Thinking of building an ark

16 1 2010

It's good to have firm footing after so much compacted ice on the pavements, I fairly burn them up because I like moving fast and freely, just as well I do have firm footing given the umbrellas wielded by people without regard for other pedestrians, my weaving and dodging would earn me a fortune in the premier league if I only took a football with me. Expeditions into the rain are light relief from composing approaches to friendly editors begging them to (a) look at my website and (b) if they like it, to mention it in editorials, sometimes I come over hot and cold at my cheek, more neck than a giraffe. My daughter Esther and adoptive daughter Angela her best mate tell me it's the same as blowing your own trumpet in job applications and interviews, you have to be confident and positive about what you could bring to a workplace, cringeworthy as the process is but if you don't ask you don't get. I am confident I've written Town Unlike to the best of my ability and it is a positive account of schizophrenia, sounding tentative and unsure would come across as coy and amateurish when I'm a professional about my work, but oh dear, it's good to get outside and get moving to shake off the feelings inspired by an own trumpet solo!

Egotists everywhere tend to be taken at their own estimation of themselves, it took me longer than it should have done to find that some authorities aren't real authorities at all they've just nominated themselves then daunted shyer souls with weighty sounding criticisms and pronouncements. I've had work rejected and trashed for the most specious of reasons and crawled away in abject humiliation, these days I can tell the difference between someone not finding my style congenial or pointing out shortcomings, and someone who will aggrandise themselves at my expense and appoint themselves as judge and jury and get a thrill out of fault finding, feeling that makes a genius and isn't it fun to rip into submitted work and make a joke of it? It would be nice to think one's work speaks for itself and with the majority of editors that's true, they don't want submissions accompanied by an essay on one's private opinion of what poetry is about and what makes a poem. I'm in the position of trying to attract readers so Town Unlike will speak for itself, but people need to be told it's there and given a taster to pique their interest, or it'll bomb into the abyss and no-one will be the wiser. Hence being positive and confident in approaches to editors to convince them the work is worth a look, and I'm making it sound reasonable to myself as I type this in to get over my nervousness.

www.aliceworeareddress.co.uk is the bunny to look for, as in let the dog see the rabbit, for an everyday story of what it's like to be schizophrenic, thrills and spills included and a challenge to the prejudiced and abusive, yes, this is what you sound like from my point of view! And an appeal to the tolerant and better informed, this is my take on schizophrenia and my mission of enlightenment, your tolerance isn't a lonely spark in universal darkness. On that confident positive note I'll sign off, best wishes, Anne Rees.