reading – #poetsthatsweat

I Want Francis Bacon To Draw Me

A writer I admire posted my poem, I WANT FRANCIS BACON TO DRAW ME, a few months ago, and it did not sit well with a few internet commenters. I have voiced in different settings I do not expect all of my poems to be welcomed. They are not sweet. I have a point of view. I have been waiting for someone to be offended. This was exciting to see even a handful of people argue. I tell people to not read the comments, but I fail to take my own advice. Art should be discussed. I can’t find an exact quote, but I think often about how one of the hardest things as an artist is to be ignored.

To me, that poem is nasty, from my personal promising young woman era (read: revenge). A few folks dismissed the poem in the comments. These ideas that a young woman cannot go outside without her body commented on are part of the bigger picture of safety & control. Then, you have Francis Bacon, an artist that absolutely blew my young mind when I saw an exhibit of his work at The Met in 2009, who has captivated me ever since. The atrocities of war, the turmoil of being queer in that era – he captured the bleakness in a way I had never seen before. He is often on my mind as I push what I am willing to write. Bacon was not addressing chronic illness, but his portraits characterize the pain & turmoil of endometriosis better than anything else I have seen (including the barbed-wire around the abdomen portraits).

The poem is tucked on page seventy-one of my book. I often perform the “funnier” poems at events, but there is a lot of unbridled rage in the book. I have read a few live, like YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE / YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE / YOU. Bmore Art chose to publish it in their fall 2024 issue, so I’ve read it a few times because I wanted to do that selection justice. But otherwise, the poems that I do not employ humor in are too painful to read out loud. As the artist, I can self-select the performance in public you see.

I joke that my book is for 18-24 year old femmes. But that’s not really a joke. I am deadly serious about the importance of the opinions of young people, as serious as I am about not snuffing someone’s creative spark. As I continue to grabble with the difference between what exists in a book & what is performed at an event, I hope you continue to engage with art from the creative people around you. It’s what makes us human.

Soooooooo you can see for yourself & form your own opinions – EMOTION INDUSTRY officially released from Barrelhouse Books on October 15, 2024. You can purchase a copy HERE. I linked to the Bookshop page because they support Indie Bookstores. I also highly encourage you to ask your favorite local bookstore to order it. Local bookstores always have the best individualized recommendations, and when you order from them, it also puts my book in front of a new set of eyes. Thank you!

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Television Fathers by Sylvia Jones
It All Felt Impossible by Tom McAllister

Stay sweaty and glittery. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Here we go again

I’ve done a much better job using Instagram to update how book release has gone. But here I am, sitting in a trail parking lot again, with some time to think about the last two months.

EMOTION INDUSTRY officially released from Barrelhouse Books on October 15, 2024. You can purchase a copy HERE. I linked to the Bookshop page because they support Indie Bookstores. I also highly encourage you to ask your favorite local bookstore to order it. Local bookstores always have the best individualized recommendations, and when you order from them, it also puts my book in front of a new set of eyes. Thank you!

I’ll write about some highlights.

Performing with Amanda McCormick again! Our last performance together was probably in 2018. We have a special creative energy that we fell back into as we worked on our script.

Speaking to Writers in Baltimore Schools students as part of my reading with Tanya Olson at the University of Baltimore. First of all, they all knew Lisa Frank via meme culture, so the cheerful nihilism poem in my collection, REAL LIFE LISA FRANK, landed with them. Then, after the official reading, one of the students came with another question. They asked how I stay positive as a queer person in the world. I nearly cried in that moment. This was a few weeks before the election, but anti-trans rhetoric had already been ratcheting up for months. The pain within queer communities is deep, but we are also so resilient. All of this went through my mind in the split second before I answered. I told them that queerness also means possibility to me. That we’ve already had to build our own community support, and although times are tough right now, I know that we as a community can see how things can be better.

