The freedom I enjoyed immediately after earning two bachelors degrees and completing my six-year Air Force Reserve commitment was wonderfully liberating, and my girlfriend Beth and I pressed ahead into our whirlwind adventures. My tiny backyard garage apartment in downtown Orlando became her home, too, over time, as we grew together. Meanwhile, facing our college debts, we both dedicated ourselves to earning paychecks.

Beth also earned her communications degree at the end of 1990, and by that time, she was already a well seasoned bartender at the Bennigans in Casselberry, which is still very popular. Right after graduating, she landed an apartment industry job in sales and management. That opportunity and others to follow were solid and stable, if sometimes stressful… but she jumped right in and thrived.

For me, the career path was much more erratic and hard to trace. In essence, I persevered in trying to open doors and earn the credits necessary to do the type of work I wanted to do (any skilled, challenging work in the film and television industry, with a preference for research, writing and production), while clocking all the $10 hours I could book as an experienced clerical or audiovisual freelancer.

During a final college course, one professor told us all that as soon as we graduated, we’d be ready for entry-level jobs. At the time, the thought that everything I was going through to graduate was just a prerequisite for something “entry level” felt like being punched in the face. I felt strongly, and probably expressed my thoughts out loud: “What are you talking about? I don’t need a college degree to get an entry-level job!”

Maybe I was technically right about that, but my first months after graduation proved that the types of more senior jobs I felt qualified for were beyond my reach. While trying to hold out for some interesting work on a film production or somehow shape-up a worthwhile solitary or joint effort project through my resourcefulness, I did send out quite a few resumes and cover letters to apply for full-time jobs. I recall that one was for a communications position for Florida’s State Parks… which would have been fun if an offer had come through. None did.

As a backup, I put another plan into action. Coming into 1991, I had prepared a few polished submissions from my original poetry for writing contests. My hope — and also my expectation — was that the “Just” manuscript would win a major contest. When the correspondence arrived with icy reports featuring others’ names as winners, I was crushed, humiliated, and left to seriously consider: How did I not win?

All things considered, those days were challenging in a lot of ways. Usually I was racing back and forth across Orlando’s byways in pursuit of work, then landing at odd times at home on Meridale Avenue, where Beth and I would reconnect, get recharged, and then head off again in separate directions. In the quiet moments, I would ponder my next literary moves, and try to assess all the ways my artistic efforts, diligence, preparation, practice and polish fell short. Of course, looking through that microscope, I was really examining every facet of my life and trying to figure out what to do next to lead myself in the right direction.

Although I felt my career was going nowhere fast at that time, Beth and I held our own, and in the process, we enjoyed so many simple things together that not achieving instant literary fame became more acceptable. To my great fortune, she was always perfectly okay with me for who I was, and of course, it also helped a ton that her dad was constantly reminding me that “life is good” (even before it was on t-shirts), and cautioning me, “Don’t forget to stop to smell the flowers!” Like my own mother, he was always very encouraging to me, and Beth’s mom, step-dad, brothers, sisters, and all her friends also joined the growing support group that gave me a lot of self-respect to build on. Their positive examples and feedback trained me to begin appreciating everything life has to offer, while I kept my sites set on the entertainment industry, and continued to aim high.

Over the next few years, I became something of a fixture at Orlando’s downtown library, while studying and collecting the works of great classical and contemporary writers and artists in my spare time, and writing. Through research, I learned I needed to get better if I wanted my poetry to appear in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and other high-profile targets I identified.

While originally my literary aspirations were driven by dreams of fame and fortune, my mom made a very important point with the following not-so-subtle newspaper clipping. As the editors at the New York Times Book Review “Noted With Pleasure,” writing poetry is not really a viable money-making proposition. It was a great lesson for sure, but as you’ll see, it took awhile for it to sink into my head.

Arc of the Poet
Part 1: Life Poetry
Part 2: Tour de Force
Part 3: True Love
Part 4: Spinning Out
Part 5: Wake-Up Call
Part 6: Serious Dreams
Part 7: Home Stretch
Part 8: Feedback
Part 9: Dear Departures
Part 10: Good Poetry
Part 11: Rewrites
Part 12: Resistance
Part 13: Fame and Fortune
Part 14: Ramblings
Part 15: Being

Thank you very much for your interest in my education and exploits as a poet over the past 20 years. With Arc of the Poet, I’m aiming to share the most interesting highlights and lowlights as briefly, and as colorfully, as possible.

Even before 1990 had officially begun, I recall feeling anxious for it to be over. It truly was an endurance test for me, involving one marathon ordeal after another. I turned 23 that year, with no fanfare, and I took that as a sign of maturity. I also persevered in seizing my military and college experiences with the best of my thoughts and abilities, which I saw as evidence of my growing strength and confidence. By the time it ended, 1990 gave me a great deal in return for all my efforts.

Looking back now, 21 years later, I think my determination to forge my own career path as a freelance professional is the richest of many valuable life lessons I carried into 1990. For that reason, I now have extra appreciation for this poem I stopped to write back on December 30, 1989. Its final stanza puts that important mindset into clear perspective.

