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

Writing as much poetry as I tend to, a great deal of it is often begun spontaneously, without a great deal of intent.  This is not, to be certain, always true.  I often have ideas that take time to formulate into words, which are considered over time before their can even be a first draft, but those are rarely ever the only poems that I am working on.  As a result, I often find that the work reflects aspects of my life and experience, not always in terms of the content, but often in the emotional tenor, for example.  At times, as well, I do write about events and people or things that are concerning me, and often I will have poems that build on difficult issues that are arising in the world around me, whether personal or more general.  As a result of this approach, when things are bleak, I often find my poetry can follow.  Lately I have had a lot of bad news and things that are just going wrong.  As a result, a lot of the poetry I am writing seems to be reflecting these concerns and difficulties.  Some of this work has been helping me in developing certain kinds of vulnerabilities in my poetry, allowing me to explore the ways I can reveal certain things within my work that I might not always have felt safe exposing.  In addition, I am also finding myself making gestures towards emotions that are often difficult to deal with, and which are not always shown in poetry.  In some ways, it scares me to be going in these directions, but I am also recognizing that writing through this is helping me to become more aware, and is allowing me to express some of my fears and anxieties in ways that feel constructive.  In the end, what I want, though, is for the work to be valuable beyond my own experience as a writer.  It is not intended to be a journal, is not purely intended as a tool for my own development and growth but as a form of communication, and I have to hope that I can craft these pieces into something that others will find value in and will understand, though I know that will also require bringing more into these poems than might have been present in that initial impulse.

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