Would That I Might

I am going to keep this short tonight, as I am quite exhausted, and a bit stressed.  Even so, I am still quite happy with the writing I've been doing recently.  This week has been quite productive, and I think I am getting closer to some breakthroughs .  It may be partly that I am learning to mix newer approaches with older ones, or it may be that I am just in a particularly productive mental state, or it might be something else entirely, but I do feel that I am making real progress.  I am finding that the five poems are coming pretty quick these days, and if it weren't for the various obligations I have in the immediate future I would be pressing to get to six right now, but I am going to let that wait for a week or two, I think.  Of course, I have said such things before and found myself revising the statement when something just strikes me at the right moment, so it is possible, but I am honestly hoping I can wait.

Maternal Instinct My mother heard of the hurricane so she left town, fast as possible, even seemed irritated I wouldn't waste my gas driving her to the airport(there were already lines at every station I had passed), had to go, had to be sure she was safe. The next day, when she was no longer in danger, then she asked if I felt safe, offered me the option to leave. I told her, it was too late for that.

I've been spending a fair amount of time today and over the past few days thinking about certain aspects of my recent poems.  These poems are very different from many that I have written before, and I am not certain, really, how to describe them.  I am working towards this, but do not yet have a clear grasp on the language. Though I am not yet certain how to connect the ideas, I know I've been thinking about how these poems are exploring something that is connected with form and poetic structure.  While we talk of a form in terms of the way it is organized in language, their is always a reasoning that is implied within that structure.  The most obvious, or at least well known, example is in the sonnet, where the final couplet takes on weight due to the musicality, and thus it is natural for it to also take on weight in terms of meaning. Meter and rhyme exist to build patterns, as do many other tools a poet will use, and by operating these tools in a particular wa...

It Must Be There Was A Person lived in that shack, why else would it be there, out on that little island there, must have been for a reason.   Of course, maybe they did not live there, or didn't always live there, could have been a place for fishing, can't really imagine, if I think of it, how anyone could have lived in that place come winter.  I don't know what that bay would do in winter, but I am sure it is not easy to live on a tiny bit of rock out there even when the weather is nice, even in something more than that shack, but there it is, so it is easy to guess someone must have lived there, easy too, to guess, they probably didn't have much choice about it, either.

So, I am in the midst of a great deal of craziness right now.  I am in the process of moving to a new home, and we were supposed to close the contract tomorrow, but it has been delayed due to the threat of a hurricane this weekend, and so my mother, who just arrived in town a few days ago, panicked and decided to fly out of town.  Of course, she did not ask me or Melissa if we were interested in evacuating, which is really rather hurtful, if I am honest.  Indeed, she was actually mad that we said that we did not want to use the gas in our car to drive her to the airport under the circumstances... Anyhow, that is not really my point. In the midst of all this, we are still working at getting packed up, trying to be ready whatever comes.  On one hand, it may be that the storm is not a major thing in this area, and we need to be ready to go based on our original schedule, or it may be that we are hit hard and have to recover from that, but we will still need to be read...

Someday Soon Not today, no, certainly not today, but maybe tomorrow, it could be tomorrow, you have been waiting so long, yes, I know, you have been waiting but it cannot be today, tomorrow, well, I am supposed to say that it may be tomorrow, but I know how long you have waited, so I will warn you, as a courtesy that tomorrow, no, that does not look much better than today, but it will happen soon, not today or tomorrow, perhaps next week will be better, perhaps you should try back next week.

Well, I've had a few very late nights with little sleep and am quite busy, so I am going to keep this on the short side, but I had some thoughts about the way my work has been progressing, and about some of what I think is different between my current approach that allows me to maintain my commitment. It is probably not particularly shocking to say that writing more poetry this year has helped me to grow and develop as a writer.  Of course, practice brings greater skill and understanding, and the more focused I am, the more attention that I give to my work, the more that I am likely to learn.  That is not at all mystical or surprising, it is merely a matter of the fact that more time is being spent thinking about writing, meaning a deeper level of contemplation and all that entails. Now, of course, it is possible to stultify in thinking that way.  Thinking about writing is, I believe, one of the biggest blocks to actual writing, as it can feel quite productive to d...