A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Seventy-Seven

I wrote a lot of poems again today, though most were still really just clearing the lines, as it were. In some cases, that is really the best way to think of this kind of work: getting out the stuff that is in the way of the real work.  It is like running the water until it turns clear again.  Some of the work was, as yesterday, sort of self-exploration, and I do feel that is moving towards a more substantive place, but it is not yet there.  That work has merit, I believe, but I am not yet writing the kind of pieces that I want within that milieu.  Of course, the only way to improve and achieve that would be to keep working, so the fact that the work is not there yet is no reason to stop, or to dismiss these pieces as not being serious work.  Indeed, the fact that it is so hard for me to even consider, most of the time, writing in that sort of personal, confessional vein suggests to me that I should explore that.  Poetry is not about hiding from what is difficult or different, but requires the willingness to face the hardest subjects and use them as fuel.  For me, that can be my own life.  It is not a fear that I will be exposed, or at least not primarily (I think anyone revealing themself is likely to feel some trepidation about it, unless they are inured through practice), it is more a fear that I cannot get the right distance, that I am attempting this work from a vantage that is too wrapped up in my own perspective, and does not, therefore, achieve some ineffable quality that I aspire towards which I always aspire.

Not all the work I did today was of that sort.  I did get to a few poems that I feel have merit and potential already, and I also spent a bit of time doing exercises where I was focusing the poem on telling myself to do the work of writing.  That is often a place I go, when I don't know what I want to put on the paper, but today I felt that one of those pieces reached a higher place where it may have more to it than the rest.  It was a bit less direct about the idea of writing and more universal.  While I was writing it largely to tell myself "get to work," it seems to me that it might have other resonances, and I want to look at it again tomorrow.

I did write one poem that is partly personal, but not so emotional, and I felt that it came out rather well.  It is a simple poem remembering a day I saw some otters from my yard and some neighbor I didn't know came out to say something to me and scared them off.  The poem is, I think, pretty good.  It has a sort of restraint that I find hard in those more personal piece, but I also know it is a much simpler piece than a lot of the ones I have been working on.  It doesn't deal with anything large in my life, and so it is easier to keep that distance, as well it is more distant as a memory, so their is already a certain distance. 

What really is interesting, though, is that I know, now, that if I write a lot of poems in a day, I'll get to a point where I have a real urgency to get to the deeper level with the work.  It may not always result in great poems, but I find that I at least get to a place where an idea comes forward for me.  It may not be that way every time, I am aware, but it feels as though there is a point at which the amount of work begins to require something more, as though a part of me feels a building pressure each time I put pen to paper.  It is as if, by committing to doing so much writing, a part of me clicks on once it knows I won't let go.  Maybe the truth is that doing the work each day, that part of me is now wanting a stronger commitment on my part before it will step forwards, or maybe their is something of a rebellion in it, where it gets sick of watching me flounder through half-rate writing, but in any case, I am glad that I know I can get myself to that place so often, and all it takes is making certain that I write until it happens.