Blog about the latest episode of the Indefatigable Artist Podcast!

Metaverse Poetry

Poetry for me is where my creativity started. I write about this allegorically in the novels through Michael, Orbie’s roommate. That story of the babysitter reading his notebook and being horrified by what she was reading, is actually a true story, except it was my older step sister who read it.

I wrote some pretty graphic things back then, no limit on what my little teenage brain could imagine. I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, but it was a release for me to get my thoughts down on paper. I was going through a lot of stress, at home and at school. School counselor was trying to get me to come into sessions, like everything, I resisted and rebelled. But writing privately in my little black and white speckled journal, brought me solace.

It was an escape. My first escape from reality. I don’t know where that journal is now. I left it behind when I moved away from Michigan, as I left a lot of things behind. If it didn’t fit into my car at that exact moment that I decided to leave, than it didn’t come with me. And my family at the time, didn’t care for my things as much as I and let most of it get ruined out in the barn.

 

@bleace.com Being an Indefatigable Artist means creating no matter what! #motivationalvideo #thursdayvibes #artist #poetrylover ♬ Music Instrument - Gerhard Siagian

 

I can remember the story I wrote and the one I shared with my sister that night. it was a horror story about a hitchhiker who gets picked up by a women who he then murders in the worst way possible. I was very graphic in the way that the hitchhiker did this, and I am sure being a woman, felt even more sinister for my sister to read. But that shock on her face, that is what I was going for as a writer. To have my words spook her. My favorite movies at the time were scary ones, the fact that a movie could actually scare you, startled and intrigued me. The fact that my mere written words on a piece of paper could do the same, sparked something in me in that moment, yet didn’t realize it fully until year later.

In high school, I didn’t try very hard, but I do remember in the moments where I had a chance to express myself through poetry, I really applied myself. I also really loved reading Shakespeare out loud and would always ask to read the parts when asked, which at the time was a shock to the teachers that they didn’t have to argue with me to get me to do anything. I remember this one time where we had to write a poem about an object without saying what it was. We weren’t supposed to make it sexual or any hints at sexuality, upon hearing this one singular rule, I knew I had to break it.

I wrote mine about a cap, where I rode on top, on the front and from the back. The laugh I received from the class I will never forget. I couldn’t believe that my poetry could have that effect.

But I still never took writing or poetry that seriously. I did when I knew I wanted to go back to college. It was the sole reason for going back. To improve my writing. I studied psychology so that I could better understand characters and develop psychologically deep plot lines.

In my first couple years at college I had a writing class, and we were to write in a journal at least 5 times a week. I did this and turned it in to the teacher, expecting to get it back. But the fucking teacher vanished. He ended up quitting or something, the last few weeks of class were cancelled . I tried emailing him and reaching out, nothing. I lost about 3 months of journaling cause of that ass hole. I wonder if he took our journals, said this is great stuff, I can work off this and vanished. I don’t know. But I was really pissed about my journal, poured a lot into that. Talked about the time my hard drive crashed and I lost months of writing in a previous episode, well this was my first taste of losing work.

It was a punch in the gut really, but a lesson learned, that I apparently didn’t fully learn until the hard drive crashed, of keeping a copy of everything. Always having a back up.

 

@bleace.com What places hold the most significance to me as an author? #MotivationMonday #NewPodcastEpisode #Author #booktok ♬ Music Instrument - Gerhard Siagian

 

Writing poetry is how it all started for me in the world of creativity. It’s how Bleace started. It was a book of all poetry. That’s how my brain pour thoughts onto paper. When I write down my dreams it is short lines that eventually become stanzas. When I am writing my dreams down, it’s usually as fast as I can type and my brain just goes into autopilot which is in poem form.

Now, like anything else I create. I don’t like to, or I refrain from applying adjectives like good or bad to it. It just is. It’s a feeling, it’s a moment. It’s capturing how I felt, anger, sadness, happiness and expressing it in an individualistic way.

 

A poem I wrote in my early days of writing poetry that I scatter through the first novel Bleace.

With poetry really being the foundation of my creativity, it felt only right for that to be the way I entered Web 3, how I entered the metaverse, how I did my genesis NFT collection on Tezos.

Web 3, like the two Webs before it, is another evolutionary step for humanity. I like to think of it as A Digital Pangea. It’s bringing the world together like never before. There is a sense of presence felt in these virtual plots of land that can’t be felt on a Web 2 timeline, or a video call like zoom or facetime.

When you are in a virtual club with other 3d avatars, it feels like you are with them somewhere partying and dancing, there is an energy that can’t be felt if you were just watching a live stream on Twitch or YouTube.

I remember the first time being at a virtual space with others, in October 2021, in Hubs by Mozilla with Shark Anthony. Then going to my first virtual concert in December of that year, seeing artists like Serena Elis and Category 5, both of whom I have become close with ever since. It was a powerful moment for me. Being there with all of those people, there were 300-400 people there. Not having been to a live concert since before the pandemic, that felt like going back to one and seeing live music being performed, being in a crowd with others, dancing, jamming to music, getting to meet like-minded people. I was instantly hooked and saw the potential that the metaverse had of bringing the world together and better yet, bringing them together that bypasses an algorithm.

