up receiving great reviews and now I have three books and I’m currently working on my fourth, which is the third installation of the Inspire Me series entitled Inspire Me: In Time of Need.

The poem for this week is Sadness from Inspire Me: Raw.

Drizzle of a tear on a mountain

Chisels the gorge

Smoothing the surface—starting new

Flow of waves of full moon

Surrenders like a soldier near death

Nowhere yet peace

Mourning former actions

An abundant essence yearned

Live the now- dismiss the rest

Soul’s journey brings me home

Master task—Letting go

Rewind thoughts confirmed

Dissolve elusive dream

Purge past yet debris clings

Sun warmth coddles me

Time wasted. Was it?

Serene breeze expels fears

Life’s resurrection

Mesmerize by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Colors of Life - My Story

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