Once upon a time, I lived in a very nicely painted bubble. Like a lot of the best bubbles on Earth, mine glistened in the light, metallic rainbows wormed on the surface and we were weightless together. I practically had my own planet. I was in love with my bubble. The perfect womb for me to display my life.
Bubbles pop.
Mine was no exception. No more wiggly prisms, just a white spray of soap there on my chest and sticky skin. When this happened, it was uncomfortable. Bubbles can be pretty cushiony if you spread your body over the surface tension in the right way, and my bubble was the perfect hammock.
I cried when I stopped being cradled.
But life is better without it, now, here on the other side. Because now I look more human, now I’m not just a sheen of paint. Or whatever.
That was all some very enigmatic metaphor concerning self-realization. That was a true story (I may have left out one or two plot points). And when I told it to you I choose my words carefully, because The Story of the Burst Bubble is wrapped in thorns and spray-painted gold and guarded by large and shadowy be-toothed creatures in my mind. To feed it to you raw would be too much for me, so I covered it in language.
Language. Here we go. Poetry. Even better. Dealings of the sacred guarded psyche. We’re about to go there.
Poet Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, trademarked for her own love of language, will join fellow poets James Kates and Frederick Smock at Carmichael’s Bookstore this Sunday, January 20th, for a special reading and signing. Headlining with her latest collection, The Porcupine of Mind, Stoykova-Klemer will take guests on an emotional tour of the human head, exploring the “prickly defenses of the psyche” and those deep-rooted places of our most base selves.
Lower your defenses starting at 4pm at the Frankfort Avenue store. Copies of The Porcupine of Mind are available in paperback for $14.50. Grab a copy and let language run its course to those places of the deep roots. Places of the raw meat. Places without golden bubbles, friendos. It's safer than you think.
Carmichael’s Bookstore has two are locations: 1295 Bardstown Road and 2720 Frankfort Avenue. For more information, visit the event page or call the Frankfort Avenue store at (502) 896-6950.
Image: Courtesy of Carmichael’s Bookstore website www.carmichaelsbookstore.com
