American Whore

I always feel like a prostitute selling myself when I offer my books to the world. I’ve begun to enjoy the vulnerable because it’s sincere, it’s funny, and I sometimes make friends and it means I wasn’t wasting my life writing poetry. Exposure and demanding visibility for my creative projects is awkward and uncomfortable. It’s standing half naked on a corner with hope and sharp words and a knife under my skirt. It’s also necessary. To get those poems out there, dress them well in provocative words and be shameless.

I’m asking people do they need a weird poetry experience. I have one for those wanting one. Do you want a book that makes you throw it across the room or run away or giggle at yourself? I have one. I have crafted a triggering collection about fears. I invite readers to experience it and fears with me.

Hey Babe, d’ya wanna have a bad time? I can make you uncomfortable. I know just how to make your skin crawl. It won’t take long. I’m the real professional. Worth every fingernail. Let’s go have a weird time? You wanna go now? Buy me another drink, I’ve a room upstairs. You’ll never forget it. A real weird one of a kind first time ever. Fear is worth the cost.

“Hiding the work does not protect the work. It imprisons it.

Imagine baking a beautiful cherry pie, setting it on the windowsill, smelling the cinnamon and butter, admiring the golden crust, knowing there are hungry people nearby who would love a slice, and then deciding the humble thing to do is hide it in the back room. We would never call that virtue. We would call it waste.

The problem is not that creators want their work to be read, heard, purchased, shared, or remembered. The problem is when we are taught to feel ashamed of wanting those things. We are allowed to love the making, but not the wanting. We are allowed to labor, but not to ask. We are allowed to create, but not to stand beside the creation and say, clearly, “I made this for someone like you “

Angela Yuriko Smith