A decade of words

Today is the decade birthday of Oh My Foes!

August 10th, 2011, I posted my first blog. Here it is, if you want to revisit it too. Honestly, I can't read it without the compulsion to go back and edit. 😂 

I started this blog to reconnect with my craft and myself. I occasionally forget it exists (object permanence is a thing for ADHD people, look it up) but I always find my way back. I've been writing in this blog longer than I've known most of my platonic and romantic relationships outside of blood family.

My candle burns at both ends;
    It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
    It gives a lovely light!

I chose to name my poem after Edna St. Vincent Millay's famous poem, First Fig, because it's me. I'm the candle. I'll be 39 next month, and I'd like to think I've been learning ways to regulate my burn, but it's probably more accurate to say that age and chronic illness have been forcing me to slow down. 

I had big plans for this anniversary. I wanted to throw a reading in the park and invite all my friends. I wanted to bake them cupcakes and share my poetry. But the Delta variant had other ideas. The rest of Missouri is out there pretending like we aren't the literal epicenter of this variant, but I'm not interested in assisting Governor Parson's murder of unvaccinated folks, so that one went away. Honestly, it's also supposed to be like 97 F today and being outside sounds like hell, so I guess it's a win either way.

When I started this blog, I felt like all of my report cards growing up, "so much potential" but nothing to show for it. Of course, even then, that wasn't true. One of the things I have learned with this blog is that by tooting my own horn, I remind myself that I do get my work done. When you have a total of 1 billion project ideas a day, the fact that you accomplish only 1 feels like a failure, until you put some perspective on it: that one thing is the thing that stuck, that resonated and manifested, and now it's here and beautiful in its imperfection. So I don't give up. Grit. I just keep going, even (especially) when my go looks different than others' go.

Since I started this blog, I have written 3 books, published 1 chapbook, have another chapbook in the last stages of the works, I've explored/explore multiple avenues of sharing my writing. I give myself daily permission to suck but to also keep going. To be scared, but to take risks anyway. I frequently don't get the results I thought I would, but it always teaches me. 

Not all my poems are winners. Today's poem is not.

8-10-21

I day dream

About sleeping in the woods

Under the stars

But the reality is Ticks and sweat

Anyway, happy 10 year anniversary to myself. Current and future me are proud of past me for doing this. 

If you want to wish me and my decade old blog a happy anniversary, you can always buy us a cup of ko-fi. 👄💓

10 years of love, sweat, and tears,

Kit S

As always, if you like (love) this content and want to support my writing outside of the big bad projects, and read supporter-only content, you can buy me a cuppa at ko.fi. You can also purchase my chapbook & audible of poetry, a record of night at Amazon. If you're so inclined, you can also follow my author page at goodreads or follow me on Twitter. 

Please show me some love and leave a comment, review, or rating on any of these platforms! Have an awesome day, my friends.

Spoken Word poetry redux

I spend a lot of time thinking about spoken word poetry and why I hate it when it's demonstrably and inarguably a valid and meaningful field of poetry- and I have explored many explanations but none of them ever sat right.

When I was in my early twenties and I hadn't formed an opinion about it yet, I did a few open mikes with a friend. I stood on stage, the color of a tomato, feeling embarrassment from the sweating crown of my head to my clenched toes. I smoked cigarettes outside afterwards and recycled the moment over and over in my head. I felt shame, I felt vulnerable, and most of all, I felt like my poems didn't belong with the other poems. I felt like I didn't belong with the other poets. 

Enter my late 20s: everybody tells me that I should listen to Andrea Gibson. I do. I hate every second of it. Their voice makes my stomach hurt. Their words make me feel hot and I want to shut down. Like, the words are good, but they are direct and raw and seem to be there to intentionally and forcefully illicit a response, which they do (and I don't like). I try to like their words. I subscribe to Button Poetry and try to like spoken word, slam poetry- after all, it's earnestly the poetry of marginalized people. It's where I first see fat, queer, trans, & BIPOC people reading their craft. I want to like it , but listening brings up those same hot & hard feelings. 

When I was in college I had a lot of bullshit academic reasons for why I didn't like spoken word poetry and honestly? They aren't worth going into here. They're bullshit.

