I'd bet at least one non-existent internet cookie that that is the most original title in the history of the universe.
But anyway.
Hello! Salve! My name is Joshua O'Neal. I've started this blog primarily as a way to help build a firm identity as a poet on the interwebs outside of the illustrious, infamous, occasionally-dubious, and glorious DeviantArt. On there, I'm a decently known poet (The Daily Deviation I got for the poem "As the Sun Walks" is still precious.)
Let us be honest, for it is a poet's heart to be so: I was afraid. I used DA as a sort of training ground, a gym to strengthen my poetic muscles. (For those who think of Pokemon when I say gym, I used it as you use the daycare people to level up that useless Magikarp.) I love DeviantArt, and I'll always have poetry there, as well as fan fiction, but I've removed some of the cream of the crop from there and now I stand ready, in the next few days, to begin the first wave of submission!
So what species of verse will inhabit those queries?
I write free verse, and rarely rhyme, if ever. Though I respect it and draw inspiration and context from it, I have no gift for it. I write from the perspective of a Christian of the fellowship of Baptists who nevertheless reads only Anglicans and Catholics when he reads popular theology. The kind of poetry I almost never write: love poetry. I believe that substance is just as important as beauty in verse and the two are never mutually exclusive. I write earnestly and with feeling, but also with some thought. I have a weakness for allusion and love it perhaps too much, especially in reference to Virgil, Horace, Tolkien, and Job/Psalms.
I write fiction too, all of it proudly and purely speculative in nature. I enjoy and love fantasy and science fiction, and sometimes it shows up in my poetry and in my imagery. At the moment I'm working on a novel that I may talk about in a later post! I also, for good or ill, write a lot of fan fiction. Fan fiction is a medium that has so much potential. It brings out amazing things in some writers, and though it has a lot of bad press because of the much more vocal hacks, some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read was written by fans of things.
But poetry is something I love! When I write prose, I try to infuse it with as much of my poetic voice as I can. I speak in poetry, because my poetry is close to how I speak when I'm impassioned or excited or perhaps furious.
So hello! If you're from Deviant Art, then I hope you can enjoy this blog as much as you do (or more than you do) my DA one, for it shall update more and be much more meaningful. Facebook people... honestly, this will be a lot like my normal pseudo-thought-provoking shenanigans. Fellow poets, I'd love to meet you and talk to you and I hope this provides a way to do that.
Because I've always said that it was no coincidence that in the greatest age of Latin literature, in the reign of Augustus, the greatest poets all knew each other and the two I've always thought best, Horace and Virgil, were good friends.
