Tag: Poetry

Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 22 March 2025: Poetry all over the place

Hi, everyone, welcome to Poetry Night.

The poetry has been coming fast and loose for me. There’s times where I have no idea what I’m going to write about, and other times when the words flow for me.

You might know I am a teacher, but did you know there is no requirement in the state curriculum of Iowa (where I live and teach) for us to teach about poetry? It’s a fact. But maybe it’s for the best. Poetry is one of those things you can’t force down someone’s throat. They have to be drawn to it, like I was later in life.

I never want to say I’ve got a handle on it, but during the past several months it feels to me I have a better handle on how to be creative in the poetry genre. But I’ve been writing either pro or semi-pro for nearly 30 years now, and there’s no way I will ever say I know everything there is to know about writing. To paraphrase the Russian chess champion Alexander Alekhine, an entire lifetime is not long enough to learn everything there is to know about writing. And I definitely don’t have enough time to learn everything there is to learn about poetry. So, I always have to keep in mind I’m always learning no matter what.

Hi, everyone, welcome to Poetry Night. I’ve got an interesting couple of poems to share with you, about both the digital world and the analog world. Hope you enjoy them.

I’ve been writing poetry with more regularity in recent months. For the year 2025 I have written six of them. At least two of them were not for publication in the short term or maybe even in the long term. It’s been therapeutic to express myself like that and not worry about other people’s opinions.

If You’re Interested in my Poetry Here…

My first collection of poetry is out now.

Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.

The Flow and the Journey

Now, on to the poetry.

This weekend I found myself again (slightly to my surprise) on the road and away from my expected places. I spent a lot of time in between places to stay due to circumstances beyond my control last year around this time, and it ended up inspiring quite a bit of poetry. To me, it’s not a surprise tonight inspired at least one more poem, as well. This was influenced not just by my own situation, but the circumstances of a group of people I have been looking into for research regarding another fiction project I have going on.

gray concrete road under gray sky
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

350 Days

22 March 2025, Des Moines, Iowa

As I hang out

In an overly equipped hotel room

I realize I’ve gone back

To life on the road.

I have to admit I’ve whined

About not knowing the rules of where I’ve traveled

Or the procedures

Or the routines

Or how to pack up and pack out

When I get on the road.

But as I try to accentuate the positive

And eliminate the negative in my life

I learn about how pro wrestlers

Who are people I admire in my life

Had to spend 350 days out of 365

On the road

At their craft

Making money to support themselves and others

On at least two different continents.

I wonder

I speculate

How much change and discombobulation

They had to go through

While getting their bodies and brains beaten in.

I submitted an earlier version of this poem to the Midwest Writing Center’s Iron Pen contest for the poetry category, I thought I did well, but the Society of Great River poets from Burlington, Iowa, had a few good suggestions for me. Those results and my own combine to the poem you will see below.

photo of two native americans playing woodwind instruments
This is what I got when I searched for “Our Tribe.” Photo by Gabriela Custódio da Silva on Pexels.com

Our People, Our Tribe

28 February 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa

I spent years gathering electronic friends through screens large and small

Only to find them as elusive as electrons

And just as invisible.

People who purported to be what they showed me in pictures and videos

But whose existences were no more permanent

Than flashes of static.

Once I traveled the electronic highways and byways to find my own people,

But the bots and electronic beings clogged the wires and waves

With no places for humans.

So I left those places.

I traveled longer in the analog world, epic treks compared to electronic laps

True humans and potential friends were sparse in the expanse

I found them.

People with whom I shared their homes, cooked their meals,

Whom I lived with, not observed and judged

And came to grok.

In the end, I found my modest tribe, insignificant to the electronic hordes,

We built our own world, we few and true

With love for each other.

That’s it for tonight. We’ll see what April brings.

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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

Subscribe to my Substack here.