I've even wrote posts here in this blog, many were deleted. They didn't feel true.

This week I was (once again) ranting about spoken word to Mr. J and it occurred to me that it's because so much of the structure of the craft is writing and saying things bluntly. It's radical vulnerability. I don't like it because I am deeply uncomfortable with radical vulnerability, but that's also why it's so powerful and why so many people do love it, and also why it is SO IMPORTANT. 

I doubt I'll be able to magically gravitate towards the form now, but it feels good to understand some of it's significance and it's truths. It's also understanding myself in a new way, understanding how I share my vulnerability as a writer of feelings. This knowledge sits right and it feels true. It feels more like a seed instead of rock.

@-%--

Sidebar: if you do the Tik Tok, I've got one up for regular poetry readings! Check me out, y'all: Amazing Kitikins Please like+follow+comment <3

Earnestly Yours,

Kit

As always, if you like (love) this content and want to support my writing outside of the big bad projects, and read supporter-only content, you can buy me a cuppa at ko.fi. You can also purchase my chapbook & audible of poetry, a record of night at Amazon. If you're so inclined, you can also follow my author page at goodreads or follow me on Twitter. 

Please show me some love and leave a comment, review, or rating on any of these platforms! Have an awesome day, my friends.

Imbolc blessings

Happy Monday, 

blessed Imbolc, 

and a powerful Black History Month, dear readers!

Imbolc is Brigid's sabbat. It's when we heathens of a particular flavor celebrate poetry, rebirth, the sun's return, fertility, inspiration, fire & light, music, and smithery. I've blogged about my love of Imbolc in the past, because it's always a powerful way to pull me out of the post-Yule doldrums, and there are few things I love more than cold, bonfires, and poetry.

Even if you don't celebrate Imbolc, I invite you to take a few quiet moments to reflect on some new or beloved poetry. I recommend you check out the Poetry Foundations' article on Lucille Clifton

cutting greens
by Lucille Clifton

curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
|my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and I taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.

I believe it would be a mistake to end the post here. It's important to say the words out loud, especially on a day to honor and revere poets and Black Americans (all month, all year). Poetry is not white. It's not straight. It's not cisgender. We must read, hear, see black voices every day. Our country is sick with White Supremacy and we can't heal together if we don't hear now. Black Americans are dying every day from systematic racism; in the justice system, at the hands of police, and even in healthcare. Just this week an article was posted that a Black man, father & husband, David Bell, died in the Barnes-Jewish hospital parking lot after being refused care (the third time). Not to mention the outrageous mortality rate for Black mothers and babies in our hospital systems (an issue that tennis GOAT all time champ of all things, Serena Williams has talked about at length after the birth of her daughter). 

Those of us white poets must step up to stand behind Black (and BIPOC) folks because there is no other time. Now is the time. Now will always be the time.

20 Black Poets You Should Know & Love.

Read, but also think about how you can help in your daily life.

Today, I'd like to recall the last lines of Amanda Gormon's inaugural poem, "The Hill We Climb":

When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Black voices are powerful, beautiful, and important. They are the light. Black poets paved a highway through our collective histories with tales of humanity, queerness, womanhood, Blackness, gender, family...  We owe an incalculable debt to our Black poets, past and present, for saying the hard, the joyous, the invisible things that many of us white people want to ignore (except during Black History Month). 

Normally I would end my blog post with a little blip about supporting my writing through ko-fi or what have you. Today, I want you to go support a Black voice. Read a poem by a Black poet to your child or your partner or your bestfriend. Listen, hear, be vulnerable and uncomfortable, learn, heal, elevate. Go on, go read some Audre Lorde or Rita Dove.

Love,

Kit

Writing & ADHD

 It's Monday. It's raining. It's chilly. If you're anything like me, your brain is swirling with all the things you want to get done this week, and your coffee has been empty for hours. Honestly, it's offensive. I need my bean juice to last longer, y'all. 

I wracked my brain over what I would write about today. I have brainstorming lists to choose from, but I wasn't feeling any of the topics. I went for a lunch walk, listened to TAKÉNOBU, and searched my soul for what was really going on, and it occurred to me, I haven't written at length about what it's like to write with ADHD.

