Year-End Review

Christmas this year feels mournful. Not just for the obvious headlines; but the air holds incense of discomforting flavor. Writing still needs to happen, though. Right?

I haven’t written in months, despite my longing and desire. Despite all the reading and thinking. I’m currently reading Toni At Random, Dana Williams’ book on Toni Morrison’s former day job as an editor for Random House. The chapter on Morrison’s work with poets (e.g., Lucille Clifton and June Jordan) encourages me to sit here with you and think over the past year. It began with a couple of readings– one at an art gallery, the other a beer garden. I remember struggling just as hard last December to get any words out despite being provided an incredible prompt of a painting by artist Julie Heffernan.

Its funny to have ended the year with art as well. This year saw release of my third book, Ghetto Koans, so last September I went to New York for the Small Press Book Fest that my publisher, Black Lawrence Press participated in. While there I visited MOMA and the Guggenheim, where I fell quickly and deeply in love with the work of featured artist Rashid Johnson.

My eye is particularly drawn to textures in art that can be felt as well as seen. Johnson’s surfaces and colors are as thrilling as meaning culled from his work. There is within me a visual artist who has never found his media so I seem to live vicariously through other confident artists. Johnson blew my mind open a bit, as he seemed to be drawing from what appealed to me in Robert Rauschenberg‘s collage work and through Basquiat’s influence, touch and sensibility.

An older friend of mine, as I attempted to describe Johnson’s use of shea butter as a major element in his work, sneered over what she perceived as ‘waste of good moisturizer’. You can lead a critic to art but you can’t make them appreciate it.

The art distracted me. What was I saying?

It was my second time in New York and my first attempting to engage the anxiety inducing city. I was fortunate enough to have a friend to pal around with on my first day. His presence relaxed me. We explored the Guggenheim together then sat and decompressed for a while in the park before returning to Times Square where I was staying for the weekend. Incredibly, on the corner we found two seats, left for us it would seem by young angels since we were both over 50. I realized quickly one could just ‘sit here’ watching the city and its visitors explode over and over with new-ness. Every few seconds a different narrative would start or something beautiful would just spontaneously burst.

It didn’t occur to me I was visiting in time for Fashion week so the sidewalk before us opened as a stage, a run way.

So caught up with museums and the city, I never finished writing about the small press book fest I was in New York for. The reading was hosted at Books Are Magic. They’d organized a day long event of round robin readings featuring different publishers and authors. The intimate space was crowded when I arrived, and I snuck in quietly despite being on the days’ program. I searched the shelves for something provocative to take with me and peeked in on the reading area which was staged on the back patio of the store. Eventually I had to announce myself to the event organizer who in turn introduced me to the days other readers. Only later did I realize my new publisher had arrived after me and set up a merch table just outside the entryway.

The afternoon was full of love, really. The reading went well and I sold a couple of books because of it. I met my new publisher and she was more loving than I could have imagined. I stood with her and signed some books, overlooking that I was a visiting writer to New York City signing books. Huh. After the reading and signing, I stood there dumbly wanting more but there was no more.

I got hungry and went to the subway to return to Times Square for dinner. The neighboring shops vaguely reminded me of home and leaving the venue I could imagine myself living there, but this is me having never spent the height of summer nor the dead of winter here. NYC treated me well. I only got hustled once and found good pizza near 30 Rockefeller.

There’s a bit more I could say about the rest of the year, other readings I participated in, so I will try to check in again before New Years. I need more writing exercise. I’ve gotten lazy and flabby and am planning on some changes for 2026. Consider this a warm up. Let’s encourage one another with some Good Luck, huh?