Balancing Act
Pursuing your passions can be difficult. When you have so much to do and so little time to do everything you would like to, you often feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and stressed. Working full time affords me only nights and weekends to do everything necessary to get my poetry, singing, and freelance journalism careers in order and on track. It is a challenging balancing act. What makes everything more difficult is that I am a perfectionist so I strive to produce work that is only the best. This drive for excellence is the reason I do not produce as much creative, literary, and musical work as I would like to. However, my drive for excellence ensures that most of whatever I do create is a success.
One solution to relieving the stress created by a self-imposed drive to achieve success is to select fewer goals. In the six months since my previous post I have chosen to focus entirely on my singing and poetry careers while actively seeking out professional development opportunities at work. As a result, I have not written any articles for journals and even had to turn down a Content Editor position with Theatre People. However, my decision has enabled me to satisfy my desire for poetic and singing success while still managing to up-skill at work. Nevertheless, pursuing three passions is still a lot of work and, admittedly, reducing the number of goals I pursue has not freed me from stress. I still often feel overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable list of tasks ahead. Despite that, and to quote Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, “it has not been an easy time but in this time which wasn’t easy I have prevailed.”
If you are interested in staying motivated and talking about the struggles you face as you try to achieve your goals, you are more than welcome to join me on Facebook or Twitter. I believe that giving positive energy, support, and encouragement to others is one of the foundations of a happy and successful world.
Here are some of the fruits of my hard work these last few months:
POETRY
Poetry NZ (Auckland) and Lost Coast Review (California) accepted two of my poems, one inspired by my favourite Australian poet Gwen Harwood and the other by Adrienne Rich. These acceptances represent my first international poetry publications. Down Under, journals that have accepted my poems in recent months for publication include Cordite Poetry Review (VIC), Windmills (VIC), Tamba (VIC), Studio (NSW), and SpeedPoets (QLD). Again, at least in terms of journal publication, I seem to be more popular over East than in WA although I did receive notification that a poem of mine was long-listed for publication in Westerly. In terms of publication, I have yet to crack the ACT, NT, and TAS.
“After Midnight,” a poem I have been workshopping since studying at Curtin University was Highly Commended in the Eastwood/Hills Fellowship of Australian Writers literary competition and another poem I developed in my final year at Curtin is due to be published in an anthology called The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. In terms of poetry competitions, my goal is to keep honing my craft and to keep entering more competitions so I can be as successful as one of my new poet-friends Fran Graham. To achieve this goal I enrolled in three poetry courses/workshops: “The Poem Tells a Story – Workshop with Established Writer-in-Residence Judy Johnson” (along with poetry workshops by Zan Ross and Sue Clennell, Judy’s was one of the best I have ever attended) offered by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, Brook Emery’s “Online Poetry Workshop” (like Ron Pretty’s brilliant online course, this provided excellent constructive feedback and introduced me to another new poet-friend, the delightful Kelly Blaney-Murphy) offered by Australian Poetry, and the “2013-2014 Advanced Poets Workshop” (which had fantastic sessions by Jackson and Andrew Landsdown), offered by the Peter Cowan Writers Centre. Facilitating a poetry workshop is a rewarding experience that I will again have the pleasure to do next month as part of KSP’s Write-a-Rama!
EMPLOYMENT
At UWA’s School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PaLM) as part of the New Approaches To Teaching (NATT) team, I have had the tremendous pleasure of helping reinvigorate teaching at the School through our team’s creation of educational e-learning content grounded in constructivist pedagogy. The content we create is founded upon collaborative learning environments and a student-centred approach to teaching. As our Administrative Officer, I have had the pleasure of enhancing my events management skills by helping coordinate the Grand Opening of our newly completed multi-million dollar e-learning suites as well as our School’s involvement in UWA’s biggest Open Day. Besides contributing to the training of staff in using the e-suites and providing in-class assistance, I have had the opportunity to develop my marketing and design skills by creating promotional posters for PaLM. What I am most proud of is the thirty educational laboratory technique videos which I filmed, edited, and narrated, that are now used in UWA classes. In addition, my computer and website development skills have greatly increased through my work updating the PaLM website using MySource Matrix and the creation of a staff community Learning Management Site using Moodle. This work has enabled me to amplify my presentation skills as I was invited to give presentations at UWA’s Teaching and Learning Week eLearning Expo run by the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning as well as for The Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Visual Arts, the university’s Safety Committee, and at a Human Resources Management Committee meeting after which I was proud to accept a Certificate of Appreciation.
ENTERTAINMENT
Mint Jazz Band and I put on our second show at The Ellington Jazz Club and our first at the Subiaco Arts Centre for the City of Subiaco’s Sunday@Subi concert series. The excitement for the Ellington show began with my first appearance in The West Australian as a jazz artist. Budding Italian filmmaker Enrico del Gamba recorded the show and local Asian-Australian photographer Michael Walker captured some great publicity shots. The Ellington appearance led to our band being invited to perform at two really special events, a wedding and a 50th birthday party. Both experiences are precious to me because they meant that the clients loved our show so much that they selected us to be a part of a significant milestone in their lives. It is something I treasure as a singer.
The Subiaco Arts Centre show was another amazing experience for me as an entertainer. The venue is one I have been to countless times to see incredible theatre shows so it, like the Ellington venue, allowed me to do what I love best: putting on a show. Super talented Perth actress Rhoda Lopez helped me with ideas for both shows. Once again, the excitement began with an article in a local paper, this time The Post. Rhys Smith joined us on piano as Mark was in China and the show was well received (a beautiful birdie told me that the Mayor of Subiaco said it was one of the best shows they had had as part of Sunday@Subi).
In a wondrous turn of events, I finally got to make my dream come true of being a part of a hip-hop track as a guest artist. The rappers, known as AfroKingz are currently working on a project and I was happy to contribute the chorus for their song “Party Like That.” The collaboration lead me to start on another goal I have been asked to do for years: write an original song. As with “Party Like That,” the song which is tentatively titled “It’s You” is a continuing work-in-progress.
I am still working on Chocolate Blues Band, a project I began in January. The challenge of learning blues and soul classics by Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke has been exhilarating. When I finally get to show you my blues show I think you will like it as much as I have enjoyed working on it. Until then, you can still catch me live with Mint Jazz Band at our first run of gigs at the Naked Fig. Like us on Facebook to stay in touch!
Jake Dennis 