And no, I’m not talking about the website Poetry Daily. Instead I’m going to talk about something that has been bothering me for several months. I faintly remember having this argument with someone before; concerning whether or not it was worth the trouble to journal everyday, or if I should just be writing poetry instead. I’ve always personally felt better once I journal, leaving it for the end of the day when I can clearly meditate on all that has happened. For years I’ve relied on the tempo of writing to lull me to sleep. I’ve filled at least four boxes full of these journal notebooks and daily musings. And no, I’m not joking seeing as I have moved almost every single year of my natural born life. But here is where the argument exists, where it lives and thrives. Are these journals worth the trouble? Why am I not just using that time to pen some lines for a poem, or work on editing poetry, or hell, even creating some poems!? Why do I waste the life of my thoughts to fall on pages that I will never revisit? I do not remember a moment in my life when I was consumed with thoughts of what I had just journaled the week before, or the month I left Washington DC or the time I fell in love with an actor. Nope. Instead, I rely on the impulse

to revisit the poems I wrote during those moments. Instead of looking through pages of my chronicled and journaled life, I look through the poems.

So maybe I should stop? Maybe I should take a break from the journal entries and instead concentrate solely on poetic structure - concentrate on achieving filling notebooks with poems that are worth editing and revising. Yet - there is something so human in the writing of one’s life. The act of writing it all down - every last thing that has filled the space in my heart and mind and wandering soul during the day. Maybe all my apparent wasted effort that has gone into my years and years of journal writing is the only reason I still have the passion to write? Maybe it’s been more reliable to me than poetry writing ever has been or ever will be? Or maybe I’ve created a link between them both - honoring one each day and celebrating the other on those occasions when the language can actually reach beyond the page.