Bad Poem

In the beginning, I wrote long, poetic narrative poems full of angst about reporting on a gang attack, suffering through marathon training, longing for lasting love. I started writing poems by hand while working as a journalist and I refined the poems on my computer after I became a writing instructor. I hardly made any money but I had time to write. I published a memoir and a chapbook while working as a teacher. Another memoir and another chapbook got published after I found a full-time job writing evaluations for specialty occupation visa applications for employment in the United States. I went to an office in Midtown Manhattan—before my job went remote during the pandemic. I no longer had the kind of free time I had while teaching writing workshops. I began to write short, often funny poems on my iPhone. I wrote about random encounters in the city like homeless men hitting on me and the topless woman walking in Central Park. I wrote about my small life in quarantine at my parents’ house in the Connecticut suburbs. I drew on memory to write about my travels before Covid, my childhood, old boyfriends, jobs. I wrote about homecoming to the city where I was once again inspired by random encounters like the woman with pink hair sitting on the sidewalk along Madison Avenue eating pancakes. I used to publish a few poems a year in literary magazines. Now I publish many more because I am no longer afraid of writing a bad poem.

By Karol Nielsen

From: United States

Website: https://karolnielsen.com

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