A poem in the latest issue of Bmore Art. The issue should be hitting mailboxes now, and it is available locally at the Ivy Bookshop, Greedy Reads, Atomic Books, and good neighbor. I originally pitched an interview, then the team asked to include YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE / YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE / YOU. I sort of buried that poem, and a few others like it, in the manuscript. It is plain-spoken rage. I hadn’t read it publicly either, so I did read it for the first time at Milkhouse in Frederick a few days ago. The energy in the room shifted as I was being real.

Support from coworkers. I’ve lost count how many people at my 8:30am-5pm have bought my book. That’s more terrifying to me than anything else – I have a certain persona there, and I don’t let my darkness peak out to many people. Folks seem to like it though! Which is something I’m looking to do with the book: be a space where people realize that these systems don’t work for them, and we can do something better. There I go again with queer possibility.

Whew! I am tired. That’s a lot to have happening personally on top of, ya know, politics now. We continue to live through unprecedented times, but this is not new, & in these cycles, we often build community & find new ways to push for better. I’m not being naïve. Though I do deeply believe that the most naïve though is that war can bring peace. We are in a time where we can come together to fight like hell for something that works for the majority of us across demographics. Don’t forget that. We got most of our labor reforms (that could use some updates) out of the chaos of the 1890s.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

No More Flowers by Stephanie Cawley
Tea Leaves by Jacob Budenz

Stay sweaty and glittery. None of us are free until all of us are free.

the void occurred to me

After all things occurred to me,
the void occurred to me.
“End of Summer”, Louise Glück

I have the tendency to say to myself, “oh I’ll write a nice race recap,” and then privately mull it over while never actually writing it. Oops. It goes into the void of my brain, to paraphrase Louise Glück.

Winona Forest Backyard Ultra was a wonderful experience from an organizing perspective. The course had the clearest directions I’ve ever followed. Anywhere you could take a wrong turn, the race director put a string of flags blocking the path. In a race where you are plodding on the same loop, yet becoming increasingly stupid every hour, this was GREAT. There were lights for the start/finish of night running, and easy camping on location.

I ran 34 miles, 8 yards. I knew I’d been training for shorter speed and the heat + humidity would be tough for me, so I’m content with that result. Not happy. Not disappointed. Just content that I kept going, when I started telling my partner around mile 24 that I was thinking about dropping. We drove 6 hours to the race, a 50k felt like an arbitrary, worthwhile distance.

My favorite part of the day: the conversations. In a Backyard, you can find someone to run with the entire time if you want (also, if they want to chat – read the room). What a different experience from a trail ultra, where you can spend 6+ hours completely alone. I commiserated with a runner I met at Bullshit Backyard Ultra (highly recommend this race for the special community, but dang it was hard as heck), talked with a teacher + photographer about what art & work looks like, and spent time with a woman who had never gone over a marathon before. She ran 40 miles that day.

Are cumulative experiences timeless? Probably. If they are specific enough. I’m reading Nora Ephron’s book, Wallflower at the Orgy, and although the original edition was published in 1970, I am laughing out loud or nodding along vigorously. She writes with VOICE. Her writing has an energy. I only know a couple of the names in her essay on the messy world of the food critics, but the drama is evergreen when thinking about any small, insular creative community.

Last night, I was talking with a few people about poetry. At first, one person said they couldn’t write poetry because the form is so concise. Then we laughed, because what about epics like the Odyssey? The Bible? Some of our longest stories ever told are in the form of a poem.

Like how I enjoy the connections on the run, I’m writing to make connections. I have no idea what will stand the test of time. But we are here together, now, and I’m going to write about existential dread, eggs, and the moon.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron
The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck

Stay sweaty and glittery. None of us are free until all of us are free.

I am not a cool girl

I am in the thick of publicity planning for my debut, full length poetry collection, EMOTION INDUSTRY. If you’ve ever thought “wow, I’d like to have Tracy on my podcast, blog, website, etc.” I welcome your email. There are only so many hours in the day after my 8:30am-5pm.

Some more publishing news: I am thrilled to be part of Yellow Arrow Vignette, Yellow Arrow Publishing’s online creative nonfiction and poetry series. Read it here! Our work is paired with gorgeous illustrations as well.

