Welcome to Letters from a Poet. I’m Jessica Lakritz, the poet in question. I’m happy to be here, and I’m happy you’re here too. And I guess here is a sort of newsletter-blog mix where a poet, dog mama, and anticapitalist dreamer continues her search for eternal meaning and meaninglessness.
I’ve been comfortably calling myself a Writer for over a decade now. Is it because of the validation I received after getting an MFA in Writing? Is it because I have been getting paid to write things for other people as my main source of income for the last decade? Would I call myself a Writer if I didn’t have those societal tokens of proof?
I ask a lot of fairly answerless questions, as you can see. I think it’s because I’m a poet. I’ve heard in the Poet Industry, questions are more important than answers. I have taken that quite seriously.
I plan to use this forum as a safe place for me to continue asking lots of questions that may or may not have answers. If you have some answers, I’d love to hear them. Your comments below each post will be diligently read (by me).
Existentialist as I am, my subjective experience of human existence will be at the heart of what I write here. There’s going to be a lot of personal vulnerability. Ideally it will feel like you’re actually getting to know me. Also, ideally, you will find what you read here valuable or meaningful or cool.
There’s going to be a lot of questioning society’s values, a lot of ruminating on purpose. Stuff like:
Regret: remember that time I accidentally dumped my best friend
Love: did you know that Omar and I started out in an open relationship
Rage: stop acting like I’m missing out on some sacred joy because I don’t want kids
Jealousy: how are all of you other writers getting book deals but not me wtf
Sadness: is that burger I ate causing today’s episode of otherwise unexplainable sadness
Trauma: I bet you can’t guess how many times I cried in the vet’s office last year
If I’m doing a good job, it’s because I’m transmuting the personal into the universal, which is a poet’s job after all. But here’s a little caveat:
Writing honestly and vulnerably, even for someone who has been calling herself a Writer for ten years, remains hard. The decision to do it is the easy part. Translating what’s on the inside in a truly honest way, that is the never-ending challenge. I'm here because I’m up for the challenge. I won’t let you down.
All of this writing will be free, even the most vulnerable of it. But I’m also going to leave the paid subscription option on, because donations to the arts are a thing, and capitalism requires that I make a stupid amount of money to pay my rent and eat and have water and be alive. If you enjoy it here and want to contribute to a writer-slash-artist pouring her soul into neatly crafted letters, that would be amazing. I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read what I have to say, but you know, the little extra validation for the $5/month subscription (or less if you pay annually, ehhh!) goes a long way, probably longer than you think.
Love you all and KIT,
Jessica
