theme

I've noticed a few themes in the poetry I write:

1. I really like to write about the beach and the ocean. Not really about them, but about people at them, and things that happen on them or near them. This makes a lot of sense: I love the beach and many of my best or most memorable times were at the beach. Vacations. Conferences. Warm beaches.

2. My narrators tend to be cynical, uncertain douche bags. Or, if not douche bags, just not necessarily likeable. At least in first drafts. When I rewrite, I take some of that out. I'm not really sure why that happens, it's not intentional. Maybe poetry is where all my cynicism and rottenness and uncertainty come out.

3. Women die in my poetry. More precisely, a lot of my poems center around situations where a woman is dead, or gone in some way. Once again, I'm not really sure why. I love women, I don't want them to die.

Now, I think of Pedro the Lion, and about how so many of his songs are about cynical douche bags. There's not very many dead women in his songs (women kill people in his songs), but there are a lot of split relationships and women who are gone. Now I just wonder if his songs influenced the way I write, or if there's something in these things that attracts me to his songs and that I also write about. Probably both.

A few notes:

Today I was in what I think was the smallest plane I've ever flown on. Walking down the aisles, the ceiling was barely above my head. When I went into the bathroom, I couldn't stand straight.

I read some Salman Rushdie and Douglas Coupland on the plane. I really like their writing.

Too much of my life has been wasted feeling sorry for myself and being a pansy. This needs to end.