seriousness vs silliness

Have you ever gotten to the point where everything feels cheesy? When I look back on my older writing, it seems lame, ridiculous, somehow diluted--missing a spark of reality, clarity. '

(Looking back on my teenager poems, I see Shel Silverstein, e. e., Cummings, nursery rhymes, and Emily.)

Or maybe it's my usual mock naivete--a guise to surprise--to suggest we don't need to be taking this all so seriously.

It's no wonder, though, if I'm subverting reality, amplifying the silly, and transmuting clarity into hilarity. Or mystery. Isn't this life a mystery?

My voice is controlled. I'll maintain privacy and decorum on the internet for obvious reasons.  Is truth lost behind the curtain? I will hint and suggest the uncertain.

Maybe some images resonate.

A caricature of myself
inflating and distorting
clarity into absurdity
the serious and the silly into
nonsensicalifornia

In California, I think seriousness will win. But in nonsensicalifornia, there's no telling.

Sometimes I still wish I were Emily Dickinson.

Oh hey guess what. Classes 5 & 6 (out of 10) of my grad school program start next week. I am super excited and happy--just thrilled about the reading list. Lots of Virginia Woolf and thinking about rhetoric. More on that later!
Katie Bierach