Another idea I embraced during those days was that there’s no such thing as defeat, only education. In January, I set my sights on graduating in December with two B.A. degrees. In the course of earning the 33 upper-level college credits necessary to pull that off, I took on new duties with my Air Force Reserve unit, and worked as a freelance word processor and audiovisual stage-hand. All that work barely kept me above the poverty level, but my motivations were clear; since every choice was completely self-driven, I was determined to succeed.

Through all these experiences, I was being graded by instructors, supervisors in many industries, military officers, professionals stretching from the top to the bottom of the creative industry, and even editors and readers at my university’s newspaper. For the last 16 months before graduating, I wrote a weekly humor column entitled “Observations.” Looking over the journal I kept, I can see that one day in October, the editor in chief told me point blank: “I think some of what you write is shit…” I cut myself some slack, knowing how hard I had to work to write those columns, but took her criticism on the chin, and kept on learning and trying to improve. Around the same time, I failed to win a big scholarship I had applied and interviewed for, and experienced some other disappointing setbacks.

Fortunately, a few key positive developments shaped up, too, and together with the unwavering support from my family, my good friend and roommate Jay Lerew, and many other close friends, that proved to be all I needed. My humor column helped me win a Scripps Howard Foundation Fellowship… but much more importantly, it also helped me win the heart of an amazing girl named Beth Ann Kiefert. Friends, I am very proud to say that the addition of this young lady into my life is the key ingredient in the joyous, rewarding life walk I’ve been enjoying ever since.

From June through August that year, Beth took off with a few friends to backpack across Europe. Ultimately, that period was intensely productive for me, as I maniacally threw myself into one duty or commitment after another, trying my best to stay busy until her return. I set goals to write a novella, a full-length screenplay, and a collection of my poetry specifically for children. Although none of those projects came together during those weeks, I did organize my poems chronologically, type them up and begin preparing a few submissions for local writing competitions.

By the time December was ending, I had collected my diplomas and my honorable Air Force discharge, and started building a new life with the girl of my dreams. Suddenly, my next-level goals were coming within reach. At that magical moment in time, I saw literary recognition and success as one possible path to financial freedom, which I felt would allow me to read and write to my heart’s content. While I also had to recommit to the opportunities I could line-up as a freelance wage-earner, I began mounting serious efforts to get my creative writing into print. Guiding and supporting my ambitions was this beautiful, energetic, vivacious girl, who that year gave me the most prized of worldly possessions for keeps: true love.

Between 1978 and 1989, I went from 12 to 23… from wondering about being a man to being one.

I have a short stack of decent poetic writings from those days, and as you’d expect, they are about things like love, friends and life’s big events, positive and otherwise. I moved each year of high school… from Greenville in Illinois my freshmen year (Scott’s sensational senior one), to Chattanooga, Tennessee, then Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. When her second marriage ended, Mom and I moved to Orlando for what was to be my senior year, and her career phase next. With so much moving, a lot of my writing was about what I believe T.S. Eliot called “melancholy.” As my studies continued, I gained some new influences. A. E. Housman is still a favorite, discovered during the Advanced Placement English class I lucked into that year, where I learned so much about things I care about, courtesy of Mrs. Alice Wright and great writers like Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Hardy and so many others.

I moved out right after I turned 18, and began making my own way in Orlando. I joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves, and was in boot camp in San Antonio for my 19th birthday on May 5, 1985. That summer, I returned to Orlando and started college, and by the time I graduated in December, 1990, my six-year Air Force enlistment was done.

My experiences in the military were important in my writing, and another recurring subject over time has been my bro. As we grew up, we came to appreciate each other even more, while also regularly butting heads. I think we both had some rough edges when it came to interpersonal relationships, so it’s good we’ve had each other for study material.

Here’s a poem I wrote for Scott back in 1989.

I also wanted to share one other piece of my creative writing here, written in close proximity to that one. Along with many other writings I’m very proud of, the poem above ultimately wound up in a collection I pulled together in 1990 entitled “Just.” The poem below is the second-to-last in that manuscript. Also written in 1989, six years later it provided my greatest opportunity in the literary world, and my biggest challenge. At one time I had much higher hopes for this, but anyway, here is its unceremonious world premiere. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s one of the few items from “just,” my first poetry collection, which I’ve published so far on this site. Though it touches many nerves for me, and hints at the place and station I’ve come from, somehow it feels good to expose it to the sunshine and fresh air which make up my life at present, with loved ones, friends and comrades many and strong. There was a time, not long ago, when things weren’t looking so good. Even then, the sense of better things to come was bright and clear.

Tomorrow it will be twenty-one years since I began writing the following poem. That’s another story, and perhaps, another post… maybe one for twenty-one years from tomorrow.

I selected the poem this evening after searching through the spreadsheet containing an archive of my poems with the date I wrote each one, collection information, and a column for me to track reviews underway with publications. The document was put together at another time in my life and career, when I was more diligent in submitting poetry to prestigious print publications and presses. Not sure if this one was ever submitted to magazines, but either way, I know the rights are mine :^). It’s part of my first collection, entitled “just.”

by Roger Darnell

In the clear blue light
slipping in behind the night
dawning daybreak shines in glory…
glowing glory giving sight

to the eyes closed tight
facing darkness in the fight
that will make the losers winners
when light enters, making bright

hopes for one more chance
in this joyous world to dance
just to wake up in the morning…
welcome morning, new romance!

Copyright Roger Darnell . All Rights Reserved.