Days in Baltimore have been a heat haze for over a month. I’m busy, yet the air vibrates like pouring a seltzer and watching the bubbly clouds. National and international chaos abounds while every moment is memified before we think deeply. I’ve managed to run, but it has been disorderly (unhinged?) because I chose to start a Summer of Speed after I signed up for a mid-August Backyard Ultra.

Zero percent recommend this mash-up. I hope no coaches are reading this. Around June, I scaled back my elevation gain and mileage to accommodate for the stress running fast on a track creates. I might be an idiot, but there are ways to keep injuries at bay.

Why am I doing something so dumb? It’s so simple, I may be the idiot from hell: I shifted to the summer of speed when I decided I wanted to race. Olympic fever caught my what if vulnerability. These athletes focus, I can do that. In that sensitive, receptive state, a friend told me about Ladies Night Track. My money was with the running store 24 hours after she told me about it. I’m also trying to pack in as much as possible before our climate becomes untenable. That or our bodies, you can read about how 3M hid the dangers of forever chemicals for years here.

The camaraderie at Ladies Night Track has been everything I would have wanted on a track team. Last week, we kept saying, “Be like Katie Ledecky! Stay consistent and strong!” This is why I run: to be goofy and enjoy movement. It doesn’t have to be running. I want this kind of relaxed safety and fun to be available for everyone. I am a poet, after all. There is always potential.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

I Do Everything I’m Told by Megan Fernandes
Motherhood by Sheila Heiti

Stay sweaty and glittery. None of us are free until all of us are free.

This is human life in all its strangeness.

Costar recently sent me the notification: Pay attention to how you disregard your own needs. What an attack!!

As I talk more with other ultra-runners, we agree on some level that you have to turn your brain off and disregard what might be rational while participating in one of these events. You’re balancing meeting important physiological needs – the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs if you will – yet ignoring your body’s calls to completely stop and rest. Your own needs. Much less complex than the sentence that before the last.

I mull all this over as I wait for a friend and my partner to come to the mile 87(?) aid station at MMT 100. I’m thinking about the two Backyard ultras I participated in this spring, and two transformative book events I went to over the last twenty-four hours. All hold so much weight. My brain has decidedly not been turned off.

Melissa Broder on Friday night was more than I dreamed. Her humor in the darkness of all that is having a body, the watching of the watching of the watching. As a reader and a writer, I find a glow in the way she balances deep thought with obsessions like Diet Coke. I am part of consumer culture, ok?!

To the rabbits, I suppose there’s no such thing as sameness. For them, and their heightened olfactory consciousness, life probably a stream of new and exciting fragrances. But for me – senses dulled by a constant deluge of opinions and judgments – every moment is a house of oppressive thoughts to be escaped. This is human life in all its strangeness.

A majority of Friday evening’s conversation was asking why we have our obsessions, why we think the way we do. It was a room full of people that most definitely ask themselves what is the point every day. Broder explores this in every book in some way.

Then today, honoring Mandy May. Tonee Mae Moll closed her set with Mandy’s poem, “I want people to think,” and that was it for me (many of us, I think). The day, and the leadup, may have been the hardest in the grieving process, all while still being a beautiful way to bring many of us back to each other. We shared so many intimate details through our creativity in grad school. We’ve seen each other peel our soft petals and expose our thorns. Over the past year and a half, I have found running in the woods and listening to crows healing. But I still want to come back to these people.

It’s nearly 2a.m., time for me to go to the aid station to welcome the runners. At this moment, I need to be with them. They’ll be there for me another day, and I’ll be with writers again. I’ll write another time about each Backyard. For now, I want people to think that I said what I meant and I meant what I said because I did.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Death Valley by Melissa Broder
Bone / Blood / Blossom by Mandy May

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.

I’m glad I dream

And I say then I’m glad I dream
the fire is still alive

Those are the last two lines to Louise Glück’s latest collection, Winter Recipes from the Collective. I finished the collection, then reread it, while in Maine. Glück has written about mortality her entire career, but this one felt more like a true knowledge of the sunset to come.

