What is a friend and lover of words. My name is Kiki Dranias and this is the story of my first poetry book BLOOD IS BLUE.

I believe good artistic writing has a lot to do with the words and their musicality; I like it when the reading can be done to a beat. The voice of a chorus is also something I can't ignore. Of course...I'm Greek. Then there’s the stripping of inhibition. Because if you ask me, pretty much anyone can write well—if and when we let ourselves go…enough to become characters and voices confident and free!

To take on tones, colors, express words, feelings and vows, other than ones ‘we’—the person, would typically be characteristic of. Flash poetic license, get fuckin naked and make it designer feng-shui-yours. Flat-out be aware, when we’re composing--I say, that no harbor be built for any fear (or shame) of the creativity lurking within! Simply because it doesn't matter who the world 'thinks' the writer is.

Truth be told here, I used to secretly love spending time with the voices in my head. Not like a mental illness of sorts, but more like spending a bit too much time in dreamland, and being consumed by the scenarios and dialogue exclusive to the stage and audience alive only in my head. Though rather than trying to work and have fun with the ‘voices’, I’d try and ignore them. “Focus,” I’d tell myself. “Forget the talking in your head.” Impossible. I had lost voice-control. Sirens became voice-patrol.

Till after one night in December 2014, when my husband at the time asked how I was doing. “I hate my job and feel like I'm dying," I said. “Quit,” he retorted. "We could afford it."

That's all I needed to hear; three days later, I was out looking for a space to rent. A space I could go to and finally let-loose all the characters (and their struggles) that had been waiting to be laid out on text and no longer repressed.

From a room, with my city's mountain's view inciting, first I wrote a tragedy about a bunch of love addicts and a perfect lover. “Too many characters and lots of flashbacks,” the dramaturge said. The sjuzet was complicated for live audience. To re-write...one day, I decided; because out came a cock with full-on intent, and a fresh page was ironed out for a children's book idea. Of which, to this day, is still in the writing.

All the while the play and the kids’ tale (not to mention mommyhood and a marriage in decline), was poetry. With Ezra Pound as my newly-embraced idol and banner, I started reading poems again. I'd analyze different style and technique and took it all very seriously. (Still do!) Easy solace and cool-found comfort in a warm and personal cocoon became my thing. I began writing my own verse. Woot. I'd spend days honing in on images and sentiment, about my (ream-resembling) issue-stacked childhood and the lovely energy-bound life all after that. What in hindsight transformed into words and galloping rein, homage to all the love and beautiful pain, we must all embrace.

Sure, there was unleashing and unhinging being bred, but on one level I was feeling stalked, by thoughts of failure and mockery; that'd get me running to my car—begging mama to stop. I’d oblige, of course, by getting bass lines and hip-hop lyrics in the car to swap places with all the derision and laughter..., leaving mama tranquil.

As time went by though, my connection to the entirety of the choice I had made began to morph: I started to understand, that the success I had been secretly begging would eventually transpire from this writer’s life I had chosen for myself, was not about the ‘reward’, rather more about staying committed, to the writing. Of which I was, and will gratefully remain. I figured if I can strike a few chords along the way, then kudos to me; as I’ve point-blank-done what I set out to do. Cut to December, 2021 with three plays successfully written and produced live, with my beloved 33-poem debut collection first,BLOOD IS BLUE.