Let’s just get this out of the way: I won a poetry contest – with prizes! being sent to me! yay! –  this week. The spring poetry contest, to be specific, over on Absolute Write, the best place on the web for both disgruntled and gruntled writers to hang, chill, vent, and post their work. (I first saw Kody Keplinger‘s query and pages for The DUFF there – blew me away, even back then. And now look at her! A star on the rise.)

And then today, I taught my booty-shaking Zumba class, and went to have coffee with my writer friend Bethany Hegedus who has a new book coming out, and because she is so awesome and generous, loaned me one of her precious few ARCs to read. The book? Truth with a Capital T. It’s amazing so far. I’ll post more later. 😉

At coffee/lunch, I mentioned I’d been writing and submitting my poetry (along with all that other stuff I write) and Bethany admitted that she writes poetry, but she never sends it out.

As it turns out, I have a LOT of Writer Friends who are the same! Fearless in their writing, and in their subbing of fiction and non-fiction, but hiding Dickinsonian trunks of unseen verse in virtual trunks at the feet of their e-beds. Like they’re ashamed of it. Or like it’s too private to show to anyone. Too personal, maybe,  to expose to the gimlet eyes of editors? Or even the loving, generous eyes of Writer Friends?

I understand this. Years ago, I hid all my poetry. (Um, this was actually a wise move. It was very angsty, and passionate, and terribly, terribly bad.) What happened? When did I decide to trot my poetry out onto the stage, dress it up in spangles and paste, and see how many dollar bills the guys and gals in the Editor’s Airport Lounge would stuff into my verbal G-string?

Does it cheapen my poetry to sign it up for all those Wet T-shirt Contests with prizes of a few dollars and the possibility of long-lasting humiliation and a Poets Gone Wild video that will haunt me – oh, wait, poems aren’t videotaped. Whew! Still, you get my drift.

Or, in that questionable argument the  post-feminist feminists constructed, where literal pole-dancing was re-visioned as a way to take back one’s own sexual/physical power, does my willingness to show it all strengthen me – and my work – somehow?

Okay, okay, I’m laughing my butt off as I type this. Taking it all too seriously, I know, and stretching the metaphor for giggles. Still… I am almost certain, from what I know of Bethany’s and my other poetry-hiding Writer Friends, that their verse would kick my verse’s feeble butt, if they decided to bring it out. And that would be a good thing. The world needs more poems. Hot, sexy tightly-written poems… and also slightly overweight poems, with stretchmarks, freckles, and wrinkles on their butts.

So… you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.

My poems, that is. Nobody sees the butt wrinkles.

Other News: Off to Disney in two days! So, no blog posts for a bit. Nice addition to the vacation is that I get to meet up with Writer Friends who inhabit Orlando: Lisa Iriarte and Larissa Hardesty. Cool.