The Writing Life, 1 March 2025: The Yank Striker 2 revisions and a quick format change

Good to welcome you all to my neck of the Internet. It was a bit warmer, but I am not exactly wishing for June temperatures even though I’m starting to think of my summer break increasingly.

Let’s get into some talk about what’s going on with me and with writing. Turns out there’s a bit going on.

What I’ve Been Writing

  1. The Yank Striker 2: the sequel to my book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning. The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. Book two focuses on what my main character, Daniel John “DJ” Ryan has to face now he is trying to establish himself as a footballer in England, both as an American in a strange land and someone whose sexual orientation brings extra scrutiny.

I’ve now finished the second draft (2.0 or 2.1 depending on how you define it). This is my schedule for the rest of the process.

  1. Beta reads – – Now beginning at the start of March and completed by the end of March.
  2. Two more rounds of revisions in April.
  3. Final editing and proofreading in May and concluding by the end of May.

Speaking of Those Beta Readers…

Even though I will be reaching out to friends and family, I am sincerely looking for beta readers for The Yank Striker 2. If anyone out there on the Internets or on Substack is interested in becoming beta readers for this project and completing your work in a timely fashion, I would be willing to reward you for your hard work.

Anyone interested in serving as beta readers for the project will get a complimentary paid subscription for this site lasting at least one year. I will sort it out for you. Depending on your services, I might also throw in another freebee or two.

If you are interested, chirp back to me in the comments of this post or in DMs. Thank you for your service ahead of time.

Now, on with the other projects.

  1. The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project: I’ve been making more progress on this. Over the past year and a half, this story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means has been at the head of my creative interests for a while, with the exception of The Yank Striker 2. Currently, I’m at 32,000-plus words on the project and have continued to make progress on it.
  2. Poetry: Just entered the Lyrical Iowa 2025 Contest at the last minute. I’ll be interested to see if anything comes of it. I’m glad I’m starting to do things like this and the poetry slam contest the Iowa Poetry Association sponsored.
  3. The Heart Project: This is the name of the… let’s call it speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times. I’m just starting some initial notes on the project.
    I’m going to keep this very vague right now, but it involves four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos.
    I think it’s going to take me a while to pull this story together in my head, so I’m going to be coy about the whole thing in the meantime. I might start letting some rough excerpts escape into a Prose Night post one of these nights.
  4. Oh, and I’m trying to participate in this year’s Iron Pen Contest sponsored by the Midwest Writing Center. Trying to get a short story and poem sorted out in 24 hours or less, heh heh. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.

A Slight Change in Programming (A Revamp of my Posts)

I want to make sure I am trying to provide some value to my readers, both old and new. For the first several months of this format, I was doing a newsletter every week, and it wound up getting pretty repetitive. For those not aware, I went to producing the newsletter (The Writing Life) every first and third weekend of the month rather than every week. That’s why you are seeing this now, on the first Saturday of March.

Now, I’m beginning to think that might be a bit too much. So, I am going to change gears and try and provide some more value for your read. This is going to be my publishing schedule going forward. There’s not a massive amount of change from my previous schedule, but I will point it out as I lay it out here.

