about XYZ

standardized form has always discomforted me and i cannot recall ever not being just a tad wiggly in its presence—

i can admit that standardized form is perhaps a bit of a strange phrasing but by it i mean status quo, normal, regular, accepted, what-you-are-supposed-to-do, institutionalized form, etcetera. of course i have like every other person con-formed by shaping myself, my habits, behaviors, actions, thoughts, speech, everything along the lines of what is acceptable what is expectable within whatever group(s) i have found myself. some of these movements of shaping have helped me to under-stand with more clarity who i am (and by this i simply mean what i agree with or like or believe, that sort of thing) while other moments of conforming have been, well, agonizing. you may say but what are we to do but to conform to the rules of our world and besides that we cannot always be or do what we want and i respond with yes of course but also what are we to do with the pain the tension the bothersome pestering nature of some of these moments what are we to do in the presence of with the pressure of this pain in the presence of this acute discomfort.

i say agony and i could also use words like stressful, uncomfortable, rage-inducing, depression-generating, despair-fomenting, etcetera. and i think you probably under-stand or maybe you do not or maybe you are sensitive to these sorts of things like me and you under-stand without explanation. anyway there has been this grain within me this emerging character and internal shape that i have become more aware of as i have traveled along on my repetitions around the sun and i have also let myself become more aware and not push it away. letting myself see has been important because i have not always made room for this. also with me have been others that are struggling in their own ways to get out of this situation and they have been a great help to my own under-standing and my own struggles to figure out the con-fusion of the situation. i am very thankful for these courageous souls that i have coincided and conversed with about this pain and mutual desires to make some sense of things. so i have had these experiences of going against my grain and simultaneously a growing impulse within me has been moving in parallel and in proportion with the painfulness of mis-fit from these con-tortions.

so what does this all have to do with this particular site that i call xyz and why should you care. well i don’t necessarily think that you should care but you may and you may also find interest in what it has to do with this site. so maybe you will keep reading.

you see as this impulse within me has been growing through all these experiences of shaping to and by and for and with norms and forms of the world and also seeing more of who i am, letting myself see more of who i am, i arrived at an moment in 2020 where i decided because it was the time for me to decide to do something to turn and address this impulse to follow it and to see where it is nudging me.

most of my contortions have been in the context of what we usually call work. it has been happening and ongoing ever since i left college. perhaps you can relate. well anyway i reached a point in 2020 where situations aligned and i had to address this growing impulse to react to the years of self-shaping and contortional response to the contours of standardized form. i had to find new ways of relating to these tensions. and because work has been the primary place of these happenings i needed to reassess what i call my work and where i put my efforts that i will call my work if i wanted to change things.

so finally we have covered the relevant history condensing to this site a first public step for me along a possible new “work” path a hypothetical new trajectory that has as one of its foundational motives attempts to loosen the tensions of these struggles to discover new ways of relating to standardized form and my own form to have a spot where i can reassess continually and openly and actively what i call my work and where i will put my efforts. but what is my first frame of reference my starting perspective for approaching these things. there is a part of my life that has been less visible than my work persona but inseparably important to who i am and the efforts i am engaging with here and that part that very big part is poetry.

poetry has like i said been a part of my life for a long time but it has taken me a while to under-stand or have explanations for why i enjoy it so much but recently i have been able to start the process of articulating and consciously thinking with more clarity about my love for this particular form. so much can be and has been said about poetry and i am no expert in any perspective of that word but one reason i am now aware of is that poetry for me holds and opens possibilities of contravening what i have been calling standardized form. of course of course there are standardized poetic forms since we humans love our classifying and categorizing and institutionalizing and some of them i do enjoy but the act of subverting and transgressing and opening captivates my attention. i conceive of poetry in all its myriad forms as holding these options of procession. you may possibly say the same about art in general and i would not disagree but poetry is the plot of mind i rest upon most often.

and so it is with poetry as a starting place that i imagine this site, a starting place that i imagine loosening these tensions in my struggles with standardized form, a starting place that i imagine explore share open and engage in play of imagination beyond the boundaries of givens. a place to wander to err to roam to stray to ab-err to go-off-course. poetry breaks forth from and out of its enmeshment and entanglement with human language and language while not the whole of knowledge is a primary way into and out of what we try to know.

that is that is the end of what i currently under-stand about my intentions for this site. if it is anything it is a place of poetry. and it is a plot for me to put up a screen and project my imagination and a space for me to play with forms outside the gaze of normal and shake the boundaries a little and a space that perhaps you may find things that offer to you and i a shared sense of humanity that we couldn’t have any other way.

i do not stand or under-stand without many who have supported me along my way in life and i hold their contributions to the world and to me with the deepest of regard. they open my senses and give me courage to wake each day to be my own. the most present with me in my daily living are my wildly wise and bold partner Emily and our abundantly energetic and fiercely enthusiastic son Arthur. to everyone else that i have ever wondered with about the stars thank you. and lastly i have innumerable poets, writers, artists, activists, thinkers, etc to thank for the immeasurable gifts of ideas perspectives and permissions that i have received from their work and that feel as though they have always been a part of me. you can browse books by some of my influences on this bookshop list.