John Roedel
@johnroedel.bsky.social
Poet, comic, and terrible dancer who lives as a non-cowboy in the wild western plains of Wyoming. johnroedel.com
Some days I have to go looking for myself. Thankfully, I’m usually just a tree branch away.
The old guard in my town told me that I should move if I don’t like it here. So I immediately took their advice and I started dancing. Now, I dance on the cracked sidewalks, where the weeds don’t ask permission to be flowers.
art should roam untamed, not be led by tethered hands — who decides its path? art was never meant to march in straight lines, to salute patriotically, or to bow for its supper. it belongs to the wild ones, the question-askers, the dreamers who refuse to color inside tired lines.
This morning I was sent a pretty stinging message from a poet/writer whom I have never met, but whose work I really respect. They offered (not so kindly) that I am hurting the genre by writing in the way I do. Here was my response: open.substack.com/pub/johnroed...
Damn the gatekeepers
There is room for all of us!
open.substack.com
our breath keeps our hearts from time traveling to the storms behind us or to the unwritten future. stay with me here in the present. there is so much wonder for you to witness. anchor yourself to the unfolding now with every single breath you take.
don’t let anyone tell you that empathy is weakness. having a heart for those less fortunate is a perpetual genesis. it transforms the cold dark universe. it creates new hope. it allows for growth. its sews us together. it’s an unbreakable circle of kindness. empathy is everything we came here for.
An open poem to the Wyoming Legislature that they will probably never read.
(an open poem to closed hearts) when you hate someone else because they are different than you you are unknowingly hating on the very Architect of Creation itself
Wait. I thought Wyoming was already the Greenland of America.
I wished on a falling star on New Year’s Eve that this 2025 is the year you become authentically yourself without a single hint of fear. Explore your heart. Find the beautiful weirdo inside of you and wake them up. This is the year of becoming who you’ve always been meant be.