  • First weekend1 of the month: The newsletter (The Writing Life). This is where I keep everyone updated on what I’ve been writing, what is upcoming for me, just to say hello.
  • Second weekend of the month: Prose Night. I produce an original piece of prose writing for reading here. Sometimes it will be an excerpt of a larger work in progress. Sometimes it will be an original essay, usually tied in some fashion to writing or myself. For example, I’ve been writing these posts off and on throughout the years entitled A Writer’s Biography, where I look back on my life through a writer’s lens to see how my passion influenced my interests, my path in life, and how it made me into who I am right now. I might even do an occasional short story here, perhaps. It’ll be brand new stuff.
  • Third weekend of the month: [LOOK OUT, HERE IS WHERE THE PROGRAMMING CHANGE IS.] The Writing Lab. These posts might be slightly shorter than the first two types; we will have to see. I’ve been inconsistent with providing advice and insight into writing for readers. I want to address that with The Writing Lab.
    Sometimes the post will be a straight piece of writing advice. (I’m going to make an effort to keep track of all these topics to make sure I’m not repeating myself too often.) Often, I’ll take you into my prime writing spot, my writing nook, as I review or reflect on writing difficulties I have faced or am facing, and how I try to deal with them.
The main writing nook. It’s a bit more crowded now. 🙂
  • In addition, in conjunction with this new feature, I am going to make more use of the Substack Chat feature. Every weekend I post The Writing Lab, I will post an open chat which will be Ask Me Anything About Writing (AMAAW). The times and exact dates of these chats might vary, but I will post on Substack Notes when I have them set. Any questions you have on writing and fiction, or any feedback you want on your own writing, I will be open for business. I would love to see this take off and be successful.
    I’m scheduling the first of these Writing Labs for March 15. Looking forward to it.
  • Fourth weekend of the month: Poetry Night. You get a couple of fresh new poems from me on Poetry Night, as well as some nonsense exposition as to why I might have written them. Ever since I started this, I have to say I’ve been much more productive with poetry than I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve written six poems this year so far, which is an unheard pace for me, who never really concentrated on putting out a large amount of poems. I may be talking too soon, but I think the quality of what I’ve been producing has grown. At least, I think it’s become easier for me.
  • If there is a fifth weekend in the month, I either plan to take that weekend off or we do a Hodgepodge Night. That’s means it could be anything – fiction, non-fiction, poetry – shoot, maybe even a video or podcast if I get crazy. We’ll just have to see, won’t we?


Anyway, that’s my schedule for now. Hope it might shake things up a bit.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

This week, I attended my first meeting of a new writer’s group here in Fort Madison sponsored by the Fort Madison Area Art Association. I was really happy to go to a writer’s group meeting locally. While I do have a couple of groups I attend on a regular basis, those are virtual and/or out of town, so it’s nice to have an in-town option. Looking forward to getting and receiving some good feedback on my work.

The Dude in Purple. A bit of a reference to a personage in my hometown. Read up on it if you want.

I have more than a few plans for book fair appearances in the coming months. Recently, I have managed to confirm these, so I will list them here.

  • From 1-2:30 p.m. Saturday, 22 March, I will be attending the DSM Book Festival at the Franklin Event Center, 4801 Franklin Ave, Des Moines. This will be the first year of this festival co-sponsored by one of my favorite independent bookstores in Des Moines, Beaverdale Books. Can’t wait to be part of this.
  • I will be at the the Badger Public Library book fair (Time TBD) on Saturday, 17 May, at the Badger Public Library, 211 1st Ave SE, Badger, Iowa. They were one of the first places ever to participate in a book fair and I absolutely enjoyed the experience.

If there are other events coming up, I’ll let you know. I’m hoping for some more events, especially to promote what I hope will be The Yank Striker 2 this summer. I’ll keep you in the loop.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

Charles Bukowski is one of those poets I just seemed to respond to.

the writing of some
men
is like a vast bridge
that carries you
over
the many things
that claw and tear.

The Wine of Forever


― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

The following is quite true this spring especially with The Yank Striker 2 in revisions. 🙂

A good book isn’t written, it’s rewritten.


― Phyllis A. Whitney, Guide to Fiction Writing

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile. There’s where you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.

If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll probably find them on the first page of search results.

If you happen to visit these fine independent book stores in Iowa, you can find my books there:

  • Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
  • Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
  • Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
  • Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
  • Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point and Burlington By the Book, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the link below.

The Flow and the Journey

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00
Shop now

If you want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.

Buy me a cup of coffee, if you could 😊

Final Thoughts

That’s where I’m at for now. As I often say, all you writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.

