To My Soon-to-Be-Favorite Advice Columnist

Dear Annie,

I’ve already shared my distress with Abby
and Miss Manners, but their replies didn’t satisfy.
Hence, I’m offering you a chance. First of all,
I like your photograph. Recent? Airbrushed?
Whatever the case, that slight tilt of head
and bleached-white smile inspire confidence,
not to mention your practical advice
about ditching fake friends, evicting slacker kids,
or committing to couples’ counseling. So
what I need from you are down-to-earth strategies
to assuage my guilt for wasting time writing
poems for magazines with high acceptance rates
when I could be out pressing dollar bills
into calloused hands or collecting shoes, socks,
and underwear for blue-tarped camps or signing
petitions to obliterate outrages against humanity.
The fact is relentless images chase me around the house
demanding to be shaped into free verse, sonnets,
or villanelles, and expect a dozen tinkerings
before they’ll deign to call themselves a poem.
Annie, I admit, there’s joyful intrigue in waiting
to see what words decide to say, but moving
them around a computer screen exhausts
and unmotivates me to accomplish other things.
Since you’re a writer, too––although giving advice
doesn’t seem hard when the theme is usually,
Stop complaining. Take responsibility––
I’m attaching my latest manuscript. Let me know
if these poems are worth the time or if I should volunteer
for Meals on Wheels, Habitat, or Amnesty
before hopping in my car to scout for Need Help signs.

––Poetically Confused

Blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 200 journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. For more: www.carolynmartinpoet.com.