Interlude: Juggling Two Writing Lives
Last Friday, talking to singer-songwriter Keri Anderson at the bar upstairs at Ralph’s Chadwick Square Diner before her two sets that night for the Dirty Gerund Poetry Series, it struck me clearly how I live in two worlds sometimes. On the one hand, I’m The Guy Who Writes For The Paper. On the other, I’m someone who writes, publishes and performs poetry and fiction.
The worlds have collided before, of course. In fact, they‘ve done so fairly regularly for nearly 20 years of doing this. But every now and again, it all becomes very evident, especially when I’m talking to a musician who knows me from one context, such as the paper, and encounters me wearing my “working artist” hat.
It’s not that I find it awkward — I’ve never made a secret of the dichotomy — it’s just … well, it’s always a little weird. It’s like a literary multiple personality disorder. For brief moments, when my brain is running the subroutines of both roles, I don’t entirely know who I am. Thankfully, Anderson is a much better conversationalist than I am, and a heck of a musician — both her sets were fantastic that night, as was the poetry set from Pitt Poetry Press author Jeffrey McDaniel, who made it only a little late after encountering car troubles on the way up from New York.
Talking to Anderson, I found myself musing that I hadn’t made it out to many music shows lately. Sometimes, the role of “working writer” wins, meaning I need to spend all my free evenings either writing or — more the case these days — out performing and hawking either my (alas) soon to be out-of-print book, City of Insomnia , or the Best Indie Lit New England , of which I was an editor.
The latter had me down in Providence Thursday, at AS220, reading from the book alongside some of the book’s other editors, Providence writer Astrid Drew and my wife, Lea. It also had me hosting a reading at Nick’s Bar and Restaurant here in Worcester the week before, featuring several of the anthology’s contributors. My own work took me to Portland, Maine, Sunday to read at a show Dobrá Tea, along with poetry by Lea and music by Worcester’s own Shane Hall. New England is a small town, sometimes. I find I run into poets and musicians all over the place.
The point is, sometimes, when that side of my life is being hectic, I find I can’t make it out to music very often. Which is a shame, because I love music and love writing about music more than I love writing about anything.
Or maybe that’s not the point at all. Maybe the point is that art, such as music and poetry, is not compartmentalized from other things I do. Or really, that anybody does. It seeps into your life at the cracks, after all — a song seeping into your skin at a moment of heartbreak, a poem recalled on the dawn of a romance, a painting you saw in a museum once that haunts you sometimes, for no reason at all.
I’m not entirely sure there’s a conclusion to be had here, really, except that maybe it’s a mistake to try too hard to divorce my dual roles from one another. It’s not like different hats make someone a different person, after all. It’s just that sometimes I can’t help but think that, when the two roles collide, I feel like a magician whose best tricks have been revealed.
Which is a relatively useless feeling. Really, it would be much more productive to make more time for music, or poetry events I'm not participating in. When a musician such as talented as Anderson or Hall is on the stage in front of me, or a poet as talented as McDaniel, I’m not fretting about anything at all.
The worlds have collided before, of course. In fact, they‘ve done so fairly regularly for nearly 20 years of doing this. But every now and again, it all becomes very evident, especially when I’m talking to a musician who knows me from one context, such as the paper, and encounters me wearing my “working artist” hat.
It’s not that I find it awkward — I’ve never made a secret of the dichotomy — it’s just … well, it’s always a little weird. It’s like a literary multiple personality disorder. For brief moments, when my brain is running the subroutines of both roles, I don’t entirely know who I am. Thankfully, Anderson is a much better conversationalist than I am, and a heck of a musician — both her sets were fantastic that night, as was the poetry set from Pitt Poetry Press author Jeffrey McDaniel, who made it only a little late after encountering car troubles on the way up from New York.
Talking to Anderson, I found myself musing that I hadn’t made it out to many music shows lately. Sometimes, the role of “working writer” wins, meaning I need to spend all my free evenings either writing or — more the case these days — out performing and hawking either my (alas) soon to be out-of-print book, City of Insomnia , or the Best Indie Lit New England , of which I was an editor.
The latter had me down in Providence Thursday, at AS220, reading from the book alongside some of the book’s other editors, Providence writer Astrid Drew and my wife, Lea. It also had me hosting a reading at Nick’s Bar and Restaurant here in Worcester the week before, featuring several of the anthology’s contributors. My own work took me to Portland, Maine, Sunday to read at a show Dobrá Tea, along with poetry by Lea and music by Worcester’s own Shane Hall. New England is a small town, sometimes. I find I run into poets and musicians all over the place.
The point is, sometimes, when that side of my life is being hectic, I find I can’t make it out to music very often. Which is a shame, because I love music and love writing about music more than I love writing about anything.
Or maybe that’s not the point at all. Maybe the point is that art, such as music and poetry, is not compartmentalized from other things I do. Or really, that anybody does. It seeps into your life at the cracks, after all — a song seeping into your skin at a moment of heartbreak, a poem recalled on the dawn of a romance, a painting you saw in a museum once that haunts you sometimes, for no reason at all.
I’m not entirely sure there’s a conclusion to be had here, really, except that maybe it’s a mistake to try too hard to divorce my dual roles from one another. It’s not like different hats make someone a different person, after all. It’s just that sometimes I can’t help but think that, when the two roles collide, I feel like a magician whose best tricks have been revealed.
Which is a relatively useless feeling. Really, it would be much more productive to make more time for music, or poetry events I'm not participating in. When a musician such as talented as Anderson or Hall is on the stage in front of me, or a poet as talented as McDaniel, I’m not fretting about anything at all.
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