Tag Archives: No-Comfort Zone

No-Comfort Challenge this past week

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Carol A. Stephen

This week I had a poem accepted for The Light Ekphrastic’s next issue coming up online soon. And I sent off two to another online journal, The Rose & Thorn.  Fingers crossed!  And I realized where I get bogged down when trying to do submissions is the deciding which poems are suitable and whether or not they are ready.  Often I think they are, but when the time comes, something has changed and I decide that either they are wrong for the publication or still need tinkering.

Besides that, I think I have too many possible places to submit and other projects like my next chapbook that I want to start and I lose that elusive focus I am seeking this year.  I think submitting has become an extra pressure that keeps getting in the way. So, I am going to try to select ONE place to submit and review the poems that might fit it. I am not going to set a goal of one per week right now, I am just going to go through the current calls I have already printed out, and as I review my poems for my chapbook will watch for any that will fit that one call. But my priority will be the chapbook. (or perhaps book, if I have enough poems!)

My challenge for the week to come is to maintain focus on assembling the book poems.  Crossing my fingers!  Carol

Small Stones and Challenges outside the Comfort Zone

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Carol A. Stephen

Day 29

clouds wisp and cling to the lie
of summer in today’s sky-blue
all the houses stare, disbelieving
the proof of ice on their roofs.
its clandestine testimony to winter.

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I keep thinking about what my word for the year might be, and I suppose it is focus. Why? Because I often find myself on auto-pilot, easily distracted. A hundred things to think about and only time for some. The result, then, is either not doing what I really want to, surfing the ‘Net instead and going off on its peculiar tangents, or feeling tremendous guilt and anxiety over what I am not doing, and wondering what’s wrong with me.  I will need to disconnect from these distractions during my writing time. So, FOCUS.  And perhaps my “secret” word is INDULGE.  No, I don’t mean to eat too much or spend money frivolously. (Perhaps fewer writing books and more writing practice!) More, I want to recognize when it is important to indulge myself with something I would like to do. Such as enrolling in the two-day Tree Master Workshop coming up in April with John Barton. To do the things that I may not be able to do in a few more years. This is partly what my NO-Comfort Challenge to myself represents, because this, too, will require me to push myself outside my usual boundaries.

This week’s no-comfort successes came from an unexpected feeling of wanting to hibernate, isolate. Should I beg off getting together with a friend? Will the weather be a problem?  This is my first winter without going into the city every day for work. I was surprised that I was anxious about these things. So I forced myself to go anyway, simply because I had the urge to stay home.

And as I mentioned, I have signed up for a workshop in April, even though I am going on one in May down in Massachusetts. That one will be a challenge too, as I have not travelled much since 2008, when I had major, a life-threatening infection, and emergency surgery. While the surgery saved my life, it also left me with a changed plumbing system. So I worry about crossing the border with my medical supplies. And travelling so far all by myself. I was taken ill on my last trip to the U.S., and while I know the location was unrelated to my illness, it still creates anxiety to think of going.  But, if I want to travel while I am still able to, there has to be a first time. So, over the next three months I will be working on attitude for this journey.

Small stones 23 and 24 and poems going to the End of the World

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I wrote about my poem being entered in the Poetry for the End of the World contest, and being a finalist. I wanted to share the link to the video showing the balloon launch on Saturday, Jan. 21. If you scroll down the page you will also see the winning poem by Ian Ferrier.

http://www.versefest.ca/about/poetry-for-the-end-of-the-world/

Day 23

randomness of weather
today rain turns winter’s
clean white to grimy gray,
pools of water over the slick
of ice, waiting for someone
to slip-slide into wet.

Day 24

to focus large on life is to realize
that more of it has passed
than is to come.

to focus small on life I realize
I have each day: a glass
to fill with wonder
or to empty, untasted.

Carol

 

January challenges: small stones and comfort zones

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Carol A. Stephen

Day 22

sounds for a Sunday morning

clock tick and fridge hum
the rhythmic shush of shovel on snow
muted by a closed window
the slosh of slush against car wheels
the quiet when everything pauses to breathe

 

I had a successful result this week with my week One effort, the submitting of two poems to a contest, Poetry for the End of the World.  I was among the six finalists. I attended the fundraiser for VERSeFest, Ottawa’s new Poetry Festival, and read my poem, The Walking-Off Place in the End-Time, along with the other finalists. Although mine didn’t win, all six of the finalists’ poems were placed into a tube and then into a weather balloon and at 10 p.m. E.S.T. last night, the balloon was released. Off it sailed up into the sky. Destination the End of the World, or…? Doesn’t matter, really. What fun!

As for this week’s challenge, I am still working on lightening up and trying to find some balance rather than obsessing about things.  I have had some weight gain over the holidays, so this week I have been making a good effort to avoid chocolate and cookies (and cakes, and pies, and fudge and….!)  I have done reasonably well at that, other than a small treat last night while having dinner out with a friend. But I watched my portions, so I am not counting that as bad.