I will get to this more deeply on a future episode, but the algorithm and how it’s set up for profit has severely hurt small artists and small businesses over the recent years, making it so hard to break through and reach an audience that would appreciate it.

What I felt being in that virtual concert hall was life changing.

I published my first novel in June, 2019. That summer I went to nearly every book store in the north east. I went to New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC. Stamford. For a couple reasons, to see which ones I could try to get my self published book in and two, to see if I could do some live readings. I wasn’t able to get into any bookstores, because if you’re not published by one of the five main publishing companies, you cannot share shelf space with them, but I was able to find bookstores where I could do live readings.

What I was really setting up here was not for the immediate, it was for the following summer when I knew I would have the sequel, Bleace Paradox done.

Well, we all know what happened in early 2020 that squashed all hope of those plans coming to fruition. Also, deeply hurt my business as it did a lot of others. But I am grateful to still be here, to have survived to this day as so many others cannot say the same.

I only say this to emphasize the importance that the metaverse had on me as an artist. With the metaverse I was able to do a virtual book tour. I was able to perform live readings from my novels, Bleace and Bleace Paradox, as well as from my ongoing poetry project A Bleaceful Sleep, which is also the title of my genesis collection on Tezos. NFTs that consist of 3D animations along with a voice over of me reading stanzas from my poetry. This collection can be found on the Tezos NFT marketplace, Objkt.com. the collection was admittedly a flop, didn’t get any real recognition by anyone, but it was a learning process for me. Still fun to create and will forever be on the blockchain.

What I felt was a success was my ability to do these live readings in a room full of people from all over the world. People I would have never come into contact with otherwise. I was able to bypass the algorithm and connect directly to them as we both were sharing this virtual space together, right here, right in this moment. Past and future are illusions, there is only right now, and it’s infinite, can’t you feel it?

 

One stanza from that poem is one I used for an NFT.

I do think Digital assets and these virtual worlds will become more intertwined with our every day lives. The technology is getting better at a rapid pace, it’s still not where it needs to be for real mass adoption. Who wants to wear those clunky things on their face? No one. Who wants to figure out how to create a wallet and connect it to these marketplaces? Very few are willing to take the time.

I am more bullish on the metaverse at the moment than I am NFTs or Digital assets, whatever you wish to call them, and crypto. I think NFTs and Crypto just have too many bad actors. The ratio of good actors to bad actors drastically needs to change for real progress to occur. And too many people in the space have a fixed mindset over a growth mindset. They fixate on this one belief, that it’s this way or nothing, if you criticize it you are dead, fuck you, get out of here. Or you tried something and failed? Oh, you’re a rugger! Blast his name all over twitter spaces.

There’s no real source of information in the space, it’s really only what you hear most often from the most people that others take as what is happening. Luckily there are people like Coffeezilla, at least at the moment, someone who seemingly has good intentions for calling out bad actors and has a good reason for doing such. It needs to happen because bad actors ruin the reputation for all of crypto, it’s so infantile at the moment, and the fact that negative information spreads 10-12 times faster than positive information only serves to hurt the space more. And to those that are skeptical of crypto and of NFTs, I am here to say that I hear you, I fully get it and you have every right to be skeptical of it. I too am still skeptical of it. With that said, I am a very hands on learner and wanted to learn about this new technology and all of its assets.

I think as we sit here in 2023, Web 3, is about 3-5 years away from being what people in the space think it is. they focus too much on the shooting stars, the outliers over the mean, the other stars in the sky. It’s going to take time, but I am here for it. I am still doing what I can in the space, and will continue to share my poetry in the metaverse and to go to virtual concerts and think more big name artists will start to use this technology. Think of all the people that can’t physically go to a concert but could attend virtually. This will be huge, they will be able to sell NFT tickets to a virtual concert, stream their concert into that virtual space. I think when these current artist contracts expire, they will be changing in this direction to include this new rapidly growing technology, there is just too much potential for them to pass on. We are seeing this now with big name companies coming into the metaverse. We have visited several already and have been noticed by them, which has been really awesome. Can check out our YouTube and see our visits to places like Patron, Grey Goose, Snapple, Jimmy John’s, Doritos, Sotheby’s and historical places like Frida Kahlos’ house which shares her entire history.

And while you’re on the Bleace YouTube channel you can also view my recap videos of all the metaverse poetry performances I have done in multiple metaverse platforms like Voxels and Spatial, still looking to enter Decentraland once I find a spot that will have me, if you know anyone please let me know!

Thank you for taking the time today to check out this episode about Metaverse Poetry. If you have any questions about the metaverse, if you have never been to the metaverse, please let me know in the comments, or reach out to me through Bleace.com, where I have a submission form. I have helped numerous people take their first steps in the metaverse, a profound moment for everyone involved, it feels like walking on the moon. You don’t need a headset or anything, with Spatial, they have a free app on the phone you can download and can visit one of the galleries that I built in Blender and deployed on their platform, MetaParty Vibes HQ. All of the virtual galleries I have built can also be found on Bleace.com. can enter via mobile, desktop or VR.

Appreciate you listening and will see you next week! As we Go Further Together, One step at a time!