A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Hundred-And-Seventy-Five

I attended another lecture at the Morikami today, this one with a tradition Japanese stone carver.  I am actually attending a workshop he is teaching tomorrow.  It is going to be, I think, more of a lecture type class than actual hands on, but it should be quite interesting.  His talk today was quite interesting, but it can be hard to follow, even with a translator, and I suspect that the more direct interaction tomorrow will be quite a bit more illuminating.

In other fronts, I did write another poem today, and one that I feel has a lot of potential. It is a rather directly political piece, which is not my usual tact, but I felt I had something to say that was important, and which has been trying to come out for a few days.  I am not certain if this form is the ultimate version of the poem, but it is certainly a very good start in the direction I wish to go, and it may actually be more powerful than I suspect.

As well, I received a short email from Nickole Brown which was a reminder that she is there to kick my butt if she finds that I am not doing the work.  I really appreciate it, especially since she is far from here and has little reason to keep me in her thoughts.  It meant a great deal, as I believe I expressed previously, to have her push me into gear, and it is even more powerful for her to be keeping up with me at this point.  I cannot help but feel an incredible generosity from that, and am very lucky.

Specifically, she is pointing out my need to do something that I mentioned on here yesterday, and that is to revise.  It is a hard thing, in some ways, at least in terms of doing the work in isolation.  It often takes, for me, another pair of eyes to really help me with getting a clear image of the work, and it also requires someone who is able to see the work clearly, and who is not going to push me in certain directions, but will instead just look at the work itself and really help me to crystallize what it needs.  It is often very difficult to know what is or is not working, and it is also, at times, easy to go to far with things, indulging a desire for playful language to the point that it becomes cloying, for example.  It is often difficulty to look at those elements with an unbiased perspective, and it is easy to miss what is or is not working without the aid of another.

However, that needs to be relegated to the realm of excuses.  I need to focus on finding a tactic for looking at the work that will facilitate doing the revision when I don't have help.  It would be great to have someone to aid me, but I don't, and I am unlikely to find that person right at this moment, so that cannot be a limiting factor.  I have to get past it, and even just acknowledging that feels like a first step.  I am taking action, even if it is taking a bit of time for me to get myself going.  Tomorrow, I have a busy day, but I hope to find a bit of time to look at one or two of my poems and attempt to get to work on those revisions.

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