A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Eighty-Eight

Another day with three new poems. I am wanting to push further, again, and some recent days I have gotten more than three poems drafted, but I still seem to be having difficulty in the morning committing to more than one poem.  Some afternoons I write as well, and I generally write two poems in the evening, as the least.  Their are certainly nights when I get three or more in the evening.  It depends, though I am not sure the exact parameters.  It may well be that I just need to lash myself to my desk a bit more and I would get more work done, as it does feel that my evening writing habit is often just a matter of making myself get to work. 

As well, I often find that my morning writing periods are quite different.  For some reason, I seem to find it easier writing more personal, confessional type work.  In many ways that is still fairly new for me, as I have never focused on poems that are based in my own life.  Certain exceptions do exist, for example poems of mourning for those I love who have passed.  I have, for example, a number of poems about my father.  Those seem to come from a different place, though.  It is certainly very personal, but it is not the same kind of exploration that is often at the core of the best confessional works.  I am not their yet, I don't think, but I do find it interesting that I write more about myself in the morning.

For example, the poem I wrote this morning was one that discussed my relationship with the receptionist at my doctor's office.  It wasn't anything I would have expected to be writing about, but I actually do think it has some value as a poem.  When I started it, I was largely just thinking through experiences and using the poem as a vehicle for a bit of a cathartic release.  However, the resulting piece feels like it has a bit more to it.  Maybe I am wrong about that, but it certainly felt like I was getting somewhere with it when I read the draft. 

By contrast, the two poems I wrote tonight were both variations within that series of animal poems that I have been working on, though each of the two from today is a bit different than the larger corpus is some ways, i think.  One is about imaginary sea creatures, and they never actually appear in the poem.  The other was about crows and is largely grounded in fact.  In both cases, I feel that they fit within the set, but are stretching the boundaries in a way I like.  It is a fairly loose series to begin with, and I only call that because I have a lot of them lately.  Really, I didn't conceive of them together, it just happened organically.  It is a good thing, I think, as it could be the basis for a fine chapbook or a section of a larger volume.

I am also feeling a real desire to get my work out there.  I looked at the growing file of poems I have, and the smaller, but also growing, selection that I've marked done, and seeing how many poems I have written of late, I couldn't help but feel like I was kind of hoarding them.  Looking at the properties on the folder, I have more than 370 poems their, most of which I've written in the past year.  I need to start sending them out, or else why am I doing this?

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