A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Hundred-And-Seventy-One
I am quite pleased to say that I did write a new poem, and one that I feel is interesting. Much of what I have written in past several days seems to be in the sort of surrealist vein that I naturally veered towards in the past, but I am finding it to be rather different in tone and in terms of the kinds of images and stories. These poems are not so clear as the ones that I wrote when I was younger, and have a much more complicated set of images. I feel quite strongly that these are poems that I need to be writing, but I also recognize a desire to also do work in other directions with my poetry.
For example, I am working on one poem that is about issues of race, and the questions I am trying to raise in it seem really meaningful to me. It is a simple story about an even in my past, and one that is not, in any way, important or racially charged, but which presents an opportunity for me to consider other events in comparison. I think that kind of work is also really significant for me to be doing, and I have not done much of that in my past. I really tended to shy away from writing poems that were overtly about a political or social topic, and rarely ever broached a personal experience so directly.
The work that I am doing these days feels much more mature, even in terms of the poems that do seem to be more directly connected to my earlier efforts. The thing is, I feel that I do have a certain knack that I've recovered, and it does allow me to create a poem on demand, in a sense. Now, those poems are ones that have value and I am glad to be writing, but they are also not necessarily the most important work in some way. It is often necessary to go beyond a certain comfort and take on a new set of challenges to really do the work that needs to be done.
What I am getting at is that I am going to need to push myself to do more than the easy work. I am at a point now where I understand how to craft an idea and put it in my mind in a way that creates a poetic image for me to work with, and I know that will lead to my being able to write a poem. The idea today began simply with the thought of a tree growing in someones house overnight. From there, a lot had to come in. I had to consider the question of why and how, in a sense, though the details are not important. The point is, it couldn't just be a normal apple, or if it was, something had to make it grow. There is a logic that must be followed, and in considering the questions that logic caused me to ask myself, I found the poem.
That process is one that I want to keep following, because I do feel the work it is producing is very strong, and I know it is also very much more than just me telling a strange story. There are deeper resonances and concepts that I am playing with even here, however, I am also wary of just staying in that zone. To push myself beyond it, I need to consider what kind of work scares me, and I think I have some ideas of things I want to work on.
I have developed some ideas about the poetry project I am considering that would explore dyslexia. In order to do that, I think I'll want to explore the ghazal form. It involves certain restrictions that match with ideas I already had, and I want to do a bit of work in that form first, to get comfortable with it. I'm not all that familiar with the specifics of it, in terms of the more technical details, and am going on some general information about the form and a few examples that I've read. It may be that I am wrong about it in terms of the ideas I have, but I want to try exploring to see if that is the case.
Tomorrow night I am going to an event at FAU to meet literary agent Renee Zuckerbrot, so I am going to do a bit of work focusing on that tomorrow. I don't know a lot about her as an agent, but such opportunities are worth pursuing. Even if it is not that she is interested, it can't help hearing what she thinks about the industry in general, and I am optimistic about the potential that any person I meet in the literary world might the right one to help me on my journey. At least, that attitude feels more liberating and hopeful, even if it is slightly cloying and possibly delusional. And, with that, I think I must admit that I am rather exhausted and get myself to bed.
For example, I am working on one poem that is about issues of race, and the questions I am trying to raise in it seem really meaningful to me. It is a simple story about an even in my past, and one that is not, in any way, important or racially charged, but which presents an opportunity for me to consider other events in comparison. I think that kind of work is also really significant for me to be doing, and I have not done much of that in my past. I really tended to shy away from writing poems that were overtly about a political or social topic, and rarely ever broached a personal experience so directly.
The work that I am doing these days feels much more mature, even in terms of the poems that do seem to be more directly connected to my earlier efforts. The thing is, I feel that I do have a certain knack that I've recovered, and it does allow me to create a poem on demand, in a sense. Now, those poems are ones that have value and I am glad to be writing, but they are also not necessarily the most important work in some way. It is often necessary to go beyond a certain comfort and take on a new set of challenges to really do the work that needs to be done.
What I am getting at is that I am going to need to push myself to do more than the easy work. I am at a point now where I understand how to craft an idea and put it in my mind in a way that creates a poetic image for me to work with, and I know that will lead to my being able to write a poem. The idea today began simply with the thought of a tree growing in someones house overnight. From there, a lot had to come in. I had to consider the question of why and how, in a sense, though the details are not important. The point is, it couldn't just be a normal apple, or if it was, something had to make it grow. There is a logic that must be followed, and in considering the questions that logic caused me to ask myself, I found the poem.
That process is one that I want to keep following, because I do feel the work it is producing is very strong, and I know it is also very much more than just me telling a strange story. There are deeper resonances and concepts that I am playing with even here, however, I am also wary of just staying in that zone. To push myself beyond it, I need to consider what kind of work scares me, and I think I have some ideas of things I want to work on.
I have developed some ideas about the poetry project I am considering that would explore dyslexia. In order to do that, I think I'll want to explore the ghazal form. It involves certain restrictions that match with ideas I already had, and I want to do a bit of work in that form first, to get comfortable with it. I'm not all that familiar with the specifics of it, in terms of the more technical details, and am going on some general information about the form and a few examples that I've read. It may be that I am wrong about it in terms of the ideas I have, but I want to try exploring to see if that is the case.
Tomorrow night I am going to an event at FAU to meet literary agent Renee Zuckerbrot, so I am going to do a bit of work focusing on that tomorrow. I don't know a lot about her as an agent, but such opportunities are worth pursuing. Even if it is not that she is interested, it can't help hearing what she thinks about the industry in general, and I am optimistic about the potential that any person I meet in the literary world might the right one to help me on my journey. At least, that attitude feels more liberating and hopeful, even if it is slightly cloying and possibly delusional. And, with that, I think I must admit that I am rather exhausted and get myself to bed.
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