Would That I Might

I've been thinking a lot about the exercises I want to present in my workshop and I have a pretty good idea for most of what I am planning to do, but I would like to add one more example to the syllabus.  The general concept is to share different approaches, with focus on different aspects of poetry, and in order to do a more complete job of that, I feel like it would be important to add something that is more about the musicality of poetry.  The issue is that I want it to be something that is approachable and not overly technical, but still more than just rhyming or consonance.  As well, I am aware that I want to make this reasonable as a group exercise.  I trust myself that I will come up with something, as I do often play in that space when I am writing, and I have some techniques and exercises in that direction, it is just figuring out the way to shape it into something with more concrete instructions.

She tells me she is glad I understand it.  It is good to want them home, to want them returned. I understand that. But I think of other things, of all that was done. I want to ask her what will be done for those killed in pursuit  of that release? Consider them, consider, even, just the children.

I was tempted, if I am honest, to just write one poem tonight and call it at that, and I suppose that if I had, I would probably feel fine about it, in general.  Even so, I know that I am feeling the desire to get back to work again.  I took a bit of time to relax and slow down, and it is not so easy to just jump back in at full tilt.  Indeed, it takes a conscious and focused effort even to get myself back to writing this blog as consistently as I once did as a simple matter of course.

Poems I did not write I wonder about them, if they are waiting, if they can return or be given the chance, again, even now, after, when it is no longer the time for them, when they have gone off. I wonder about them. They vanish if I do nothing, most of them, anyway.  Ideas might stick around become something again, but not, I don't think, the same things they would have been, not the poem I never wrote. It makes me  feel guilty, really, but it is impossible to be here for all of them/

I am still preparing ideas for online workshops.  I've been focused on generative workshops, but in many ways the real interest, for me, is in using this format to hone certain basic skills.  I recall Tim Seibles referring to it as "practicing scales."  The point is not always to create great work, but to get in that practice, to sharpen your skills.  In part, this is about being ready to capture an idea when it comes, but it is also about expanding the awareness of what ideas are worth pursuing.  I think it is useful, even important, to have tricks that allow me to find my way into writing, but I think what really has gotten me to the point where I feel that I can always write a poem if I need or want to is not those tricks but the skills that they have imparted.

There is an old woman we know only she isn't quite so old, just not young, really, but not all that old, not in comparison to so many other women who seem younger despite there age, but still, she is old, even now, already. It is on her. I do not know what makes it so.

Well, I seem to have made my way back for a second day, which is nice.  I won't pretend it is anything more than a start, except to say that I find it a bit comical that I am thinking of being here again for a second day is an accomplishment.  I know that it does have a meaning at this moment, but after many years of writing on this blog most every day, it is a bit silly to be back at a point where two days in a row feels meaningful.  Anyhow, I have to hope that I make it back here tomorrow, and with enough sense to write about something other than it being my third blog entry in a row.

 Little Owl In the evening, I went for the mail but did stopped: it was there, small, tiny, even, perched on the mailbox, looking out across the road. I stood there, watched its watching, the darkness growing. I waited and watched, just as it did.

There is no good reason for my absence here.  It is just me not doing it.  I suppose I should just make myself commit to it once more.  It is good for me, I know, to have this, to do this work.  It also keeps me on track in other ways.  I have been writing, even if not on this blog, but not as much as I would like.  I still write every day, but over the years that I've had this blog, I've been regularly writing multiple poems each day, and lately it has often just been one, which feels like I am just coasting.  Maybe I have needed a bit of a refresh, but I am hoping that is shifting again and I will get myself back into a higher gear.

 It is not good I want it to be, but I know: you hurt me. I do not think you can change. I do not expect that you will, and it is no good to pretend that it can be anything else, is it? I do not want to build walls, to separate us in this way, but what  am I to do? I must protect myself.