Hello, I'm Kit, and I have ADHD. I write words (and draw, skate, hula-hoop, knit, crochet, paint, craft, etc., etc.) There are a LOT of creatives in the ADHD community but most of us will tell you we have the struggles. 

Writing schedules? Uhhhhhhhhh

Finishing Projects? Ummmmmm. 

Goal setting for projects? Sure, let's do that! And at the end of the year, I'll have tossed them aside and down 4 other things.

It's rough, y'all. Especially when so many successful writers go on about 5 THINGS YOU NEED TO BE A GOOD WRITER and they're literally all tips on how to be neurotypical. 

So how do you manage your writing, when you're ADHD, and you ran out of hyperfocus gas? This isn't rhetorical, if you have some brain hacks you want to share I WANT TO HEAR THEM. 

These are ways that I currently tackle it:

1. Forgiving myself and being kind when I don't live up to my own expectations. It's so easy to fall down the feelings pit when I stumble in my craft. I'm all over the place with projects & ideas and most of them don't stick. That doesn't make me a bad person, a bad writer, but it does mean I have to be radically kind to my little inner critic. Sometimes I'll list projects I have finished and thrust into the world, or I'll review the list, to remind myself that I am capable of completing projects and that they're pretty darn good. 
   
   
2. I created this very blog to help motivate myself to consistency, to inspire myself, and to keep myself writing. I had grand plans, of course, when I started it. I've given myself so many different writing schedules for this blog. Right now, I'm trying to write once a week (Mondays, what whaaat!) I go through periods where I write my thoughts on the craft, where I write actual poetry or prose and share it, but I try to keep it flexible. I use my blog to ground me, and sometimes it works. Sometimes I forget about it and get lost in writer's block. When that happens, I have to go back to #1.
   
   
3. I've recently started listening to the Start With This podcast and tackling the 2 assignments per episode (1 to consume, 1 to create). Podcasts about writing have been a good way to kick my brain into plotting & scheming. If you have some good writing podcast suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!
   
   
4. Permission to fail. Permission to succeed. Permission to look at fear of failure and fear of success in the eye and stare them down. Permission to look them in the eyes and have a little cry & a nap, as long as I dust myself off and get back up afterwards.

Well, my lunch break is almost over, so I better wrap this up! I hope y'all enjoyed reading and if you also struggle with writing & ADHD, I hope this helped or helped you feel less alone (and please, please, please share them tips 'n tricks, y'all!!)

As always, if you like (love) this content and want to support my writing outside of the big bad projects, and read supporter-only content, you can buy me a cuppa at ko.fi. You can also purchase my chapbook & audible of poetry, a record of night at Amazon. If you're so inclined, you can also follow my author page at goodreads or follow me on Twitter. 

Please show me some love and leave a comment, review, or rating on any of these platforms! Have an awesome day, my friends.

Twenty Twenty Won

 Howdy All! 

We're well into 2021 and have already had an attempted coup at the White House. It feels a little ridiculous to be blogging about anything besides that, right now, but others have said it more succinct and powerfully .

So I'm going to indulge in some positivity and dedicate this blog to a summary of all the creative things that happened in my 2020. 

Accomplished

• Audible of my chapbook a record of night, produced & narrated by Erin Knowles
• Put out a paper copy of a record of night 💓
• Opened a ko-fi.com/KitSteitz account to work on my hustle
• Started a poetry project for August and completed it
• August project readings in December

So in a year that was one of the darkest in my (our) timeline, I feel pretty good about that shit. 

I don't know what this year will bring. Hopefully not a Fascist takeover. Really got my fingers and toes all crossed we avoid that, y'all. Every year I have to find new things to motivate me, to get me moving and kick me from dreaming to creating. Dreamers create, but also sometimes we just drink coffee and think really hard about it, then wander off and pet our dogs. 

Speaking of pawfect dogs of 2020, this is my dawg Gentle Sir Nugget and he is perfect and wonderful.

Anyway, around this time every year, I create super lofty goals for the year but honestly, I just throw ideas at a wall and see which one sticks. You do what you can do, when you can do it.

