I love my friends, I have a huge group of supportive, wonderful friends – obviously because otherwise why would I be friends with them? Sometimes though this means I accidentally freak them out…by writing and publishing a poem titled As I Contemplate My Second Divorce. This poem was published by Noble / Gas Quarterly and as I usually do when a poem gets published, I posted links to the journal on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And about three minutes after that my phone started blowing up with friends worried I was getting a divorce. I immediately went online to amend my post with a disclaimer stating that my marriage was fine and not all poems are 100% autobiographical.

It’s hard to remember this, even I forget this sometimes and assume the poet is writing from a place in his/her life. I assume that each poem is totally true. Which is ridiculous because I know better. Hell, in my chapbook, All in the Family, I have several poems about my father’s death….except my father is still alive and kicking. So I, of all people, know that not all poems are autobiographical. But when a poem is written well it transports the reader and makes them feel the poem comes from a place of truth and honesty. And most of them do come from a place of truth, but that doesn’t mean all of them do. Even when they’re written from a place of honesty it doesn’t mean they are true any time outside of that moment of writing. We writers sometimes take a moment and use it for inspiration. We take the idea, the feeling, the emotion, and run with it – sometimes the smallest kernel of truth inspires a poem. Sometimes what’s true in the moment becomes a poem and then later it’s no longer true. It doesn’t make it any less powerful or moving and it doesn’t make it any less true.

Of course my friends are partly to blame for this misunderstanding because honestly, would I announce my divorce on social media? Unlikely. But overall this just makes me love my friends even more – because they click on those links and read those poems. And then they check in with me to make sure everything’s okay. That I’m okay. And really, how can I not love them for caring about me?

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Noble / Gas Quarterly also published my poem Toast which got a little lost in the whole “Is Courtney getting a divorce?” debacle. Go read it, it’s a good one.