My name is Mark Mitchell. I’ve been posting my writing here since September 12, 2007, mostly short pieces in a haiku format of 17 syllables usually in a traditional 5-7-5 pattern.  On Sundays I sometimes put up longer pieces—prose poems and free verse.

I live with my wife in St. Charles, Illinois and do web-related work to keep the lights on.  We live in an older part of town and have the advantages of city life (great restaurants, artistic events, specialty shops, fish monger, chocolate maker, pastry shop, etc all within walking distance) with many of the pleasures of small town or even rural living.  Chief among the latter is how quiet it is here—the wind in the pines, animal neighbors mostly minding their own business.

I’ve been writing since I was a kid.  Along the way there were various classes and workshops, but mostly I just kept reading and writing every day, on my own.  I used to submit poems to the little literary magazines and had some luck with Poetry East, Farmer’s Market, Sunstone, InRoads, The Other Side, Third Coast and Poetry.

I’ve noticed with the hand-made books I’ve done (of haiku) that there’s a tendency to read too fast.  Let’s face it, these are very small events and it’s off to the next one before you know it.  Receiving a fresh one via email seems the perfect format.  The longer Sunday postings come when you hopefully have more time.  The little pieces of writing act as trail markers through the week until you get to the scenic overlook on Sunday.

Maybe it should go without saying that the “I” in many of these poems goes beyond my own person or life.  Lately there’s been a series featuring an Italian couple in the 1950’s and their raven, Lagia.  Earlier there was someone named Cyrus.  There’s a play featuring a ventriloquist and his dummy.  In fact, the further into writing I travel, the more co-conspirators keep popping up.  I suppose I’m just trying to suggest a mask here to protect my own privacy and to come to terms with the sometimes troubling aspects of moving from the private to the public space.  Do you know of Ralph Eugene Meatyard?  He was a wonderful photographer from Kentucky.  I’ve read that he carried this quote from Nietzsche with him: Every profound spirit needs a mask.  I’m uncertain about “profound” in this context but I get the mask part.

I hope you find something here that you were looking for.  Thanks for coming by.