-30-

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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

Subscribe to my Substack here.
  1. This (and the other regular posts) will run on Saturdays at about 5 p.m. Central time unless circumstances out of (or in) my control dictate otherwise. ↩︎

Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 21 February 2025: Digital and analog life

close up photo of matrix background

Hi, everyone, welcome to Poetry Night. I’ve got an interesting couple of poems to share with you, about both the digital world and the analog world. Hope you enjoy them.

I’ve been writing poetry with more regularity in recent months. For the year 2025 I have written six of them. At least two of them were not for publication in the short term or maybe even in the long term. It’s been therapeutic to express myself like that and not worry about other people’s opinions.

If You’re Interested in my Poetry Here…

My first collection of poetry1 is out now.

Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.

The Flow and the Journey

As I might have mentioned, I’ve become a bit wary of people acting like friends online but eventually seeing me as an opportunity to make some money. That likely prompted the following poem.

close up photography of smartphone icons
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Screening

19 February 2025/Fort Madison, Iowa

Stuck at home

Huddled by yourself

Looking for human relations

You turn to the screen.

The screen is fast

The screen can take you anywhere

The screen sets up the relationship

But you wonder if a relationship can be trusted

As much as a flickering screen

Can a voice and picture on the screen be trusted

If a bot can recreate it

And can a vibe be checked

Through that colorful screen

Even if it covers your living room wall?

The second poem is something of a recollection of how wonderful some analog interaction between people can be. It’s something I increasingly treasure.

family celebrating christmas while holding burning sparklers
Photo by Nicole Michalou on Pexels.com

Greetings

19 February 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa

When you go out of your house

To shake a new person’s hand

To hear a trusted voice say, “I’d like you to meet…”

And words dance through the air

As you find out more about them

Their lives

Their hobbies and interests

How you watched the same movies

Knew about the same types of sports

And you remember how you used to meet and greet

In the days before The Screen and The WiFi.

You take in the panorama of your scene

As the food and drink and laughs flow

And what strikes you is how biological the meeting is

Rather than digital.

That’s it for tonight. I thought I was running out of topics for poetry, but new themes keep popping up in my work. We’ll see what March brings.

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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

Subscribe to my Substack here.
  1. By the way, feel free to skip over this if you saw it before and move on to the actual poetry. ↩︎

The Writing Life, 15 February 2025: Getting going on The Yank Striker 2 revisions

To both regular readers and any random online wanderers coming upon this page, welcome.

It’s honestly wild that we are now in the middle of February. Time is moving fast and I’m all right with that for the moment. Many people I’m around in Iowa are getting tired of the cold (but not much snow), but I’m happy not dealing with 98 degree weather we had to deal with from July to almost October last year.

I’m not going to be happy with 1.5 Celsius temperature rise myself. At this point I might ask my wife if we could retire on the shores of Hudson Bay or Svalbard.

Been working on at least a couple projects in various stages of production. I’ll talk about those things and some updated information about where I’ll be during the next few months. I’ll either keep it interesting or to the point – whichever one works lol.

The Home Front

Since today is my mother’s birthday, I’ll take a moment to wish her happy birthday. We’re not in the same town, but we’re planning on getting together to celebrate sometime in the next couple weeks or so.

My son just passed his certification test to get his heating and air conditioning (HVAC) journeyman’s certification. It’s been a long road for him, especially after recovering from the head injury he got on the job about a year ago in Des Moines. But this is a big step in his career. I’m very proud of the progress he’s made.

And I’m looking forward to the long weekend this weekend. Happy President’s Day and all that.

What I’ve Been Writing

  1. The Yank Striker 2: the sequel to my book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning. The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. Book two focuses on what my main character, Daniel John “DJ” Ryan has to face now he is trying to establish himself as a footballer in England, both as an American in a strange land and someone who identifies as bisexual and the scrutiny it brings.

As of this moment, this will be the schedule for The Yank Striker 2:

  1. Second draft – begun on 8 February and completed by the end of the month at the latest.
  2. Beta reads – these hopefully will begin at the start of March and completed by the end of March.
  3. Two more rounds of revisions in April.
  4. Final editing and proofreading in May and concluding by the end of May.

