A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Six
I am still in that processing phase at the moment, though I feel that I am getting close to some new ideas that may have to do with pushing my work into further areas. I've had certain poems in the back of my mind that really want to come, but I am not sure about how to make them work yet, but today I came closer with some of those ideas. I certainly was writing around some of them. I think part of it is attempting to say things clearly that are complex and somewhat strange. Some of it has to do with considering the world from new perspectives, both for myself and in terms of ideas I want to express. Another aspect is to do with expanding my range in terms of the kinds of things I am writing.
In terms of that latter, I mean that I think I am beginning to be able to see ways to go into new areas with the kinds of surreal fables that I like to tell. I have an idea for a poem that is about shoes which falls into that area, but have not yet tackled it, yet the idea of personifying shoes the way this poem would entail feels like a new direction for me. Obviously, I cannot really say, until I write the piece, but I think the reason it is taking me a while to get it out is because it is requiring some new creative muscles to see how it will work.
Today, I actually wrote five new poems, with one being a piece I did as an exercise for a class I attended. That piece may or may not have any real merit to me, honestly, as it was very much a response to a prompt that was about a process for generating work, and I am not certain that what resulted is anything I want to keep playing with right now. However, I felt that the process itself was incredibly helpful, and the thinking I have had in response to that work has been very fruitful. In many ways, I feel much more equipped to keep going with the level of work I've been doing, as I am armed with more and more techniques to combat the sort of thinking that used to keep me from filling the page.
In the evening, I wrote two poems that were both variations on an idea that is in my head, to do with mushrooms and plants, exploring the complex ways they interact. I have a desire to explore that, because I think it is such an alien world. I mean, I've heard people discuss the ways certain animals must experience the world, and that seems to me to be nothing compared to the way a slime mold does, and scientists are showing that these organisms can do some incredibly complex tasks involving really complicated types of problems. In addition, I was reading about how certain fungal colonies act to help plants in an ecosystem exchange nutrients across vast distances. I think about all of this stuff, and I think about how people sort of dismiss the experiences of plants and fungi, and it makes me quite sad. I mean, these are beings with experiences we cannot even relate to in the most basic ways, and the general response is to see that as a reason to not empathize. They are so different than us that some of the kindness people, people who chose to be vegan because they see animal suffering as a crime, and they cannot consider the idea that plants also have suffering. Indeed, I've had people in those camps tell me plants cannot have suffering because pain is defined as a response of the nervous system, which only animals have. Rather circular, I think, to define suffering in terms that only includes animals and use that as a reason to leave out other life forms.
Anyhow, the point isn't to get onto a tirade about plants, but rather to say that I felt I was able to begin exploring some of the ideas I want to consider in ways that are new and different, and began seeing how some of it might become new and better poems. Each day, lately, I feel that I am moving forwards, though not always in a straight line, and today felt like it might be a sort of step back, but one that is readying me to move forwards once more.
In terms of that latter, I mean that I think I am beginning to be able to see ways to go into new areas with the kinds of surreal fables that I like to tell. I have an idea for a poem that is about shoes which falls into that area, but have not yet tackled it, yet the idea of personifying shoes the way this poem would entail feels like a new direction for me. Obviously, I cannot really say, until I write the piece, but I think the reason it is taking me a while to get it out is because it is requiring some new creative muscles to see how it will work.
Today, I actually wrote five new poems, with one being a piece I did as an exercise for a class I attended. That piece may or may not have any real merit to me, honestly, as it was very much a response to a prompt that was about a process for generating work, and I am not certain that what resulted is anything I want to keep playing with right now. However, I felt that the process itself was incredibly helpful, and the thinking I have had in response to that work has been very fruitful. In many ways, I feel much more equipped to keep going with the level of work I've been doing, as I am armed with more and more techniques to combat the sort of thinking that used to keep me from filling the page.
In the evening, I wrote two poems that were both variations on an idea that is in my head, to do with mushrooms and plants, exploring the complex ways they interact. I have a desire to explore that, because I think it is such an alien world. I mean, I've heard people discuss the ways certain animals must experience the world, and that seems to me to be nothing compared to the way a slime mold does, and scientists are showing that these organisms can do some incredibly complex tasks involving really complicated types of problems. In addition, I was reading about how certain fungal colonies act to help plants in an ecosystem exchange nutrients across vast distances. I think about all of this stuff, and I think about how people sort of dismiss the experiences of plants and fungi, and it makes me quite sad. I mean, these are beings with experiences we cannot even relate to in the most basic ways, and the general response is to see that as a reason to not empathize. They are so different than us that some of the kindness people, people who chose to be vegan because they see animal suffering as a crime, and they cannot consider the idea that plants also have suffering. Indeed, I've had people in those camps tell me plants cannot have suffering because pain is defined as a response of the nervous system, which only animals have. Rather circular, I think, to define suffering in terms that only includes animals and use that as a reason to leave out other life forms.
Anyhow, the point isn't to get onto a tirade about plants, but rather to say that I felt I was able to begin exploring some of the ideas I want to consider in ways that are new and different, and began seeing how some of it might become new and better poems. Each day, lately, I feel that I am moving forwards, though not always in a straight line, and today felt like it might be a sort of step back, but one that is readying me to move forwards once more.
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