Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 28 December 2024

The opposite of seasonal depression is the theme for the last Poetry Night of 2024. Plus, I let you know where you can get my poetry book.

Dec 28, 2024

∙ Paid

Downtown Fort Madison, Iowa, December 2023.

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.

The Writing Life, 21 December 2024

Jason Liegois - Author

December 21, 2024

Well, this will be my last official newsletter of 2024. It’s been an intriguing year, and a year of some progress, but there’s no way I’d begin to say I’ve become a massive commercial success. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve come farther than I expected even five or ten years previously, but as much success I’ve had with this year’s goals, there’s always new targets and goals to aim for.

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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. The link is below.

https://liegois.media/product/the-flow-and-the-journey/

Buy my chapbook

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: