Would That I Might

Tomorrow is the workshop I was asked to teach for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and so I didn't get as much writing done today as I might have otherwise, as I had to do some prep for that.  I am very excited about it, really, and nervous, as it has been quite a while since I've taught a class, but I am ready to go. I did get two poems written today, and I think both have some merit, though they certainly will need more work.  I am feeling good about where I am with the work at the moment, and think I am going to have a number of poems that are ready to go very soon.  I'm looking forwards to that. I'll share some stuff from the workshop tomorrow, I think, but for now I am going to call it a night so that I can get to bed and be ready to go in the morning.

I am not sure how I feel about the poems I wrote today, really, but they were more than just exercises.  I forced myself to do more than just rush into something for the sake of getting the work over with, instead sitting and stewing for a bit, pushing myself to do real work and not just busy work.  In some ways, I think that busy work has a real value, but it seems worthwhile to try and see what I can do to get around it, at least in order to understand my own process.  I am certain that I will write more pieces that are just done for the sake of writing something to keep up with my work, and I have no qualms about that.  At the same time, I want to have a stronger grasp on the difference between that kind of effort and the work that I find more compelling and successful. It seems likely that the busy work, the plate spinning as I like to call it, is often a way of clearing out things so I can get to better work.  As well, I think it often is a path towards a...

I am rather exhausted, so I expect to keep this short, but I did have a productive day, and felt that the ideas I explored yesterday held true.  I wrote a poem this morning which was basically the result of me pushing myself in that same way, and it worked out, as did a piece I just finished before opening this document.  Those were not the only pieces I wrote today, but they are the highlights, I believe, and suggest that I may be heading in the right direction with my thoughts on how to propel my work even when I know I need to write and am not entirely certain what to put into the poem. I also think it worth mentioning that I am considering taking on a Summer novel.  The idea came to me yesterday and has been brewing, and, though I don't want to get into the specifics, I can say that I think the idea is quite good and will be very interesting to play with.  I've only got a basic sense of it now, and really not much of a plot.  Actually, I am thinking it may...

It was another productive day for my writing, first in terms of the poems that I wrote.  I think it was four in total, and I feel that they are all on the right track.  Certainly, they need work, but they are all things I feel have a realness too them, as I discussed last night. It is funny but I think I figured out a bit of something in that blog, or maybe over this whole past week, because I could feel myself starting in a way that might have, on another day, been just an exercise.  Instead, today I was able to sort of push myself to take a stronger approach, which is odd, because I hadn't really understood the difference between one and the other, and at the moment I cannot really explain it other than to describe some of it. In several cases, I wrote a first line, or part of one, without the intent for it to be about much other than my current status and the desire to write a poem, as I often wind up iterating upon when I'm not inspired, but instead of just allowing...

I feel quite happy with my writing today.  I wrote four or five poems, and at least two, possibly even three, excite me.  That is actually not the right description, but I can't think of a better word than "excite".  It is more that they feel like poems and not like exercises in poetry, which is a very subtle distinction that I can't really describe more clearly.  It is not a quality in the work, but instead a feeling I get afterwards.  While I am working, I don't usually have much sense of things one way or another, as far as that goes, though there are certainly occasions when I feel very inspired and that energy certainly goes into the work, and makes it obvious to me that I am doing something "real" for lack of a better word.  The truth is that it does excite me to write poems that I look at and feel are worthwhile as things and not merely as part of a process, but that excitement is a response and not the initial feeling. I do wish that I had a wa...

Another day where I did a lot of writing, but only a little of it feels like more than an exercise.  This happens, and I want to be okay saying that it is fine, as I know that is true.  I mean, I know that having a few days where I am not entirely enthused by the work is not a big deal so long as I am still writing daily.  That is the key thing, as I know that inspiration is fickle, but that it also is responsive to commitment.  Days like this, I want to remember, are a test of sorts, and keeping at the work, even, as has lately been the case, attempting to get more written in response, is the sign that I am still on target, even when I am not producing material that I am particularly enamored of.  Their are some aspects of the creative process I cannot control, and one of them is the actual inspiration.  All I can do is keep at the work in hopes that something will strike, and with a certain knowledge that it will, even if not just now.  While all t...

I wrote a lot of poems again today, though most were still really just clearing the lines, as it were. In some cases, that is really the best way to think of this kind of work: getting out the stuff that is in the way of the real work.  It is like running the water until it turns clear again.  Some of the work was, as yesterday, sort of self-exploration, and I do feel that is moving towards a more substantive place, but it is not yet there.  That work has merit, I believe, but I am not yet writing the kind of pieces that I want within that milieu.  Of course, the only way to improve and achieve that would be to keep working, so the fact that the work is not there yet is no reason to stop, or to dismiss these pieces as not being serious work.  Indeed, the fact that it is so hard for me to even consider, most of the time, writing in that sort of personal, confessional vein suggests to me that I should explore that.  Poetry is not about hiding from what is dif...