Speaking of Those Beta Readers…

Even though I will be reaching out to friends and family, I am sincerely looking for beta readers for The Yank Striker 2. If anyone out there on the Internets or on Substack is interested in becoming beta readers for this project and completing your work in a timely fashion, I would be willing to reward you for your hard work.

Anyone interested in serving as beta readers for the project will get a complimentary paid subscription for this site lasting at least one year. I will sort it out for you. Depending on your services, I might also throw in another freebee or two.

If you are interested, chirp back to me in the comments of this post or in DMs. Thank you for your service ahead of time.

Now, on with the other projects.

  1. The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project: While waiting for my plans on The Yank Striker 2, this has been dominating my thoughts more and more. Over the past year and a half, this story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means has been at the head of my creative interests for a while, with the exception of The Yank Striker 2.
    I’ve continued to make progress on the rough draft of this story. I’m within reach of 30,000 words so far, and I think I should add around 50,000 words to make it about right as far as size. I don’t think I’d want to go further than this, because the project will be part of an eventual trilogy I have in mind. The trilogy also has different timelines to deal with, with a “modern” timeline of fall 2017 to spring 2019, and a flashback timeline spanning from 1953 to roughly 2009, I think.
  2. Poetry: I managed to self-publish my own chapbook of poetry at the end of 2024. A second one is not a massive priority now, but I’d 100 percent be open to doing another one in the near future. I am continuing to produce more poetry, some of which shows up here on the fourth weekend (usually Saturday) of every month. Now, I want to try and save some poems up, in the event I want to submit them to places that insist they want to have the right of first publication. Apparently, if I publish them in Substack that means they’re published. Good to know.
  3. Then there’s this third idea I have for a book. It’s one slightly based on the current situation in America but I’m going to play with the setting slightly.
    I’m also a bit nervous about releasing a title for the book when it is this early in the writing process. At this point there’s just been notes and speculation in my head, nothing more. To be slightly close to the spirit of the novel I want to create and yet be a bit obscure and non-spoilerish, I’m going to call it the Heart project at the moment.
    For now, I want to sketch out a better idea of the story I want to write. I have persons and concepts and angles now, not necessarily on paper, but I need to get names and plot lines moving as well. I’ll mention this again in more detail when I have more detail to give.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

The Dude in Purple. A bit of a reference to a personage in my hometown. Read up on it if you want.

I have more than a few plans for book fair appearances in the coming months. Recently, I have managed to confirm these, so I will list them here.

  • I will be appearing from 1-4 p.m. Next Saturday, 22 February at the Johnstown Public Library, 6700 Merle Hay Rd, Johnston, IA. I had a great time at this event two years ago and I am honored to be returning there.
  • From 1-2:30 p.m. Saturday, 22 March, I will be attending the DSM Book Festival at the Franklin Event Center, 4801 Franklin Ave, Des Moines. This will be the first year of this festival co-sponsored by one of my favorite independent bookstores in Des Moines, Beaverdale Books. Can’t wait to be part of this.
  • Finally, I will be at the the Badger Public Library book fair (Time TBD) on Saturday, 17 May, at the Badger Public Library, 211 1st Ave SE, Badger, Iowa. They were one of the first places ever to participate in a book fair and I absolutely enjoyed the experience.

If there are other events coming up, I’ll let you know. I’m hoping for some more events, especially to promote what I hope will be The Yank Striker 2 this summer. I’ll keep you in the loop.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

This is quite relevant as I start revising The Yank Striker 2.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

  • Sir Terry Pratchett

Never heard of Robin Hobb before running across this quote. The quote makes me curious about the speculative fiction she writes, because this is some good advice.

