Megan Falley's Blog, page 98
January 1, 2013
"I suppose, as spoken word poet, I wear all my injuries like jewelry. When things hurt, I write them..."
-
Megan Falley, interviewed in PANK (via bostonpoetryslam)
Where do I come up with this shit?
Three Poems by Miles Walser
To kick off the New Year, Radius: Poetry From the Center to the Edge offers a trio of poems by an exciting rising voice, Miles Walser.
December 30, 2012
December 29, 2012
December 28, 2012
Hey NYC-Based Tumblrinas(/os)
Tonight (Friday) I am featuring at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe. 236 E 3rd St Btwn Aves B&C. Get there by 930ish. Bring yr momz. It’s my first show in my city since I’ve been back from tour. I’m gonna put my heart on your plate.
Read Jeanann Verlee's Poems in Thrush Magazine and Know What It Means To Be Unhinged
Good Girl
Every morning I sit at the kitchen table over a tall glass of water swallowing pills.
(So my hands won’t shake.) (So my heart won’t race.) (So my face won’t thaw.)
(So my blood won’t mold.) (So the voices won’t scream.) (So I don’t reach for
knives.) (So I keep out of the oven.) (So I eat every morsel.) (So the wine goes
bitter.) (So I remember the laundry.) (So I remember to call.) (So I remember the
name of each pill.) (So I remember the name of each sickness.) (So I keep my
hands inside my hands.) (So the city won’t rattle.) (So I don’t weep on the bus.) (So
I don’t wander the guardrail.) (So the flashbacks go quiet.) (So the insomnia
sleeps.) (So I don’t jump at car horns.) (So I don’t jump at cat-calls.) (So I don’t
jump a bridge.) (So I don’t twitch.) (So I don’t riot.) (So I don’t slit a strange man’s
throat.)
December 27, 2012
tradition, tradition!
hello children of the internet!
for four years in a row, i have written a month-by-month “year in review” (or, as i clumsily named back in 2008, “a retrospective introspective”) where i
divide my past year by month
choose a photo that best represents the major theme of each month
write a little paragraph summarizing what questions i asked / what answers i found.
post for all you fine people.
(there is proof of this in the december section of the last four years if you’d like to catch up on my spill-all reviews of years past)
i’m thrilled that i’ve made it to the fifth annual ANYTHING, and again I invite you along to partake in this incredible internet-scrapbook to chronicle what happens in a year. tag “retrospective introspective” or “year in review” so we can share this cup of memory tea together.
thank you for being there for the best year of my life so far. here’s a hug.
love,
meg.
December 20, 2012
The Tour Is Over, We Survived.
At the end of August I did what They always tell you not to do—I quit my dayjob. September 10th, I took my little 12 year-old Nissan Altima, a chunk of my material-life packed away in in it, plus hundreds of copies of a book that I wrote, and drove a straight twelve hours to Ohio. It was a beautiful day, so I rolled the windows down and let Cat Stevens sing out of them as my house, my family, my boyfriend, my pets, mylifeasiknewit got smaller in the rearview. I had no idea what to expect. Sure, I’d planned this 100 day poetry tour for months. I booked all the shows. I marked both my online and paper calendar. I google-mapped like a champ. I dragged a pink marker across each tour stop as if it were my car. I got my oil changed, got AAA. I knew someone safe to stay with in each city. I prepared in every possible way I could, right down to finding the most convenient dental floss for travelling (turns out—dental floss is still never convenient) But I could not know then, driving down the interstate, feeling like a sexylady Jack Kerouac, how this would change me.
On the 2nd day of tour, I woke up on air air mattress in Columbus, OH and thought 98 More Days. What have I gotten myself in to? It was then that I saw two hypothetical paths unfurl in front of me: The first vision was a maudlin woman who spent her time in between shows sleeping, or on the computer trying to reconnect with home. That same woman maybe even gave up mid-trip, cancelled her tour, went home and back to the day job’s comfortable monotony. The other vision was more naked—it was a woman who marched through life like she was the head float at The Awesome Parade. That woman, even on the days when home felt like a longitudinal point on a grid she might not see again, would Adventure. I had a choice, and in that moment, I stepped in to the latter woman’s skin.
When I left my stable job to pursue my livelihood—a matrimony of writing and performance—I wasn’t sure what would happen to me. Would I go broke? Would I sleep in my car and tell my parents I was at a Days Inn so they wouldn’t worry? Would my car break down and I’d be stranded in the desert because I never learned to change a tire? Would I ask someone to wire me money with my tail between my legs? Would I learn what it meant to be a Starving Artist? Would I fall asleep at the wheel and die in a fiery crash? But for 100 days I read my poems in coffee shops, bars, art galleries, colleges, high schools, and restaurants to anyone who would listen (and some who wouldn’t), telling the audience that purchasing my book would feed me, my car, and hopefully the poems would feed them right back—and you know what, I profited. I made more money on my poetry tour than I did at my day job. I do not do this for the money (poetry is not known for being a lucrative career) I do this because I love it. Because I can’t not do it.But my mom was right. That age-old expression I thought was as phony as the Tooth Fairy came true: Do What You Love, And The Money Will Follow. And that’s worth a fucking hallelujah. C’mon, everybody. In unison! HALLELUJAH!
