Getting caught up

I had a friend ask me yesterday, what I was working on and what I was reading. I had to stop and think. I haven't been reading anything and I couldn't even tell him what I have been working on. I am that far behind myself. Does that happen to you?

I have a long-term project that I have been working on for a few weeks. It is a poetry project that covers the neighborhoods of the city of Columbus. But I have been really concerned because ever since I defined it as "a Project", it has become stagnant and I have not been able to find inspiration for it. Before I defined it, it was easy.

Last night, however, I went to dinner with my husband. He is such a clear thinker when it comes to Literature. I was describing my trouble with trying to decide what to write about in the next neighborhood I had to tackle. It is a beautiful neighborhood, but "pretty" didn;t go deep enough. I found myself looking for the reason it was beautiful. Just a few short decades ago it was one of the roughest neighborhoods in town. If you lived in the Short North, you didn't sit on the porch. What had changed? How had the change been wroght?

Michael (who is immensely practical) said, "So, write about that." And suddenly, it was like a dam broke.

I just hope it's good. I am reprinting it here, though that means I can't submit it anywhere else. Please let me know what you think. I need some feedback.

Urban Homesteading
Here come the Urban Homesteaders!
Reclaiming the Urban Wilderness to make a life for themselves;
Battling the Urban Plagues of Decay, Drugs and Destruction;
Displacing the Urban Natives who struggle in the squalor,
They plant their crops of Order and Beauty.
Artists and Musicians color the Urban Landscape,
Filling it with light and sound,
Creating a place where the arts will thrive
In the heart of a part of town that had died.
“A ‘Resurrection Spectacular’!
That’s what we’ll have!
And when we’ve fulfilled this Urban Manifest Destiny,
We move to the next neighborhood and do it again!”