Roads to Joy

After three years participating in Writers Groups, one learns that the craft of writing is an end in itself. That’s meant, in my case, that I was not prepared, emotionally, to have a submission of my poetic efforts accepted by an editorial team in Cheltenham. At Wildfire Words, my three pieces, text and audio, joined the ranks of hugely published poets whose poetic biographies read like an odyssey through contemporary English language presses.

So now, I should not be surprised if I begin to tremble with ‘imposter syndrome.’ And yet, this past Sunday, I did indulge my whim to be read, to collate my pieces together in the appropriate format, to sit on the quiet sofa and read aloud into my iPhone’s Garageband software. To hit the submit button on the Wildfire Words submission window, after a few delicious moments composing my ‘writerly’ biography. Without a hinterland of poetic publishing, I didn’t expect to get a break, not really.

Yet there they are, my own words and thoughts and feelings, presented for a different audience to consider, an audience that spreads out farther, this time, than to my beloved mates in writing group. The poems, as presented, represent three different feelings, none light: i. the conflation of scary memories including radiation therapy and the lighting of a Guy Fawkes bonfire; ii. the fierce devastation of loss; iii. the terrible fear of the unknown after diagnosis. I managed, however, without somehow referencing this blog, to suggest in my potted biography that I spend a lot of time exploring roads to joy.

I’m hugely indebted to the editorial team of Howard and Marilyn Timms who quietly chose my work for presentation in their ezine. The feeling of surprised delight at being accepted, published, recognised, spread throughout my day.

An unexpected joy may be among the very best joys of all.