This is a thank-you to everyone who reads this blog,
because you do, and it makes me feel thankful and surrounded and known and relevant. Because you google “panache taylor katz” or “taylor mardis katz” and you get here. You read it and you text me about it. You read it and write me an email. You read it and cry and tell me about it. You”like this” on facebook. You refer to something from here in a conversation. You secretly, you in your house with your mug, you in your house with your dog, with your nothing on at all, you read this thing I write.
I write this thing because I love people and I like people and I believe that a person who likes or loves me would like to end up here. Because all of you have jobs, or you are trying to have jobs, and you are walking around, taking public transportation, shaking hands, heating up a lunch, you are talking on the phone or you are completing projects or having a drink with new or old friends, or you are in law school or you are in Berlin, and you like poetry, somewhere. If only because you know me. Poetry is a thing that I love and people are a thing that I love and to me, the two are connected.
And then there are the people that end up here accidentally, because I typed up a poem they searched for, or I compiled photographs they were curious about. They don’t know me but maybe they click around. I am not famous and I am not invincible and I know only a small amount. I don’t know who ends up here, I only know the numbers, when I check them.
When I write about something having to do with love, people click. That, alone, is fact enough to thank. I have things to say and I like to sit down and say them, and I do it, and you read. This blog is not one thing, it is many; it’s here to say: I like poets. I like photographers, especially when they photograph people. I like Misha and my friends. I like to feel like I am living the life I began imagining for myself at a very young age. I miss people, and I care for them by writing a poem that will make them laugh. I love my sister, and she moved to Texas. I like to think of my parents when they were young. I have a sideyard, and you should come to it. I am questioning and sometimes a poem surfaces to answer. I drew something, and it’s unskilled but you can see it. I wrote a little ditty and why not put it out there.
I am multiple and I am grateful and I am predisposed to joy. I make poems as a way of staying here. If you read this, it is very likely that we get along. And so: hey guys. Thanks for clicking on this site, this someplace on the internet. It really makes me happy that you do.
With love,
Taylor Mardis Katz
(Edward Hopper’s “Freight Car at Truro”)
panache, perhaps 