Here is a top 10 list of some other incredible things I got to experience (that had nothing to do with the incredible humans I encountered, which I will get to shortly): 1. Discovering one of the most hard-hitting pieces of art I’ve ever seen in a museum and being changed for it. Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “A Portrait of Ross in L.A.” (Chicago, IL.) 2. Exploring the outdoor art project titled “The Heidelberg Project” and feeling the tug of war in my heart at the juxtaposing images of joy and destruction. (Detroit, MI.) 3. While completely alone except for the company of three cats for nearly a week, I was quasi-thrown into a triggering position where I watched near-strangers publicly debate my personal life until my breaking point: I decided I would finally and for-the-record name my abuser for all to see. While I was overwhelmingly supported, there were dark parts, and I will literally forever be indebted to Blue, PigPig, but especially Sawyer for purring and cuddling my heart back into place. (Salt Lake City, UT, and also everywhere.) 4. I can’t even pick a single incident, but the entire opportunity to explore Vancouver, B.C. with my best friend in the world. 5. Driving from Seattle to Northern California, through the red wood forest, down the West Coast, touching the Ocean for the first time since home (which had been almost two months at that point) and when I pull up to the stranger’s house I am staying at when I literally have no idea what to expect: I can see the milkyway and hear the waves crash from the hot tub in their backyard—which they let me use whenever I want. 6. Seeing my cousin Ana’s headstone and throwing sunflowers into the ocean, where I wrote her name on the beach, on the exact day she would have gotten married, and realizing in that moment that I promised her that I would be there that day. And though unplanned, I was. 7. Las Vegas. 8. The Grand Canyon. 9. Spending Thanksgiving in Santa Fe with my mother. Crying literal-joy tears in the outdoor spa with panoramic mountain views realizing that my passion has funded this incredible experience. Gratitude so overwhelming it leaks from the eyes. 10. Drinking by myself in New Orleans at a bar on Bourbon Street, listening to a Zydeco band, making friends with the locals and feeling home. Talking to the lead singer about life on the road.
Then there are the people: the ones I reunited with. The ones I knew and became closer with. The ones I’d only known from the internet and found out we were real-life friends too. The ones who took airplanes because they missed me. Everyone who opened their home to me so that I never had to spend a dime on a hotel. The strangers who gave me their couch or a spare room who had no reason to, but love. Everyone who bought a book, a CD. Everyone who came up to me after with no money but just wanted to say thank you. The ones who cried—who I held and understood. The ones who travelled for hours because it was the closest city to them I’d be performing in and maybe their only chance to see me live. The children of people I stayed with. The many adorable pets that I photographed heavily. The guys at JiffyLube across the country who kept my car (Ol’ Reliable) alive after 13,000+ miles. My dad for gifting me Ol’ Reliable. Briana for keeping me entertained with her sitcom-worthy life while I was driving. Everyone. Every host, venue, poet, audience member. YOU. The kindness and love in this world is huge. It deserves a spot on the evening news each night. It deserves front page headlines. Kindness deserves to be the only thing on our newsfeeds for a day. The President needs to address it. I need to address it. Thank you. Every person I’ve talked to in the last 100 days, without you this mosaic is incomplete. It needed you to be this beautiful.
A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that when I came home to my puppies I was so happy to see them that I could hardly breath from crying so intensely. I woke up and thought “that was silly.” Today, while driving from D.C. to home-finally-home, I rolled the windows down again. I let Cat Stevens sing out. I saw that dreamy skyline and again, my face spilled its gratitude. Poems. Mountains. Rivers. Roads. Books. Miles. Gas Stations. Animals. Trees. Tourist Traps. Wine. Phone Calls. Performances. Autographs. High School Students. Panic Attacks. GPS. Recalculating. Maps. Trail mix. Humans. Hearts. Canyons. Art. Sadness. Hurricanes. Shooting. Hospitals. Birth. San Francisco. Christmas Trees. Cousins. Aquariums. Readings. Graffiti. Hikes. Witches. Coffee. Leaky Pens. November. All of it. When I pulled up into my house no one was home except the puppies. And I cried just like that dream. They didn’t forget me.
Some say the world is going to end tomorrow. I don’t know much about that, but if it does, I am so happy that I got to experience all of this. And that when I came home, I spent a long time talking and laughing with my brother and my mom. The dogs curled at my side. A copy of a book I wrote in 300 different pairs of hands. And, with all the miles and mountains and rivers and shows and new adventure, how astoundingly grateful I am to have this place. What new meaning it takes on now. What color. Home.
"Real poetry is a party, a wild party, a party where anything might happen. A party from which you..."
- Dorothea Lasky, from Poetry Is Not a Project (via muscovite)
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