A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Three
I feel like I did a lot of work today. First, I did my two poems this morning. Honestly, I can't recall much about them at this moment, as it feels like a long time ago right now. It is funny how that can happen, but I think it is because I spent most of my afternoon and evening working. I reordered my second chapbook manuscript and started getting it finalized to send out. I'm not rushing, as I have more than a week until the deadline, but I want to be sure I have it in good shape, plus I sent it to a few trusted colleagues to see what they think.
After that, I spent a long time working on a found poem for the online class I am taking. For those who haven't heard the term before, found poetry is a bit like found art, in that it is composed using elements that are taken from the world. In the case of a found poem, it is, of course, using language that others have constructed already. It can be done in many different ways, with only found material or by combining original and found pieces. Though the language can come from anyplace, I decided to do mine using the titles of other poet's books. It was an incredibly fruitful exercise, I think, and it got me thinking a lot about how I construct my work. As well, I think the end result is a fairly interesting piece.
It was actually a fairly frantic process, in some ways, as my poetry books are located in a different part of the house from my office, so I was running back and forth, doing a lot of the composition in my head as I looked at the books. Then I would come in here and write it on the computer, go back to check that things were correct, and look at the titles to start thinking of the next sequence. It actually became a fairly coherent piece, I think, in a way that sort of surprises me. First, I am using language from so many different sources, from writers with very different ideas about language and poetry, so their was no certainty that it would all weaved together in a way that felt right. Beyond that, I feel like it does reflect my own sensibilities in a way that is also surprising. I mean, of course it reflects me as a writer, in some ways, but it felt like I was able to use those elements to construct language that felt genuine to me. Not that one couldn't see that this poem is different, but it felt more like my work than I had expected. As well, I think it became something largely cohesive, in a way that didn't seem apparent to me. I could imagine stringing together small elements, but I found I was able to create a larger piece that worked as a whole.
The experience of creating a piece in this way was really energizing. First, I think it is the kind of thing that I can always do. I mean, I don't have a problem, generally, writing poetry these days, but I do have times when I am not really sure what to do at this moment, and I think this kind of work lends itself to those predicaments. A lot of pressure disappears when you are not starting with a blank page. More importantly, though, it made me consider how I construct a poem in a different way. Because the language was already there, and in chunks, it made me think about things on a different scale. Instead of the units being individual words or even letters, the units were often longer phrases, or even full sentences. It made me look at the process from a different perspective, and in so doing, I think that it may have helped me to understand my own writing a bit better. I still need to really think about it more deeply, in order to actually digest that experience, but it was a profound way to change how I approach my work, and I expect it will expand my thinking as I unpack the experience more fully.
After that, I spent a long time working on a found poem for the online class I am taking. For those who haven't heard the term before, found poetry is a bit like found art, in that it is composed using elements that are taken from the world. In the case of a found poem, it is, of course, using language that others have constructed already. It can be done in many different ways, with only found material or by combining original and found pieces. Though the language can come from anyplace, I decided to do mine using the titles of other poet's books. It was an incredibly fruitful exercise, I think, and it got me thinking a lot about how I construct my work. As well, I think the end result is a fairly interesting piece.
It was actually a fairly frantic process, in some ways, as my poetry books are located in a different part of the house from my office, so I was running back and forth, doing a lot of the composition in my head as I looked at the books. Then I would come in here and write it on the computer, go back to check that things were correct, and look at the titles to start thinking of the next sequence. It actually became a fairly coherent piece, I think, in a way that sort of surprises me. First, I am using language from so many different sources, from writers with very different ideas about language and poetry, so their was no certainty that it would all weaved together in a way that felt right. Beyond that, I feel like it does reflect my own sensibilities in a way that is also surprising. I mean, of course it reflects me as a writer, in some ways, but it felt like I was able to use those elements to construct language that felt genuine to me. Not that one couldn't see that this poem is different, but it felt more like my work than I had expected. As well, I think it became something largely cohesive, in a way that didn't seem apparent to me. I could imagine stringing together small elements, but I found I was able to create a larger piece that worked as a whole.
The experience of creating a piece in this way was really energizing. First, I think it is the kind of thing that I can always do. I mean, I don't have a problem, generally, writing poetry these days, but I do have times when I am not really sure what to do at this moment, and I think this kind of work lends itself to those predicaments. A lot of pressure disappears when you are not starting with a blank page. More importantly, though, it made me consider how I construct a poem in a different way. Because the language was already there, and in chunks, it made me think about things on a different scale. Instead of the units being individual words or even letters, the units were often longer phrases, or even full sentences. It made me look at the process from a different perspective, and in so doing, I think that it may have helped me to understand my own writing a bit better. I still need to really think about it more deeply, in order to actually digest that experience, but it was a profound way to change how I approach my work, and I expect it will expand my thinking as I unpack the experience more fully.
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