It’s been a summer full of travel, writing, and running. It will still be sweltering in Baltimore through October, so this is not an end of summer post. I’ll let you decide what kind of post it is.

I spent over a week in Estonia in July, mostly in the capital, Tallinn, visiting friends. Travel tip: most cities allow you to purchase a cultural card that gets you heavy discounts to different museums, restaurants, and cultural centers. I purchased a 3-day Tallinn Card and maximized how many places I visited on the days my friends were working full-time hours. In addition to bike-riding along the Bay of Tallinn coast and exploring Lahemaa National Park, I went to over 15 museums. At the last one, the museum staff asked if I was a blogger. Just someone interested in history, I said.

Near the end of the trip, I set out on a long run. I told my friends I’d go around 14 miles. We’d explored part of the Tallinn City Trail on bikes the day before. I ran through the pines feeling the weight of history. Now a bustling recreation center, part of the land was once a mass KGB grave. In the United States, our land has seen horrors as well, like mass genocide of indigenous people, the horrors of slavery, and our current incarceration policies. I thought of Appalachian folklore and the urges to listen to the forest. Conifers or concrete, the land speaks to us if we listen.

August was also full of fire – and because I cannot slow down – something about inertia and forward motion, right Vonnegut? – I have been thinking about what is next for running. After racing a 50k of my own, crewing Eastern States 100, (including driving back to the campground at 4am) – I’m asking myself if I want to go longer. Sometimes I’m thinking about to signing up for a 50-miler, but really I don’t know. Firebird Trail Race was lovely to run outside of Portland, ME, in late August to cap off the New England trip. It was only 13 miles, so we could still stand and enjoy Odiorne Beach and Mystic Pizza after.

What if I continue my commitment to exploration and went with all new races? I ran somewhere new at least once a month this summer. Why wouldn’t I continue to explore?

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Three Pianos by Andrew McMahon
Winter Recipes from the Collective by Louise Glück
Golden Ax by Rio Cortez

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.

Meandering intensity

Time to meander through artistic and athletic identity, as I often do.

I finished a 50k trail race last month. When I think about it, I think about how finishing the helped me turn off arbitrary limitations swirling in my head. It wasn’t as fast as I wanted, but damn it was fun to run and problem solve through ugly terrain with a friend. If I can do that, what can’t I do?

I talk about limits like I haven’t been an athlete since I was in elementary school. An athlete, a writer, trying to figure out where a person that loves both can fit. It has taken me years to understand that I can be an artist and an athlete. Perhaps this shouldn’t have been difficult, but it had been presented to me as an either/or situation. Like curiosity and pushing the limits don’t complement each other.

Circus, and then finding beautiful long form essays in places like Outside, or Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, then the academic & creative writing from Leslie Heywood has helped me see myself as more of a whole person, not fragments of expectations. This is a privileged struggle, but it is also so common in different ways. What have you had to break free from?

A few years of creative work have dropped recently in journals. I’m excited and overwhelmed – since my endometriosis diagnosis, I’ve grappled with how much I want to write about navigating the trauma of chronic illness versus how much actual change the writing can bring. That’s probably unnecessary pressure. Many writers have discussed writing about trauma, and I think often back to a conversation at Charm City Books between D. Watkins and Rion Amilcar Scott: D. was working on new essays (what would come to be Black Boy Smile—go get it, the essays are gorgeous) and grappling with how much he would write about trauma. He discussed wanting to write about simple joys too. What was he writing for?

That why is at the forefront of every word I put down. The question might be why do I write or it might be why is this joy or why is this contributing to a cultural conversation, but it always starts with some sort of searching, and probably thoughts about audience. There is this push online to build social networks with more authenticity, more immediacy. What is more authentic than caring for your community in what you put out there?

