Is Poetry Dead?

I think not!  What about you?

Here is the title poem from my poetry collection, "The Nightshade Lexicon" in honor of #WorldPoetryDay

Or Listen in to the technopoetry version if you prefer at: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/nightshadelexicon-poetry-is-deadmp3 

"Poetry is dead,"

He said,

"And you scribblers of rhymes

Are the modern day equivalents of Dr. Frankenstein,

Cobbling together hackneyed parts of palsied phrases

Hoping to electrify some heart."

How could this be?

I thought.

Everyone knows GOD is dead,

Nietzsche told us so,

But poetry?

A listing land of zombie corpses?

Poetry has whispered mixers and elixers

To necromancers and angels alike for millennium…

Dressed ancient Ute chants to the nines

And peeled naked Tupac Shakur and Beastie Boy dimes.

"Poetry is dead and you’re wasting time with ghosts on-line,"

He insisted,

As I shaped more sharpie ghouls on a napkin

And the back of some grocery store receipt.

Maybe poetry chirps via smart-phone at 180 characters per minute

Like Herman Munster’s heartbeat,

“IT LIVES!”

I quipped.

And I’ll continue to deal in my dead lexicon,

A dark addicted wordslinger,

Happy towering with the nightshades.

Some poetic nightshades in a dead lexicon...

Need a perky upbeat tune to put you into the summer groove?

Give this a listen: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/insectoniamp3 and get ready to twitch!

Sometimes Pride can save lives.

Please take five seconds and read through Nancy's blog (it might help you and someone you love): http://www.alexncassidy.com/#!VISIBILITY-and-PRIDE-thoughts-from-authors/c1w54/55876b940cf25bae5cac7b9a

On Being Visibly Proud of All I Am, as a Writer.

I am a voracious reader.  Books, stories, tales. They really matter to me.  Genre and type do not. 
I even love reading the cereal box. 
Debating whether I was first a writer or reader is too much like the great chicken and egg debate—just pointless mental masturbation; but I believe I was first a reader inspired to write. 
At first I didn’t care what I wrote.  Anything was fine so long as I was telling the a story that gets at the heart of what it means to be human: a journey of growth.
I actually didn’t care about fame or visibility of any kind, but especially as a lesbian.
In my little heart of hearts, I don’t want who I am to matter to potential readers as much as I want the story I am telling to matter to readers. 
But then I realized something very important, for myself as a reader, and in my profession as a writer . . . something I already knew from my work in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, but just failed to translate to other domains of my life . . . stories matter the most to us when we identify and empathize with the people involved. 
For some readers, like me, that probably means identifying with the characters; but for other readers, maybe many other readers, that could mean identifying with the author. 
While this doesn’t have to happen on any demographic level, including sexuality, it does have to happen on a genuine level. Even if I don’t necessarily view my sexuality as all that important to my personal identity or career, society does.  The world does. And that great external force of perception means my sexuality shapes my experience on a genuinely visible level.

As such, my lesbian voice as an author and in the representation of my characters, is much more than a matter of my pride.  Visibly living that pride is the only way I can create a story genuine and artful enough to inspire empathy and spread compassion.
Being visibly proud of my sexuality and telling stories involving characters like me may help others connect to my stories and find what they need.  I have so many LGBTQ friends who need evidence that someone excepts them, that someone is proud to know them. Some of my friends were disowned by their families and left homeless as teenagers. Some gave their lives with honor to serve their country and were buried without family at their gravesides. Some were passed over for promotions because their organizations were embarrassed by their identity, and one was shot because she looked a little too butch. I now realize that when I claim with pride my LGBTQ status, when I use my lesbian identity to proudly create art, I actively help put an end to these horrors. I change the salient story to one of a lesbian author, writing about LGBTQ characters who grow beyond hate to find health and happiness.
I hope you will join me in being proud of your identity and above all, in being proud of our ability to accept and love many identities. Please, be proud enough to share who you are, because someone else out there (a reader, another writer, a musician, a mother, a sister) needs to know you too, if we are all ever going to discover how love saves the world.

"Lacey and Laura's wedding bouquets" -AzulOx Photography 

The first public reading PANIC

In a few short weeks, I will be reading a five minute excerpt from my novel, A Walk Away.
While this is really exciting and should be fun, I am concerned with reading well. Five minutes can be a long time to read out loud--and no one wants to listen to the most boring parts of a book...so I'm trying to choose. Chapter 14 has been suggested since it has some witty dialogue and reveals one of the explanations to the book's title. Chapter 8 has also been suggested since it features the scene where the two main characters meet for the first time.

But I'd rather hear from readers... what makes a read excerpt draw you into wanting to read the book most?

I figure there are three main sets of variables I should attend to (this is where the social scientist in me geeks out):
1) The Style Variables like pitch, pace, inflection, clarity, and accent.
2) The Content Variables like how much dialogue, action, symbolism, meaningfulness, and closure or emotional bait the excerpt features.
3) The Context Variables like how much and what kinds of set up or explanation I should offer before reading.

Being largely tone-deaf and somewhat shy, I struggle the most with the first set regarding style--but I'd really like to hear what different readers like the most in each realm of variables. So let me know what you think?

And if you want to hear a practice sample for comparison to your ideal, or if it is easier for you to listen to me read and then critique than it is to just state what you like, then give a listen to this short reading from the book on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/hookedmp3

Yes, the cat helps!

Love Never Dies, a tribute to children taken too soon.

My friend, Mr. David Wright, wrote this poem in tribute to two young children who died in a tragic house fire in La Porte, Texas last Sunday.  I wish their family and friends all the love, time, and support they need to heal.

"Love Never Dies"

This can't be real, It isn't just denial.

I can still hear you laughing, I can still see your smile.

There's no way you can be gone, you were just right there.

This morning I hear birds singing, I see the wind in your hair.

How can this happen to such precious little souls

To never fulfill their dreams, to never reach their goals.

Like a thief in the night You tore our lives apart.

Left our community weeping, and full of broken hearts.

Just give me one more chance to roll back the hands of time.

Get me up so I can get them out then everything would be just fine.

Please give them back, they deserve so many more years.

It would be so easy to mend the broken hearts, and wipe away all these tears.

Today is weighing heavy, I'm not sure I can last.

Trying to fight back the tears, but my strength is fading fast.

I turn to go to work, but sorrow replaces my cares.

Overwhelmed by the vision of a charred home, Balloons and Teddy Bears.

God has called two angels to be with Him in a better place.

Our lives must move on, but we will never forget your face.

There will be many long days "without you my friend."

"And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again."

-David L. Wright, Jr.

Simper Fidelis