Wacky Wednesday: June 17

Continuing our fun adventure into strange vocabulary and days for celebrating food, we have another Wacky Wednesday. I hope you’ll all share with me any other strange words or strange holidays you find out in the world. And they can be from any country. Our first word today is Colporteur. This is a noun which means a peddler of books, newspapers, and similar literature. This can also be someone employed by a religious society to distribute bibles and other religious literature. The next word is Eucatastrophe. A noun which is the opposite of Catastrophe. In other words, it means a happy ending.

For our weird holidays, we’ll start with Global Garbage Man Day. We should always be grateful to the men and women who dispose of our trash for us. It’s a smelly job and you should always thank them. The remainder of our holidays center around food (like always). Today is National Eat Your Vegetables DayNational Stewart’s Root Beer DayNational Apple Strudel Day, and National Cherry Tart Day. That’s a lot of sweets. Good thing they tell you to eat vegetables too. I wouldn’t recommend eating all of that during one meal. Try to spread it out throughout the day.

Twofer Tuesday Poetry: I Am Garbage & Depression

I Am Garbage

I remember
In my 20’s
I said things
I thought were funny
I thought they
Made me funny
I felt clever and fun and accepted
My jokes were
Bad and wrong
Everyone thought
I was sexist
A misogynist
A rapist
A serial killer
I stopped making jokes
I keep my hands
To myself
I watch what I say
Trying to be respectful
It’s been 10 years
People still hate me
They still think
I kill hookers
And hide the bodies
A dumb kid’s mistakes
Never go away

Depression

How far into the darkness do you want to go?
How far away from happiness will you venture?
You’ll never survive the shadows behind my eyes.
My own black forest made of sorrow and despair.
On the outside, I project happiness and fun.
Believe I’m easygoing, lighthearted, and free.
This is an illusion. It’s a mask that I wear.
You can’t comprehend when your thoughts turn against you.
You’ll feel nothingness, loneliness, and worthlessness.
You’ll feel these every day and hide it from others.
You’ll hope if you hide them enough they’ll go away.
You’ll stare out of the darkness wishing to escape.

From the poetry collection Men Are Garbage.

Free eBook Friday: September

Not only is today Free eBook Friday, but it is also my birthday. Instead of asking everyone for gifts, I’m giving you all a free download of one of my books. This month’s eBook is Men Are Garbage. In my newest collection of poetry, I examine masculinity and reflect on personal experiences. Some of this includes childhood trauma. Some includes adult trauma. This is not the happy romance some people think of when they hear the word poetry. It’s dark. It’s real life. It’s my life. It felt fitting to offer this as a free download on my birthday.

The other exciting aspect of this poetry collection is I will feature some of the poems in a one man show I’m performing for the Tucson Fringe Festival in January 2020. I’ll share some poems along with some personal stories of my life and what inspired those poems. It will be an hour of poetry and storytelling. I’m excited as this is the first time, I’m featuring my work in this kind of performance. I’ve read my poetry to an audience before but only for a few minutes. More details on this as we get closer to 2020. The title of the show is also “Men Are Garbage.”

Most of the poetry included in this book was written within about a week. I would call it extreme inspiration or an emotional rage, but perhaps it was a little of both. I hope, in some small way, this collection will help the world. I never thought I would write poetry this much again, but I felt more passion behind this project than many of my other projects. I hope you enjoy it. “James Pack examines masculinity and anxiety in “Men Are Garbage,” a book of poetry in which he reflects on childhood trauma and his time as a nightclub bouncer.”