A former co-worker and all-around hard working girl Melissa Mylchreest was just featured in the Missoula Independent for her newly published chapbook Reckon. I haven't got my hands on it yet but she handles the Montana narrative good as any who have come before, of this I'm sure.
I've been struggling and desiring to have a nucleus of an idea to write some poetry over, a recurring theme to hold it all together, and somewhere in reading this article I found it.
I want to write about Montana.
Warm chinooks and rolling pasteurs aside, I want to write about the darker side of Montana.
24 hour casinos, D.U.I.s, spousal abuse, the end of the romantic western ideal, racism and bigotry.
These are things that don't define Montana, quite the opposite. They shy from the limelight, but are very much existant.
I don't want to sour our state by any means, I just want to create some beautiful language to engage the not so beautiful realities that exist in a place where there are fewer things to do than people in some towns, and the effect it can have on that populace's character and actions.
I am sure that your posts about Montana would give a revealing insight into the collective psyche of its people. I eagerly await what you have to say.
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