The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don’t listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won’t be one of them. Don’t listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don’t have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers ‘someday.’ When they are out of high school, when they’ve finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That’s okay. I think we’ve all ‘been there, done that.’ It all starts with the writing.

  • Robin Hobb

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile. There’s where you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.

If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll probably find them on the first page of search results.

If you happen to visit these fine independent book stores in Iowa, you can find my books there:

  • Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
  • Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
  • Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
  • Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
  • Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point and Burlington By the Book, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the link below.

The Flow and the Journey

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00
Shop now

On the subject of Substack, it’s fantastic if you are signed up for my free subscription, but I would love it if you signed up for a paid one. The monthly rate is the lowest I can put it ($5 per month) but my yearly rate of $35 is a steal at less than three/fifths the monthly rate.

If you want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.

Buy me a cup of coffee, if you could 😊

Final Thoughts

That’s where I’m at for now. As I often say, all you writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.

-30-

Advertisements

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

Subscribe to my Substack here.

Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 26 January 2025

If I haven’t said it to you already, welcome to 2025. Time for some poetry.

If You’re Interested in my Poetry Here…

My first collection of poetry is out now.

Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.

The Flow and the Journey

So, the first poem for today is another winter-themed one. This one’s about a river and what it’s like this time of the year.

Burlington, Iowa, 18 January 2025.

First Freeze

Fort Madison, Iowa, 25 January 2025

Breathing in frost

Air constricting your nostrils

Swaddling in parkas is the only option

To avoid freezing in place

And the last sign the true cold is here

Is when you look across The River

And see its sparkling surface

Due to the sun on the horizon

Has turned dull white and its flow continues

Hidden by the snow-capped ice.

This week I wrote a poem I’m not sure I will share on this page, likely not even later. But I’m beginning to realize poetry is becoming more of an emotional outlet and a way to work out things in my head. So this poem’s about all that.

20 January 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa.

Emergence

25 January 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa

I started playing with words and verse

Just because my fellow writers did

And I wanted a new experience.

But then I discovered

As I faced big events and hard times

I could manage them when I

Entrapped them in words and verse.

Now I’m compelled

To let the words and verses loose

And scatter them on the page

Even if I’m the only one who sees it.

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The Flow and the Journey

As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I came into writing poetry more or less under protest.

My mother reminded me recently that she had encouraged me to try and write poetry as a young kid, but I had never taken to it. I always pictured myself as a fiction writer rather than a poet. My evolution into considering myself a poet took place over an extended a period of time and I was well into adulthood when it started in earnest.

At the risk of repeating previous stories, the process towards writing poetry began during the late aughts. It was then I moved back to my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, and rejoined a local group of writers calling themselves Writers on the Avenue (WOTA). It was a solid group of writers who were like me – writers who wanted to improve themselves and to grow in their craft. Everyone needs a similar group or two or three or more if they want to see growth.

I did get this from WOTA. Without them, I’m not sure I would have moved forward on the projects which became my first two books, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker.

However, there was a lot of reading and a lot of critiques between people interested in my work. In all honesty, a good portion of my contributions to our group was listening to and critiquing poetry.

Many of the WOTA members wrote tons of poetry – poetry about the natural world, their feelings, their history, their faith – things attracting strong emotions and imagery, which are natural fodder for poems. I would sit in these workshopping/critique sessions, attempting to provide feedback, while not having something for them to read. What parental pressure failed to accomplish, adult peer pressure did.

I started off slower than a soccer-playing turtle goalkeeper trying to waste time at the end of a match. Fiction was (and is) my priority, so it was something I just played around with.

I kept finding myself return to the theme of the Mississippi River, the body of water I’d lived next to for about 40 years of my life. The imagry of living next to this watery highway, the source of life for everyone around it, attracted me like nearly nothing else.

This theme continued to attract me as I spent four years away from the Mississippi while living in Chariton, Iowa, in the middle of south central Iowa and well far away from any significant nearby body of water. It was a nice little town, but mentally and emotionally I was missing something.