Places to find new writing:
Cobra Milk issue 4
Virtual launch party on May 23 @ 8pm EST, Click here to RSVP

Jarnal issue 3: Transitions
Virtual launch party on June 11 @ 12pm EST, Zoom information to come

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
Black Boy Smile by D. Watkins
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Choosing to Run by Des Linden

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.

This is just to say grief is hard

Many people I care about are struggling right now, and I am too. Time moves differently with grief. I check the clock often to understand when I am. Yes, when.

Grief has brought feelings of not being enough. I’ve learned over the years (and therapy, please, therapy is the best) this not enough is a vague malaise—there isn’t a specific thing I think I need to do more. I’m getting down on myself without anything concrete, mostly grasping for something to hold. There have been some very wonderful things happening this month, so the grief sneaks in as I simultaneously feel joy.

I’ll keep on running into the new year. In the trees, in the sun, in the rain—I am moving and free and nearly outside of my skin. Specifically, there are 2023 races I’m thinking about. I’m not even sure what my goals are for each race, other than learn something about myself and go long. I’m working to get enough protein and stretch while I work through the grief this way. I don’t need to be injured and sad.

This is just to say, I often write about not wanting to be vulnerable. Sick is not fragile. When I reflect on the past year, I’m not actively sick anymore. I can plan trips and give hard efforts on run and not be flattened for days or weeks. This is still new, and I’m very grateful (again) for therapy and working through this.

Grief is somehow collective and personal. The grief from the loss of a wonderful person will keep coming in waves, but there is still all this future to reach for. They would appreciate all of us keeping up the fuck around & find out attitude.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die by Tawanda Mulalu
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.

With Pizzazz

Define me in some glitter if I crash. I have a little more pizzazz in my step after an iron infusion, so why not quote Akintoye?

While I was waiting on multiple rounds of bloodwork—literally, I feel like a vampire’s pet over here—I sent in a question about iron to Fuel for the Sole. Meghann Featherstone shared some excellent nutrition advice. However, when you find out you have an autoimmune blood disorder, trends that need a little more than nutrition tweaks come into focus.

I read the bloodwork results on a Friday and spent the weekend panic googling, as one does even when they know they shouldn’t. After talking with my doctor early the next week, I have a better understanding of where I am now: B12 lozenges because my body doesn’t absorb it through my bloodstream as it should (hence the iron dropping as well), and a GI doctor visit scheduled for the end of July. This isn’t my first chronic illness rodeo. I have the hardest time before I have action items. Once I know what I need to do, I’m generally ready to adjust.

Like I mentioned, before these results, I had another iron infusion. My hematologist was keeping close watch on my iron for the past year. After a significant drop in less than 2 months and the other symptoms I was experiencing, he decided it was time for another infusion (I had two in April 2020, before my latest excision and hysterectomy). It was a long year, but it makes sense that we couldn’t rush a treatment. I also appreciated that he didn’t throw iron pills at me—they can be hard on your GI system (something we were sensitive about for me), and as it turns out, my body has trouble with absorption anyway.

While I’m waiting for my GI specialist appointment, I’ve been thinking about interactions with doctors old and new. Cramped Style Blog was posting in her stories about this recently. It’s bizarre to be going over your medical history, bloodwork, all things pointing to chronic illness—then hearing a doctor say you’re in perfect health. Bitch, I’m not here because I’m bored. Are you not looking at the list of symptoms that I painstakingly documented for you to better diagnose me?

Like many folks in the chronic illness community, variations of but you don’t looks sick send me into a rage. I would prefer not to have a rolodex of specialists. As I’ve gotten older, I do try to understand the possible why after the first wave of anger, so I can explain to the doctor how dismissive the language is. Is it thin privilege? Doctors often react this way if you have a BMI under 25 (which is trash science btw). They can’t fathom how you could be ill if it’s not because of your weight. Or is it because if you’re an active person, they can’t fathom how you can train for half marathons, attempt to enjoy your life, while in significant chronic pain? My philosophy is that if I’m going to be in pain, I might as well be having some fun. Or as John Steinbeck recounts in Travels with Charley, “If it’s rotting you want, you can do it any place.”

