Ben Bonkoske

Just a poet without a pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Monday Night Poetry 1.6.25

  • cool, I just set up all the audio

    It has felt like so long since I have written just a tried and true blog post.

    Last night I spent the night at my mentor’s apartment. His son is struggling with being bullied at the same high school I attended. I feel bad because it has probably been at least a month since I have been over and seen the kid.

    He says he understands, but I know it hurts when people pass you by.

    However, God’s honest truth is that I have been having a very hectic holiday season, which ends tomorrow with the anniversary of my mother’s death; it wouldn’t be the holidays without death around the corner.

    And then I have until February before everything gets back into the swing of things because there are a few birthdays, my own included, that creep up around that time.

    However, here is the story: My Thanksgiving was very draining. I was with my mother’s family, and being that we are not always the most balanced people, there was a little turbulence.

    A very common occurrence at any Holiday gathering – A Political Disagreement.

    It took a lot out of me.

    I don’t think that I had some overly idealistic expectations that were squandered because my family didn’t show up in the way I wanted them to. I think it was more so that I put myself in the middle and tried to carry the weight of the family on my shoulders and it was heavier than I expected.

    And then I wrote a 20,000-page essay about it and chain-smoked for a week.

    Let it be known that whatever is online titled “Our Fucked up Families” right now is a first draft. I will probably finish it in about ten years.

    But the emotional strife of holidays gone wrong, and some reactive behavior has made life “hectic.” I don’t think that life has really been any crazier than it usually is (which is pretty crazy), it is just that my mental and emotional faculties have been kinda compromised.

    However, I know just what to do!

    I have a good schedule and routine, and I’ve been able to get back to sane hours and follow my general schedule of things.

    And the reason one follows a schedule is so that one can divert from it.

    So the good news is Christmas with my dad’s family was great – except for one oversight – which was that I forgot all of the gifts I bought my family at my grandmas… Aside from that, it was great. I got all sorts of goodies. Including a microphone, and I just recorded my first podcast. So Hallelujah.

    The Boncast Episode #1 should be up in a week or so. I’d bet you can guess who my first guest is if you know me.

    And I also published my fourth book, Eleven Stories for 11:11 on the 23rd. That was a crazy night too.

    But tomorrow I am cleaning my apartment, going to a meeting, and going to bed.

    Saturday I am going to a meeting, going mattress shopping, Zoo lights, and going to bed.

    Sunday I am doing Thai Chi, Visiting Grandma, going to a meeting and going to bed.

    And on Monday, I go to my job, and it all starts all over again.

  • Midnight Reflection

  • Monday Night Poetry 12.30.24

  • A Merry goodnight

    Having not written for a few weeks, I don’t recall all of the things that have changed since the last night time I wrote to all of you.

    I’m exhausted – I’ll tell you that for free. And I’ve been working on a lot of things, but it is a strange feeling when both of my siblings were working today while I didn’t, and claim to be “pursuing” the arts.

    Sometimes the brain needs a break. And I have to take a moment to breathe and acknowledge that I wrote a lot this year. Not what I wanted to be writing…but still, I wrote.

    So the first thing I’d like to tell everybody is that I am planning on writing the book I was born to write. The book that many writers leave up on their shelf grows old with dust, and never a word of it is written.

    I have come to that place in my writing because I wrote for a long time. I always have written. And now, I’d like to write the story.

    Sure, I’ll be getting my motorcycle license and plan on learning Spanish this year, but that is not the book I was born to write.

    This one is about my adolescence.

    I’m lucky to be here to do this. The quote that I keep thinking about is a immature man wants to die nobly, while the mature man wants to live humbly.

    I hope I still go after life, and I will, I just know it. But this is what I want to do.

    I forgave my dad, which has been great.

    I had a bad thanksgiving.

    I had a great Christmas.

    I published my fourth book on Monday.

    Hopefully someone else publishes my next book.

    And hopefully, I keep writing.

Ben Bonkoske is the author of two novels, Spoon in the Road, and Carolina, Colorado, California. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Ten Zen by Ben, and Eleven Stories for 11:11. He wrote his own major at the University of North Carolina, Asheville focusing on Racial Tension in America. He attended Northeastern, Illinois University where he earned a Masters of Arts in Secondary Education. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.

B. A, M.A.T.

Get in Touch

Bencbon@gmail.com

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