I was further inspired by living on an actual highway (Iowa 14) for the first time in my life and only a block and a half away from railroad tracks. The theme of travel, the road and rails, also started to creep in to my verse.

Eventually, I decided if I wanted to call myself a poet, I needed to start publishing those poems, even if it was only on my own platform. That’s when Poetry Night was born.

Forcing myself to publish my poetry every month ended up being a good thing for me. Eventually, I started to run out of my old work, so it forced me to start creating new poems and new verse. I started to get out of the old prose writer habits of adding in more words when fewer, more descriptive words would do.

Early in 2024, I ended up spending a lot of time driving, traveling, and staying in unfamiliar places due to personal circumstances. I spent more than a bit of time in unfamiliar hotels and apartments due to this, and poems about being on the road started to spring from my laptop.

It was around this time I wanted to try and put together a physical collection of my work. I didn’t want it to be something just half-hearted and scattered. The poets I knew in real life (including those from the now-disbanded Iowa Writers’ Corner, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the Society of Great River Poets of Burlington, Iowa) said it made sense to base the collection around a particular theme.

It was then I took a look at the topics which had been dominating my verse for at least the past couple years and perhaps longer: River life and traveling life. Rivers and traveling became The Flow and the Journey.

This is a chapbook I put together with the assistance of Dodd Printing in my current home of Fort Madison, Iowa. It contains 19 poems touching on the Mississippi River and river life in general, as well as what you experience and encounter in life on the road. They run the gamut of the first poem I like to say I wrote with intent all the way back in 2010 to poems from 2024. All of them speak of either what river life has meant to me or what a traveling life is like.

If You’re Interested…

…in poetry, especially river and travel poetry, this might be the book for you.

Other than running into me at book fairs and events around Iowa, I’m trying to put together ways for you to purchase my first self-published work out to people. I’m hoping to make them available at independent bookstores here in Iowa, depending on their interest.

Until then, I’ve set up a new online bookstore for The Flow and the Journey here at Liegois Media. Currently, it’s just $6 for a copy, and I’m limiting it to one purchase at a time due to limited supplies. But go ahead and click on the button below. I’d love you to take a chance on my poetry.

Get a copy of The Flow and the Journey

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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

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Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 28 December 2024: End-of-Year poems and my new poetry book

Welcome, everyone.

We’ll get to the actual poetry in a little bit. Before then… I typically don’t do much “business” or “promotion” when it comes to to these Poetry Nights (or Prose Nights, either), but I’m going to make a quick exception to this rule because it is attached to my interest in poetry. I’ll keep it short, however.

I announced in my last newsletter I had finally put together my first chapbook, The Flow and the Journey, a collection of 19 of my poems. One of them dates all the way back from 2010, five of them from 2019, and the remainder from 2023-2024, when I finally decided to take my poetry seriously by writing these Poetry Night entries1.

Since this was all a self-published thing2 (where I decided to just put it together and do it because there wasn’t a massive push for someone to publish my poetry just yet), I had to start thinking of a way for people to buy this chapbook other than trying to hunt me down either in my hometown or at my personal appearances. So, I decided to get something set up.

Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I decided to put something together at my WordPress sister site, Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.

The Flow and the Journey

In all seriousness, I have to admit this is a beta rollout of this service. Pay the amount and make sure to include your address in the purchase, and I will do my darnedest to get the product to you. If for some reason, you haven’t gotten a delivery to me, email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media. Make sure to put in the subject line “You got my chapbook, boy?” I’m more likely to see it3.

All right, blatant capitalistic pitch over. Let’s talk new poetry.

I think I’m built a bit different from many of my fellow humans, especially my fellow Iowans. Most Iowans I run into can’t wait to get outdoors into the summer heat. The Iowa State Fair is our secular pilgrimage, even though I’ve lived here for longer than 40 years and never attended myself. Most of my fellow friends, neighbors, and co-workers love the sun and warmth of spring and summer.

