Travelogue to PTSD
Last week we had a wonderful time as featured readers at the Goggle Works Art Center. The building is an old manufacturing warehouse which has been remade into artists studios, gallery spaces, retail area, offices, but mostly art-making spaces. There were gorgeous old wood floors, high ceilings, LOTS of windows. I just love this kind of reclaimed space. My imagination immediately starts placing the kitchen here, bedroom here, living room… Our Host Susan Peña was delightful, and the attendees numbered more than 40. An open mic followed our reading and included readers spanning a wide range of ages and styles of poetry. At least two read in public for the first time and were well rewarded with applause. Others announced that they have first books coming out this spring. The series has been running for several decades and is going strong! It’s well worth the journey if you’re looking to expand your literary circle.
Then we zoomed down to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where we participated in the annual Bay to Ocean Conference. After a day full of learning and inspiration, including keynote speaker Brian Turner, veteran and author of Here, Bullet and other books, Sam and I hosted the closing event–an open mic. The Queen Anne’s County Art Center provided their excellent gallery space as well as food and wine. We were happy to have a little time to talk with friends, old and new (and, yes, eat cookies).
Sunday morning was actually the final final event – a critique session with Brian Turner and 10 conference participants. Sam and I had taken a look at Here, Bullet a few weeks ago. Sam loves to read aloud, but I had to ask him to stop because the subject matter was so intense. So often writers are advised to focus, get to the heart of the matter, and Brian’s book does it so well with his experiences as a soldier in Iraq, I was overwhelmed. Occasionally I have been glad to hear listeners share that one of my poems touched them. For example, “The White Shirt” is about the fear of school shootings and how they change the way we experience and imagine school and parenthood.
It’s impossible to identify a single causal event other than “trauma,” my own, that of the children I teach, what I’ve seen on the news and in movies, but another participant’s poem about being beaten by his father pushed my mind over some invisible edge. I managed to read my poem about an 11-year-old who had previously been a student at my current school and was murdered recently by her mother. But my brain just stopped. I wasn’t able to comment on others’ poems or even listen to them properly. Writing this now, I’m thinking, Oh, PTSD. Yeah, PTSD. And anxiety. Lots of anxiety. And do I want to keep writing poems that do this to others? Should I write them but not share them? Is that too self-censoring? How do you know what is too self-censoring? What’s the point of being any kind of artist if you don’t make work about what’s important to you?
– Virginia
PS
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Virginia Crawford 