Dreams for 2021

• Werk werk werk on my novels (work on my fear about those novels, too)
• Prepare and publish August project Chapbook
• Maybe a few live poetry readings? YT live or FB live? questions, questions
• Collab with at least one fabulous human
• Consume craft-related podcasts & essays etc., etc
• Maybe another poetry-month project?
• Maybe work on that ridiculous queer space opera podcast

IDK, felt cute, might not accomplish any of these later. 

As always, if you like (love) this content and want to support my writing outside of the big bad projects, and read supporter-only content, you can buy me a cuppa at ko.fi. You can also purchase my chapbook & audible of poetry, a record of night at Amazon. If you're so inclined, you can also follow my author page at goodreads or follow me on Twitter. 

Please show me some love and leave a comment, review, or rating on any of these platforms! Have an awesome day, my friends.

I am not a writer, am I?

This is a blog for writers who don't know if they're writers

Spoiler: 

You are.

I am not a consistent writer. All the writing podcasts and advice books etc, etc., say you need to develop consistent writing schedule and remain vigilant and rigorous and all these things that I 100% absolutely am not and do not. And maybe that is the marker between success and mediocrity- but do I need to be successful to be good and take joy in what I'm doing. Nah.

Is this an excuse? Probably, but it's also real life. Look, I've written 4 books, 3 of which I may someday publish, and 2 chapbooks, 1 of which is published. I'm 38. Has anybody noticed my writing outside of my friends and family? Not likely. 

Sometimes I wonder why I keep doing it. What's the purpose, if it doesn't make a broad impact? In a capitalist society, are we good at something if we can't make a living on it? 

That is a resounding yes. Look, art and writing and poetry, and all the textile arts, these have been around as long as human history. We have written human history because of us, for fucks sake. It's taken me decades to deprogram that academic snobbery (and it's probably still hanging in there in the dark, un-swept corners), but we don't need all that shit to create works of beauty, works that embody our lives and our hearts. 

I am a writer. I don't write when I'm supposed to... I don't write how I'm supposed to, but I am a writer. I am a writer. I am an artist. I am a musician. I am an athlete. I am my own validation (but like, it's cool if you want to validate me too, I'm a Virgo and a person and I like that shit).

Are you also a writer or an artist. It's okay to say that. Don't demean it, don't denigrate it. You get to own this. If you write, you're a writer. If you're taking a break from writing, you're still a writer. You are a writer.

So here are some tips from a
Not-Famous-At-All Writer 

Who Has These Same Struggles

Please feel free to add any in the comments <3 

1. Create through and with fear. Look, it would be wildly unrealistic to say that you can create without fear. If you've ever started a massive writing project, there's a really good chance you've struggled with it: fear that you're not good enough, that you're faking it (hellooooo imposter syndrome), that it's a waste of time, that nobody wants to read it, any number of things. Creation is also sitting with those fears, holding them gently, and knowing that they are not your truth. Accept them as a part of your narrative, but you don't have to hold them as your reality.
   
   
2. Take a break from creating and live your life. You breathe new life into your words with new experiences, new feelings. A break is just time to till the earth and plant the seeds.
   
   
3. Don't give up. Woof, this one is hard to write, because I super want to give up on this novel and I've been talking about finishing it for years but it just feels so hard and big and I don't know how to do it. Butt in seat, fingers on keyboard, love and forgiveness to myself.
   
   
4. Get constructive feedback from other writers. On your work, but also on your progress. It helps to have somebody who knows what struggs you strugging and can speak to it. Cultivate your writer/artist friends.
   
   
5. Share your finished products with your friends and family. Your voice deserves to be heard and you are wonderful and goddamn am I SO PROUD OF YOU FOR FINISHING THE THING. HOLY HELL, THAT'S SO AMAZING AND HARD AND POWERFUL.
   
   
6. Own your creation. Say, write, sing that you are a writer. Know that deep in your big, squishy, wonderful heart. Keep saying it. 

I like lists. I hope you liked this list! And don't forget- if you like this content and want to support my writing and read supporter-only content, you can buy me a cuppa at ko.fi. You can also purchase my chapbook & audible of poetry, a record of night at Amazon. If you're so inclined, you can also follow my author page at goodreads or follow me on Twitter. 

