I've Been Thinking

Hi, I’m Essie. Welcome to my website, where I want to share poems that didn’t make it into the book, some stuff I’ve read or heard and liked, and what I’ve been thinking. I thought I’d call it “I’ve Been Thinking.”

Thanks to Nia Hendricks who designed this vehicle for me. Nia lives in Germantown Commons, and besides being a website designer, she’s gorgeous, a good friend and a really fine singer.  Check her out on YouTube.

I put together my book, Slow Twitch, from old poems, recent poems, things I’d overheard and some prayers I’d written to help me focus on the ordinary, unexciting parts of my day. Once I realized that these words would be printed in a book and couldn’t be changed with a key stroke, I saw how much they needed fiddling with. 

I’d taken a class with Ciona Rouse, a Nashville poet, who suggested revisions on some of my poems.  And by sheer luck, a fellow cohouser, Angie Li was willing to help me.  She taught me about Fiverr, an online way to get in touch with independent contractors, and through Fiverr we found Emilia Amos in the UK who helped me with the rest of my editing.

I hadn’t realized what a job I was undertaking when I started the book.  Self-publishing these days means that you’re doing a lot of stuff online. 

Remember, I was born in an analog world of vinyl records and vacuums tubes.  And all this digital stuff we take for granted didn’t even exist when I was born. When I was growing up, I’d read about Dick Tracy and his two-way wristwatch radio in the funny papers, thinking it was just a pipe dream.

I was born a really long time ago.  I’m old.  I’m older than the Second World War, jet aircraft, penicillin, nylon stockings, Medicare, NASA, the CIA, rock and roll, Google, emails, texts, Nike, and Cheerios.  I know this because Billy Collins wrote a poem about Cheerios, and I’m older than Billy Collins. I’m even older than Fred Flintstone.

When I started doing my book, I bravely went online to do what they told me to, thinking it couldn’t be that hard.  It was.  Fortunately, Angie spoke the online lingo. I wouldn’t have made it without her. 

So, this has been a collaborative project. As is my new poem, a haiku.  Next time we’ll talk about haiku.