Good morning from the Bipartisan Cafe, across from the Academy Theater and Thatcher’s Pub, two miles North of the Foster-Powell Triangle in the Montivilla Neighborhood. I am eating a Dale Cooper special (slice of cherry pie and drip coffee), listening to the murmur of my neighbors. It is raining outside, a good proper cold April rain. The kind that brings daffodils and delight into the world. I am sore from swimming this morning, 8 a.m. with the other old ladies, moving through water with as much force as I can muster. It’s beautiful to have a body. It’s beautiful to pretend I am an athlete.
Yesterday, on a whim, after buying a cat with The Spouse (Gus. 3 legs. Stripes. The best cat. No other notes), I ordered a cheap tiny e-reader from the back woods of the internet, small as a field notes notebook, to slip into my notebook sheath with pens and wallet cards. Anyone who has followed me knows I have an affinity for e-ink devices. The idea of a library in the pocket gives me joy in the way other digital devices don’t. The plan is to put a small group of my favorite holy books in there, make it a psalster to turn to in my practice. I have chosen:
Leaves of Grass by Uncle Walt
What is the Grass: Walt Whitman in my Life by Mark Doty
A book about Christian Anarchism by Tolstoy
The Journal of John Woolman
Worthy of the Event by Blaxell
Early Morning: Remembering my Father, William Stafford by Kim Stafford
Secret Body by Jeffrey Kripal
Walden by Hank Thoreau
The Gospels of Jesus
Heresy by Catherine Nixey
Holy books to offer solace in these dark times. Trans and poetic and gay and heretical. Holy books.
Whenever someone asks what I do, and I tell them I’m The Poet Laureate, they look at me as if I am a holy fool They are not far off. I have what we call a vocation. My commitment to the muse is as if I am part of a holy order. The order of the pen. There are others like me, some of whom are reading this. The world needs our words. It needs to be inoculated against destruction and war. We must be a tool of healing against the warmongers and the money worshipers. We are here to see the world, and make it real in the flow of language. Live in words. Clatter along in this delicious OK life.
They of course mean “what do you do for money” and right now I apply for jobs, and wait for the inevitable rejections. At some point I will be swooped up into someone else’s mission, and will be there for others again. But right now, I need to get rid of the idea that money is what defines me. What I do for it is what defines me. I need to have faith in the good work.
As long as the savings hold out. As long as unemployment continues. As long as this freedom exists.
Eileen Myles once was asked how they kept the rent paid. They talked about the different odd jobs, and bookstores, and universities, and publications, and the scraping by, and the illegal things. And they spoke of the magic year when they were unemployed, “and I was paid to write in my apartment because of it.” The kingdom of words is here, if we act like it. So…I write. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. A poet.
I am still playing around with tools for the new blog. Figured out a quick way to directly post from Obsidian. How to post pictures from my phone without opening the actual app. How to throw things out into the world with ease, with joy and abandon. It’s been fun. You should go check it out. It’s proof of life. You can read it here: poemsbymisha.micro.blog
How I share my work right now:
- Instagram (the dreaded feed) for now (How easy it would be to abandon this hellsite. Not much joy from any of the public social medias right now. I never post on Bluesky. Facebook pretends I am there, but I’m not. Twitter is deadnamed because it was always horrible).
- Moon Memo (A letter to my friends)
- The micro.blog site (a daily hello)
- Various discords and private chats (hello, friends)
That’s it for me right now. I’m going to go and drink another cup of coffee, post this letter to you, my friend. Love you bits.
Onward and Upward!
The Poet Laureate
