trash to treasure literary
for the writers who may not believe in their abilities but deserve to
for the writers who have lost faith in their words
for the writers who self-reject their work before it’s given a chance
every writer has a piece of ‘trash’ we can treasure
“I trashed these poems as I felt they only hinted at what I was attempting to express—ah, the relentless struggle to translate the cacophony of one's psyche. Over time, I’ve come around to ‘The Room Where I Was Witness’, though ‘The Knowing’ I still consider a failure.”
“I've considered myself a writer and a blogger for a long time but I've never really had any success in properly publishing my work. I've had multiple rejections over the years telling me that my sentences are too long, my descriptive pieces too wordy and therefore not good enough. The consistent element of that messaging has certainly gotten to me over time. I would never be brave enough to submit this piece anywhere else but I believe in the power of my writing and think that it should be out there in the world.”
“My prose "untitled" has been rejected a few times. I left it in a folder on my computer, but I returned to it because I think it has an inherent creepiness to it because of the imagery of levitating. I love how different this work is from the rest of my work, which usually takes on the form of storytelling about connection. It's an emotionally heavy read that I wrote in a place of recovery from a bad relationship. I have left it as "untitled" because I want people to interpret it as they wish to.”
“Before my dad died in 2008, he generously gave me permission to write about him. He knew I was asking to share a story laden with stigma and shame. His close and troubled relationship with alcohol had been with him throughout his life. His time on earth was rounded off by a five-year, whiskey-fuelled, health and safety adventure. Trying to make sense of the experience, the psychology professor that I am, the first piece that I wrote was for a medical journal (Dorrian J, 2010. Alcoholism: disease or symptom? The challenges of managing advanced alcoholism and chronic illness. Medical Journal of Australia, 192,11: 661-662). I also wrote several poems that became songs. I ‘trashed’ them because I wasn’t clear on whether I was telling dad’s story, or mine. More than a decade later, I find myself engaging in more sense-making. I have rediscovered these poems in the process. I wonder whether they will resonate with others.”
“This poem was inspired by the odd account of seeing a rogue egg cracked open on the sidewalk with a cigarette butted in the yolk. As a newly initated city girl, I have seen a lot of strange things. However the egg and cigarette on the sidewalk really sparked some sort of inspiration. So, “Uncooked” was born as a bizarre city-centric poem. It has been submitted to multiple magazines, and after a while, I decided to trash this piece as I felt it only existed in a space of spontaneous creativity with no room to be anything truly literary.”
“I feel like these poems maybe are written in a style not seen much today. I love nature much like Robert Frost and try to capture that same love of nature. But maybe this doesn't work anymore. I don't give a lot of my poems a chance because of this.”