I suppose I’m not the only person to find the idea of creative output exhausting here in the cyberpunk hellscape of 2025. Most of my creative sparks last just long enough to make me feel optimistic before being smothered under the latest news of the fascist bootlicks and apartheid fanboys currently running rampant in Washington, DC. But like Sisyphus I keep rollin’ that boulder, while Orpheus sings the blues.

My partner found an unlined journal with paper thick enough that I can use my fountain pens without bleed-through, so I have been scratching out rough drafts of new poems therein. I love my Moleskines, but the paper is just a little too thin for fountain pens.

On the creative front, two things have been keeping me stable this year. First is the ongoing work of the Grand River Poetry Collective, spear-headed by the Grand Rapids Poet Laureate (and my very good friend) Christine Stephens-Krieger. And second, the recurring re-connections with my many creative friends from Back In The Day, particularly with old college friends and co-workers from my several years at Schuler Books, back in the 1990s.

In a bit of fortunate timing, I recently started reading through The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966, which is a collection of the best of the first decade of the Evergreen Review literary journal. Most of the writers in the Review were names I first encountered while working at the bookstore. This coincidence has sent me down a rabbit hole of nostalgia, which is good for re-energizing the writing habit, but perhaps not so good for moving in new directions. Then again, time only moves in one direction (or rather, we only move in one direction through time), so everything old can be new again.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for March, 2025 is: If for one day you could be anyone or *thing* in the world, what would it be?

I have thought about this question many times in the past, though more in the guise of “What would you like to come back as?” This version is much easier to answer, as one day is much shorter than a lifetime, unless I choose to come back as a mayfly.

I think, for one day, I would like to true being a tree, on the southeast  side of a mountain, overlooking a river, in late Spring. Someplace far away from people. Most of all, some place quiet. There is far too little quiet in the world any more.

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