When it gets around this time of the year, however… many of them get down. They wonder where the sun had gone, hidden behind the clouds bringing along rain, snow, a mix of the two, or maybe an ice storm. They wonder why everything is so gray, why it’s so cold, even though it’s nothing compared to those living at 45° North (say, Ottowa, Canada, or Maine) or even 50° North (The Maritimes in Canada)4. It seems to bring them down emotionally, drain them of their physical and mental energy. “I haven’t seen the sun in so long,” I hear sometimes.

I believe I am of different stock.

Both of my parents grew up in Wisconsin. I have German and Norwegian heritage from them, and neither of those countries are known to be tropical paradises. The last time I went to Florida was somewhere around a decade ago. It was at the invitation of my parents and it was a chance for my kids to experience Disney World, the Atlantic Ocean, and for me to to reunite with my aunt I hadn’t seen in maybe 20 years. And it was in December. Without this confluence of coincidences, I’m not sure I’m visiting Florida ever again.

Maybe you couldn’t tell from all those posts in October and November whining about how I was tired of seeing summer weather in Iowa around then, but I’m not a fan of tropical or desert climates. I don’t like to have to dodge the sun and humidity when it gets to be 100℉. Those places like Florida, Texas, and Arizona aren’t my idea of vacation getaways or retirement forever homes. When I think of places that feel like a relaxing place to be, my dream places, they look more like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Upper Michigan, Norway, the Scottish Highlands, the Faeroe and Shetland Islands, and Iceland. Like these places:

timber cottage standing at foot of mountain
Photo by Stijn Dijkstra on Pexels.com
red and white boats on water
Photo by Simon Hurry on Pexels.com
island surrounded by city
Photo by Tobias Bjørkli on Pexels.com
aerial photography of river between cliffs
Photo by Wendelin Jacober on Pexels.com

Well, those might be adventures for another day. For now, the next two poems are the result of some seasonal inspiration. Hope you enjoy them.

Fort Madison, Iowa, December 2023

Misty Stroll

28 December 2024, Fort Madison, Iowa

The wet weight draping all over me and here

Would be a draining burden in Iowa July

With sweating corn, sweating animals, and

Sweating people wading through the wet air.

But now in the chill of December

Shielded from the sun by the mist and the low veils above

I can let it surround me, I can absorb it, let it refresh me

And my home is more like home.

Fort Madison, Iowa, 27 December 2024

Cozy Winter’s Eve Nook

Fort Madison, Iowa, 28 December 2024

Winter eve charcoal, parchment, gray, midnight,

Medium cool atmosphere, comfortable enough to lounge in without a coat

Until you lounge for more than a few minutes.

The winds persistent on level plains with not enough wood sentinels

Fortune for mariners but disaster for the unsheltered.

My nook is sealed from the worst of The Hibernal

Good wood, stone, metal, concrete, and sealant

The hearth providing the extra needed few calories of warmth

A crow’s nest view of my lovely winter abode

But as a submariner among the fathom-length depths

So am I among The Hibernal.

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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

Subscribe to my Substack here.
  1. As I write all of this, I realize I need to make a post discussing this project specifically like I made specific posts about both of my books, The Holy Fooland The Yank Striker. Watch this space for the post coming soon. ↩︎
  2. Shoutout to my hometown biz Dodd Printing for their help in putting this together, by the way. ↩︎
  3. I get a lot of emails from the blogs I subscribe to. ↩︎
  4. I currently live just above 40°30’ North. For me, I have sworn to my wife Laura that 40° North is the farthest South I will ever live in my life. Anywhere between 45° or 60° degrees North would suit me just fine – in fact, I’d be good with 45° or 60° degrees South, as well. I’ve heard decent things about southern Argentina and New Zealand. ↩︎

Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 27 July 2024: Trying something new

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Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 22 June 2024: A train theme

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Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 25 May 2024: About two rivers

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