Since you made it to here, I’ll do some flash recaps of races over the past few months:

BRRC PrettyBoy Trail Race (May 15)
So fun!!! It was mostly on fire roads, so the course was pretty speedy until the last mile uphill. I booped my toe pretty significantly before the race, but thought nothing of it. I took my shoes off after the race and saw how swollen and purple and angry it was. A trip to urgent care confirmed it wasn’t broken, but my toe does not look normal 2 months later. Oh well! I had the best time out there, wearing my Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra. I picked them up in January after reading the Believe in the Run review, and I love love love them. They are light-weight, yet I do not feel the rocks under my feet. They are pink and teal, though mine are covered in mud and I’m too lazy to clean them. 10/10 from my wide feet.

DC Frontrunners Pride 5k (June 10)
This was a first run back after a week of being quite ill with (not?) covid to kick off Pride Month. I was running it with some of my favorite library gays and my girlfriend, so the only goal was to have fun. I accidentally rubbed against someone at packet pickup and was immediately covered in glitter for the evening. 10/10 will be back every year, and will try and stay awake for the evening dance party next time.

Arbutus Firecracker 10k (July 4)
This is the first race I’ve enjoyed the effects of the late May iron infusion. Now I know that during the horrific B&A Trail Race that the vibes were bad inside my body. So! After a spring/early summer of consistent trail running, and my body adequately carrying oxygen, I ate those hills for breakfast. I felt so strong on the hot and hilly course, and closed the last .2 downhill with pizazz. I was only 20 seconds off my old has heck 10k PR. I’m not sure if that says I am stronger on challenging courses, or if a big breakthrough is finally coming. I’ll keep running up that hill to find out.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Black Boy Smile by D. Watkins
Girlhood by Melissa Febos
The Octopus Museum by Brenda Shaughnessy

In between runs, go support your local abortion fund. The organizations have been preparing for years. To quote the indominatable Sherrilyn Ifill, “Remember that we have never seen the America we’ve been fighting for. So no need to be nostalgic. Right on the other side of this unraveling is opportunity. If we keep fighting no matter what, take care of ourselves & each other, stay strategic & principled, & use all our power.”

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”

Sylvia Plath has been swirling my head since writing group. An essay I brought to workshop was giving off Mad Girl’s Love Song vibes, and I am okay with that. I finally choked out some literary prose about chronic illness. I am a mad girl.

Speaking of choking—I didn’t post a blog last month, nor did I submit writing. Both are monthly goals I set for myself. However, those goals are to hold me accountable to consistent writing and revising. Instead of submitting, I spent a weekend in West Virginia, heavily revising and dumping out a few thousand words of the first draft of the above mentioned essay that made it to workshop. The piece finally feels like a breakthrough in prose writing.

I am better at seeing the process steps in writing. It’s like the memes that go around running Instagram—the bits of the iceberg you don’t see before the success. I can say I’m happy with a few thousand words in January. I also excavated a ton of old writing for a revision of my full-length poetry manuscript.

After I run, it’s like I immediately forget everything I’ve accomplished. A little over a week ago, I had a killer workout with my coach in relatively difficult conditions—20 degrees and wind. I ran 2 x 12 minutes comfortably faster than goal half marathon pace within a twelve mile run. Two days later, I was writing panicked recaps in my training log about how tired I was. Of course I was tired. I had a big workout and my body was recovering.

This week, we preemptively planned a day off after a moderate effort at the Baltimore Road Runner’s Club Cupid’s Crush. It was absolute joy through Druid Hill Park. I find joy in sprinting up hills—it must be the dopamine. I highly recommend runners in the DMV area put BRRC races on their calendar. Everyone from other runners to race volunteers encouraged each other in the small race.

Bright morning light reflected on patches of melting ice as we powered up and down the hills. We whispered you got this to each other as our lungs fought. I’ve missed these intimate gatherings. I’m signed up for the BRRC Super Bowl Trail Race this Sunday—maybe I’ll get my act together and post a timely race recap of my first trail race.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.