A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Forty-Nine

I feel quite good about the work I accomplished today.  I wrote four new poems, and I think that two or three of them have really got potential. One may be pretty close to done already, if I am honest.  It was a rather hard piece to write, as it is about my Dad's funeral, but I think it may be something of value.  I don't know, honestly, as it might be too simple and straightforward, but it may also work for that.  Sometimes, what is most powerful is just that sort of plain honesty, and this is a pretty simple and unadorned piece about mourning, so I think it is possible it has a power others will sense from that.   It felt right in a way, and it is not always easy to feel that when writing about things that are so loaded. 

The other pieces I wrote today also are possibly of value, but I am thinking they will need more work, honestly.  Again, I am feeling good to be stretching into a number of places with my work these days.  I am finding that I enjoy writing these strange little surreal stories, which is a lot like the kind of work I did when I was young, but is going in more unusual directions.  Also, I am finding a lot more animals, which I like.  I'm also doing more kinds of work that are personal, and some  that are more lyric and philosophical.  I am finding it very rewarding to go in all these directions.  It feels a bit like I am exploring a country, in a sense my own country as a poet.  The idea that a poet has a sort of territory they exist within or occupy is not my own, of course, but an old notion that has been talked about many times.  My meaning here, though, is more that I am in the process of mapping out the landscape of my poetic imagination, through the creation of these different poetic threads.

What this all means, really, is that I am still exploring and discovering the kinds of poetry that I am interested in writing.  I'm finding it a broad range, which I appreciate.  I know numerous poets who have a certain kind of poem that they are known for.  It may be that it exists in a certain world, or has a specific sort of speaker, or uses certain devices, but I would rather be able to surprise myself in my work by writing poems that go to new places.  Many great poets have a signature style that is honed in one direction, and I am speaking of poets I love and admire, but I am also, at least right now, very much interested in having a broader toolkit, one that allows me to play with a lot of different kinds of ideas and to write poems that are extremely different from each other, even as they remain clear reflections of my voice.

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