Please show me some love and leave a comment, review, or rating on any of these platforms! Have an awesome day, my friends.

The day has come!! BIG NEWS!!!!

 What up my fine friends!?! BIG NEWS BIG NEWS BIG NEWS!!!!

GUESS WHAT? 

Erin Knowles' 

beautiful narration of my chapbook of poetry, a record of night, is NOW AVAILABLE ON AUDIBLE!!!!!!

Erin breathes life into my old dusty words and I am SO HONORED that she chose my chapbook to lilt through. It's been such a treat to work with with her through this process, through the ups and downs of technical difficulties, and I think you'll really enjoy the outcome.

The audible is only $3.95, which frankly is an absolute steal considering all the craft  and love that went into this production. 

Please check it out! If you like what you hear, we'd love if you could leave a review and give us some stars  

Happy FRIYAY!!!!!

Buy some poetry today 

knock knock

Who's there?

It's me, ya Kit! And my chapbook from 2013, a record of night, is now available all over the place. I just discovered this when I googled it randomly today. 

Catch me at Indiebound

Catch me at Books-A-Million

So hey, you can buy them there, too! So buy my poetry, y'all. It's pretty decent, ok. And SOON THERE WILL BE AN AUDIBLE NARRATED BY THE INCOMPARABLE E.M. KNOWLES... SO YEAH.

Okay.

Love y'all. Keep on NaNoWriMoing!

Quick reminder! 31 poems in August...

 Hey y'all, just a quick reminder, I'm writing 31 poems in August! Become one of my supporters for the price of a cup of coffee and you can read them as I go at www.ko-fi.com/kitsteitz ! 5 bucks for a poem a day in August ain't so bad, right?

Check it out!

Thanks and much love,

Kit

HOT OFF THE PRESS!!

Y'all, I am so excited!!! My author copies came in for a record of night!!!

Looky looky!!!

They look so flipping good!! I can't believe how good they look. This is blowing my mind, y'all. 

Want your own copy to have and hold? Click here.

This is how to start my Friday off proper. Have a fabulous weekend, y'all!

Love & gratitude,

Kit

Toss a coin to your Witcher!

Hello, dear readers!

This is the week of exciting news and I'm so glad y'all are with me on this wild ride. I've decided to start a ko-fi ("coffee") page so that there is a place for y'all to support my projects and help me keep creating. 

I have several future plans for this page including q&a videos, special requests, readings that will be available specifically to my ko-fi supporters. I'm also interested in your ideas for what you'd like from this support page! I don't want to detract from the big projects I'm working on, though, so I want to start small and build what we can make work with my writing schedule. 

What projects would you be supporting right now? 

• Weekly (at minimum) blog posts.
• A queer fantasy trilogy (not currently available, still in rough rough draft phase).
• a new chapbook of new poetry that will be posted to this blog as I go, then collected together for publication!
• a podcast that will be revealed and revealing very soon.

I have a couple other projects that I want to get to, but these are my current babies. The others, mere twinkles in my eye.

Here's a little video I made that describes it more fully. Check it out! It was made in reverse land.

Right now it's set up so you can only make a single donation, but there will be a way to do this as a monthly contributor in the future!

You can support me by clicking here or clicking anytime on the button on the right toolbar of this blog. Toss a coin to your Witcher, y'all. 

Questions? Let me know. I probably have answers!

Much love & gratitude,

Kit Steitz

More fabulous updates!

Hello, readers!

It's a rainy, warm summer day in Columbia. The sky is dark with clouds and the pups are searching for places to hide from the booming thunder.

Here is a random spider web from my backyard, just for you!

So here's the update- Amazon updated my name so my author page and book are listed under my actual name! That feels pretty affirming and stuff. Check me out...

• Kit Steitz's Amazon author page
• The 2020 revision of a record of night, with my correct name, and a brand new cover!

BIG NEWS! Audiobook coming!!!

Okay, y'all!! BIG ASS NEWS!!!

The fabulous E.m. Knowles accepted a contract to narrate and produce 

AN AUDIOBOOK 

of a record of night!!!!!! 

I am so honored and stoked!

More updates as we go!!! We can't wait to share this with y'all. 

