A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Fifty-Four

One of the reasons why I like to write a poem each day on this blog is because it forces me to push out work without being precious about it.  In many cases, a poem will go through a lot of work, and it can take many rounds of revision to feel a piece is truly done.  I write a great deal, but before I send work out for submissions, I will look it over and make changes, and will hold back on pieces that I don't feel are ready.  That is an important aspect of this work.  Many poets have left behind drafts of their work, and reading through drafts on a beloved poem can be so enlightening.  It shows the labor that is involved and how far a work can be propelled through careful revision.  At the same time, it is easy to become stuck, to be trapped in that process and never knowing what is ready or should be left as it is.  I always learn from writing, and from rewriting.  These are the things that teach me to be a better writer tomorrow than I was today, which is a positive thing, but also means that, whenever I finish a piece of writing, I know more about how to write it than I did at any time before.  It can feel, as a result, that the work is in perpetual need of improvement, that every previous effort is now deserving of attention and work.  This is true to a point, but is also a trap that can cause a poet to undo good work.  I have seen poets who take beautiful poems and remove some of their most potent images and ideas in the new of revision, when the process has taken over and gone too far.  It is a balance, and one aspect of being able to maintain that balance is having the ability to let work be imperfect, to let it stand for itself, even if I can see the flaws in it now.  I will always find flaw in my own writing, even when no one else might, and that can be difficult, can make sharing work feel daunting, especially when their is such a high likelihood than any given submission will be rejected outright.  For me, writing poems on this blog is a bit like an artist having a sketchbook.  I write the poem and let it go, posting it even if I don't feel certain about it.  Generally, I'll read the piece over once or twice and make some changes, adjusting things for flow or structure, adding a bit at times, when it seems important, but it is still done in that same writing session, not as a separate act of revision, and none of this is to say that I wouldn't, if I were to publish these pieces, do further work on them in the future, but that is kind of the point of a sketchbook in the visual arts.  I know that, even if I don't revise a specific poem, if the ideas are important and if it still feels unsettled, if their is more to digest or discover, I will return to it one way or another, even if not through that specific piece.  Having written a piece here, it may be easier to find my way towards it in a new piece, growing on what was already uncovered by writing before.  The poems here are important to me, not because they are perfected, but because they are raw, are work that hasn't been refined.  Sometimes they may not even make sense, that I might think I have communicated a certain idea but have failed at basic levels of clarity.(it can be a result of experiencing the world from a neuro-divergent perspective).  Sharing this work is an act of freedom and the risk is also the great thrill of it.  It makes me more daring as a poet in ways I cannot explain, and, beyond that, it is always wonderful to know that their are those who see these poems, even if it is only a few people, even if it were only one person, it matters.