leigh ann

every so often i sit my ass behind a computer screen, usually on my bed, and submit to a bunch of journals and publishers. too many to keep track of.

hopefully my publisher tab can solve this problem but it would actually require live updating which i don’t usually both to do after the 5th submission.

you can’t help but to think, after the rejections and long responses start piling up, if you’re half as good as you think you are. which is just crushing. i finally got the courage to believe in myself and in come the whispers.

i have rules tho. which would obviously make me at odds with publishers.

i wrote poetry in Bahamian Dialect. it’s something that’s been circling in my head forever and ever. i finally decided to stand my ground and do it. for each and every poem. i even went a rewrote my existing poetry from ‘the queen’s english’ to dialect.

in my mind, i know it’ll find a home somewhere. and it’ll be great when it does. i’ll feel feelings i never felt before.

until then, i know that dialect, especially one that’s so widely unknown, is something that’s either hit or miss. most of my poetry is meant to be said outloud. it sounds best with a Bahamian tongue. the stumbling that occurs, cause my peers and teachers have read it and kinda flutter around a bit and they’ve heard me speak, can be a huge hindrance. part of me just wants to give in and write with ‘eloquence’ and ‘command of the english language’ but in the end i gotta stick to my guns. and put out my poetry and my voice in it’s original form.

also, as you can see from my website, i’m an anti-caps girly. i’m not sure when and where it started but a couple years ago i discussed it with another Bahamian writer. they explained that it was an anti-colonial tool and a way to take the importance off the self – because some writers don’t use caps but still capitalize ‘i’. and that discussion clicked something together in my brain. it all made sense.

so these two combined make my poetry a little left of what is normally expected. and i know that. and i accept that. and i want my work to be published in spite of that.

for that i’ll keep working and submitting. until i’m sick of it. then submit some more.

keep scratchin dat itch.