Six Degrees

What a tangled, spangled web of poets and other people I know! Think for a minute (anymore than this will make you dizzy) about how many people you have met in your lifetime--friends, colleagues, relatives both close and distant, the pizza delivery person, the plumber, banker, auto mechanic, vet, etc. We each have a city's worth of people in our lives, even if we consider ourselves as mundane, run-of-the-mill folks, not celebrities like Susan Doyle or Michelle Obama. I am amazed. And pleased, because most of those I know are pleasant, helpful, interesting, and/or talented. My dog-groomer friend is a resource and a hard-working inspiration. My daughter is both imaginative and funny. Even my dog--especially my dog--adds to my connections in the world. One of my good friends I met because she admired my dog.

We all know the theory of six degrees of separation, right? I'd like to revise that to six degrees of connection. We cannot escape connections, nor should we want to do so. My connections to other poets create more poems. For instance, listening to Bill Roberts say that he writes five poems a week moved me to try it, and for some time now I have revised my process and make a good attempt at a poem every morning. Amazingly, it works once I tell myself to trust the language and the associative process that is poetry making. And then, there's Carolyn Jennings who leads journaling seminars, who encouraged me in one of her programs to step outside of my usual throat-clearing every morning and dig a little for something meaningful. My journal pages no longer bore me, but inform me, even inspire me to connect with the poems that lurk like mice in the corners of my mind. Or maybe they are hawks, eagles, something more substantial than rodents. I'd like to thinks so, because now that I acknowledge how many people might hear my work, I want to keep those connections, not put people off by giving them lukewarm, leftover verbiage, wilted as yesterday's salad. Nope, it's fresh greens for all my friends. And there are many. Good morning!