A poem about mountains

After sunrise

Our tongues burn
from the Christmas sauce
in the best
breakfast burritos Española 
has to offer.

We four traveled
Past the black mesa,
peaks stretch across
the bright horizon,
a mountain range
like a heartbeat,
or waves of music
dipping into the
next bow stroke.

Snow, punctuated by
trails of hoof prints,
a herd of elks
trekking across the
Valles Caldera.

Back in Columbia,
I found hatch peppers
in the grocers,
And we made
enchilada bowls and
we remembered
Sledding in the
Mountains.

More snow poetry

Snow clouds wrap around the
horizon like a blanket you just
pulled from a cold linen closet
I long to see a the red splash of a
cardinal darting between snow
covered branches, diving for seeds,
before the next arctic storm
covers us in a fresh layer of snow,
gives me an excuse to join you
under the comforter and wrap
around each other.

Snow poem

I don't know if you've heard, but the Midwest had record levels of snow last weekend. I helped one of my partners dig out and I can tell you, I felt every 20 inches of those drifts. I started a poem over the snow day but was distracted by hot coco, so I never finished it.

Then I lost it! First poem I've written in 2 years and I lost it.

So I'm going to pull a Tenacious D moment and give you a poem about the greatest snow poem that ever was. It's not the poem, but a tribute.


Snow Poem
a tribute

It snowed 20" this weekend-
The Bradford Pear was laden
with the heavy weight of a
winter storm, boughs creaked
in the whip-cold wind, puffs of
white exploded and dropped heavy
to the drifts below until 20 inches
felt more like 30 inches and
the dog was lost beneath;
I know you were wishing
that the snow would finish off
that invasive tree, would snap it in
twain, but you didn't say it out loud.

Big Dreams for the Year

Hello, readers!

Some big things are going on in my world. I'm finishing up some writing projects that I hope see the light of day sometime this glorious new year.

I also did a new thing! I created an author's page on Facebook. Be like the cool kids and go follow it, if you're so inclined.

Our writing collective had a productive meeting last night. I did some major goal setting for the new year and one of those goals is to start writing poetry again. It's time to put out a new chapbook, don't you think? So prepare yourself for some rough draft blog poems, again. Taking it back to the beginning of the blog, oh yes.



Speaking of chapbooks- haven't read my chapbook a record of night? Well you're just in time for a shameless plug. Check it out!

If you like what you read, please leave me a review at Amazon. This is a great way to support your local author-friend. Wink wink nudge nudge.

I would like to have a word with you

It's still Pride month! 

love, live, resist, drink coffee, write.

Cheers, Queers!

It's time for the last installment of the audios from a record of night. I hope you enjoy these tidbits. I had a lot of fun recording them!

As always, if you like what you hear please stop by Amazon and purchase my chapbook and/or leave a review.

A few words for you...

1. Easley River Road
2. Bur Oak Tree

Now go out and spread all the sparkly eco-friendly glitter while you speak truth to power. 

A few words, dear reader

Happy Pride, all month!

Gay agenda: eat fruit, drink coffee, read poetry, make out with gorgeous people.

I hope this post finds you well! I have finished editing my audios from a record of night and would love to share them with you! Grab a cup of coffee, some headphones, and join me for a journey into the awkwardly narrated audio files of K. Steitz.

And hey, if you like what you hear, please stop by Amazon and pick up my kindle chapbook or leave a review! A few words from you can really help others find my poetry.

After much ado, a few words for you, my dear reader...

1. When we die
2. Telescope
3. In the process, everything

Thanks for your support! Keep an eye out for more hella queer posts and more audio recordings this month!

Happy Pride- Let's get gay!

Happy Pride Month, y'all!

 Here is a picture of my perfect chihuahua taking a nap. Don't say I never gave ya nuthin!

What super queer poets or fabulous trans, non binary, or ace poets do you like to read during pride? 


Meanwhile, in rainbow-studded update land, I am recording a few poems from a record of night (you know, that chapbook I wrote). I'll share them a little bit later, when I've done editing. Keep an eye out!

(psst. Gratuitous plug incoming: want to support a queer poet this month? Buy my chapbook or leave me a review at amazon.com! Thanks, readers!!)