A Writer's notebook, Day One-Hundred-Forty-Nine
I did write another list poem this evening, though it was not how I started out. It is a bit different, still, than others, and I am not sure if I really like it at in the present form. I think it is actually a matter of the order in the list, really, and that is a matter for revision. At present, it feels a bit top heavy, and I think that the first item, which started as a bit of a free-write, is actually better off being further down, so it feels like the hot spot late in the poem, and allows other items to serve in the whole of the piece. If it is most of the way down, it has a different relationship to the other items on the list.
I'm still needing to find something. I can sit and write, and I can put together language in ways that I find meaningful in terms of their beauty, and which reflect a sensibility I honed as a student of poetry, but I am still feeling the disconnection that I mentioned yesterday. I tend to think it is likely an illusion, if I am honest. I mean by this that I am not actually lacking anything, I'm just not paying attention to the right things in the right ways.
As I said, at one time I saw inspiration for poems all the time, and even often had them come up with no clear idea what created the specific idea. While it feels, in my memory, like a profound state or some aspect of the creative impulse that I'm not connecting with, I think it is more the specifics of a process that I'm rusty with. I don't think of it as something that has changed in me on an identity level, but as a skill I am reawakening.
The thing that I find most ironic about this, though, is that I always thought of the writing itself, the honing of the language, as the part that needed the most work, but really, that is the part I find the easiest. Once I know what I am writing, I am on top of it, but finding that thing is not always easy. That is true in fiction, I think, but in a very different way, since the process is so different.
What makes this interesting, really, is to consider that I have spent my time focusing on the aspects of craft and not on disciplining the impulse so that I can create on a whim. That has, of course, been a large focus of this blog, and it is not a secret that a major reason for my keeping it is to maintain a daily writing practice, but in this case, their is something slightly different afoot.
What I am noticing here, and which I think is not in many senses the same as what I've focused upon before, is a block in the actual processing of the world into an image suitable for a poem. At one point, I had disciplined myself so that skill was constantly at the ready, and not having practiced has worn it down. My goal, then, is to get that aspect of my creative process back online, and it is a bit of a strange thing, as I can't really force myself into it by just writing. It is about how I perceive things, not about the writing itself. This is about the step before that.
I think that their is a way, though, in which my best route is to focus upon the writing. As I have experienced times when the ideas did flow easily, I know that it is possible for me to achieve that, so I can have trust in those possibilities, attempting to provoke myself back through doing the work itself. I am certain that a part of me is already working in the way that I would like, and it is merely a matter of gaining access to that once more. By just doing the writing, and seeing the world with the recognition that I want to be creating poetry, I am hoping to get back into the swing once more.
In truth, it feels to me like getting this back will really be the key to opening up something big in me. I think that writing poetry and having back that part of my creative life is something that will help to make me the person I want to be on many levels. Processing things through poetry always helped me to gain certain understanding and I also know that I have felt something missing from my life. Writing is fulfilling, but I need to include poetry in that to feel truly complete.
Beyond this, however, I also sense that I am getting back into touch with an aspect of my own creativity that I somehow lost touch with, and in doing so, I think I am going to get myself to the place where I am really energized again, and where writing feels as exciting and thrilling as I know it can. Poetry was what made me into a writer, and I am not sure exactly when I lost connection with my poetic impulses. In all truth, I don't think I had understood that until just recently, and the very fact that I hadn't even considered it more deeply is, admittedly, odd. It seems to me a sign, though, that I am making a significant and positive change, and one that I have probably been in need of for a very long time.
I'm still needing to find something. I can sit and write, and I can put together language in ways that I find meaningful in terms of their beauty, and which reflect a sensibility I honed as a student of poetry, but I am still feeling the disconnection that I mentioned yesterday. I tend to think it is likely an illusion, if I am honest. I mean by this that I am not actually lacking anything, I'm just not paying attention to the right things in the right ways.
As I said, at one time I saw inspiration for poems all the time, and even often had them come up with no clear idea what created the specific idea. While it feels, in my memory, like a profound state or some aspect of the creative impulse that I'm not connecting with, I think it is more the specifics of a process that I'm rusty with. I don't think of it as something that has changed in me on an identity level, but as a skill I am reawakening.
The thing that I find most ironic about this, though, is that I always thought of the writing itself, the honing of the language, as the part that needed the most work, but really, that is the part I find the easiest. Once I know what I am writing, I am on top of it, but finding that thing is not always easy. That is true in fiction, I think, but in a very different way, since the process is so different.
What makes this interesting, really, is to consider that I have spent my time focusing on the aspects of craft and not on disciplining the impulse so that I can create on a whim. That has, of course, been a large focus of this blog, and it is not a secret that a major reason for my keeping it is to maintain a daily writing practice, but in this case, their is something slightly different afoot.
What I am noticing here, and which I think is not in many senses the same as what I've focused upon before, is a block in the actual processing of the world into an image suitable for a poem. At one point, I had disciplined myself so that skill was constantly at the ready, and not having practiced has worn it down. My goal, then, is to get that aspect of my creative process back online, and it is a bit of a strange thing, as I can't really force myself into it by just writing. It is about how I perceive things, not about the writing itself. This is about the step before that.
I think that their is a way, though, in which my best route is to focus upon the writing. As I have experienced times when the ideas did flow easily, I know that it is possible for me to achieve that, so I can have trust in those possibilities, attempting to provoke myself back through doing the work itself. I am certain that a part of me is already working in the way that I would like, and it is merely a matter of gaining access to that once more. By just doing the writing, and seeing the world with the recognition that I want to be creating poetry, I am hoping to get back into the swing once more.
In truth, it feels to me like getting this back will really be the key to opening up something big in me. I think that writing poetry and having back that part of my creative life is something that will help to make me the person I want to be on many levels. Processing things through poetry always helped me to gain certain understanding and I also know that I have felt something missing from my life. Writing is fulfilling, but I need to include poetry in that to feel truly complete.
Beyond this, however, I also sense that I am getting back into touch with an aspect of my own creativity that I somehow lost touch with, and in doing so, I think I am going to get myself to the place where I am really energized again, and where writing feels as exciting and thrilling as I know it can. Poetry was what made me into a writer, and I am not sure exactly when I lost connection with my poetic impulses. In all truth, I don't think I had understood that until just recently, and the very fact that I hadn't even considered it more deeply is, admittedly, odd. It seems to me a sign, though, that I am making a significant and positive change, and one that I have probably been in need of for a very long time.
Comments
Post a Comment