Why Poetry Can Boost Your Overall Sense of Wellness And Keep You From Regularly Calling The Suicide Hotline

I used the initial lockdown period to write poetry. I’d come down with the Covid-19 and wasn’t feeling so hot, so I figured might as well scribble away. I guess it’s therapeutic.

There are other ways you can boost your mood of course: exercise, watching a movie, joining a cult where they make you chant “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,” forty-seven times in a row while pretending you’re enjoying it. But poetry seemed most organic for me, most invigorating, most connected to who…

Below is a poem from my third collection, “Notes From The Bonfire.” The link below also offers a video reading of the poem with imagery.

https://youtu.be/MovuwsFRMTw

THE DEAD

The dead

are our friends

smoldering

pouring like lava

from the apertures

in the earth,

creaking,

the desperate yawls,

the miserable, wretched

twisting of bones.

They line up

the cemeteries,

are poured under

the hot cement,

tombstones as far

as the horizon,

crematoriums

pumping out

mountains of ashes —

our friends —

our beloved —

those we trusted —

those we planned

to have over the house

for goddamn tea.

Oh, dear…

Below is a poem from my third collection, “Notes From The Bonfire.” The link below also offers a video reading of the poem with imagery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSVgcOpfqCw

GUESS WHAT?

Guess What?

The whirlwind of a time

cannot contain

this mute despair,

these dangling participles,

these bats ate the wrong way.

Guess what?

Your childhood is gone,

the parables relied upon

now seem like broken staircases,

the limelight of heaven

is drenching you in acid rain.

Guess what?

Your brother betrayed you,

the lover you relied upon

is running into the arms of another man;

your bank account is burning

like an…

HOW TO OVERCOME WRITER’S BLOCK THROUGH POETRY

The Secret Technique To Overcome a Crippling Sense of Fear and Self-Doubt And Complete All The Projects You Start

I recently published my fourth book, a poetry collection, “Notes From The Bonfire.” I have three more books in various genres I’m hoping to publish soon. Still, I’d say I’ve had as problematic writer’s block as any other writer in history. My writer’s block isn’t the type where I can’t produce content. That never happened to me. I always could get words down on the page.

No, my writer’s block is more the type where I end up hating everything I’ve…

When writing a novel there is often the opportunity to create a unique world. Certainly this is the case in sci-fi and fantasy, but even in historical fiction there often needs to be elaborate world-building.

To grasp what needs to take place let’s look at the famed red planet. One day, mostly through the aid of various sophisticated robots (who learn via neural networks), Mars will be terraformed.

To initiate the process, Elon Musk has suggested nuking the polar caps to release the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Sounds crazy. …

I had it. Was sick a month with Covid-19. Because it got so bad, at times, it can be frustrating hearing people say this is just like the flu. They usually start by suggesting the death total of the flu is similar to that of Covid-19. This is not accurate. H1N1 Swine Flu killed 12,500 Americans in 2009–2010 over a period of 12 months (61 million infections). Season Flu in 2018–2019 killed 34,200 Americans. In one month — ONE MONTH — the coronavirus has killed 42,000 Americans (March 20-April 20). …

How to remain optimistic during a brutal and crushing pandemic? Let me start by saying I really can’t stand people who do not take this seriously. This is a major public health crisis, a national tragedy, really, and the numbers, when it is all done, will be staggering. Already there are more than 30,000 dead in America alone and our best guess is these numbers are a severe underestimation (when people are found dead in apartments, or before getting tested, they are generally not counted as coronavirus deaths). One study, in fact, found that the death rate — outside of…

In The King of Comedy, Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), a bumbling amateur comic living in his mother’s basement, stalks Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), a talk show host, and, with the aid of a friend (Sandra Bernhard), eventually holds him hostage in an effort to do a late-night set. Shockingly, the execs put him on, and, somehow, with zero experience, he gets a ton of laughs. He is whisked off to jail by the authorities, but still gets a book deal and becomes famous…probably moreso than he could have by any other means. …