A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Twenty-Six

The poem which I posted tonight is one that I just wrote this evening, and I feel it is a good example of how sometimes the issues that surround my writing can actually find there way into the work as well.  If you have been reading recent entries, I am in the midst of readjusting some of my thinking about certain writing I have done.  On some level, I tend to think of certain kinds of writing as being more about practicing.  Now, this is not practice in the sense I often use it of "a practice", but in the more common usage of rehearsing or preparing for a future performance.  I am seeking to recognize the validity of these kinds of poetic explorations, and to stop viewing them as lesser. 

In the poem, I was really just following the idea, mostly, not directing the action in a particular direction, something that I have been learning to appreciate as a mode for my poetry, and in so doing, I think it went to a place that is surprising and pleasing.  I don't think it is necessarily a great piece of undying literature, but I think it does show that their is value in these experiments.

I think in many ways the word experiment is the best way to sort of bridge the gap for me from my thinking of these pieces as preparation to my seeing this kind of writing as real work.  By the use of "experiment," I am able to imply that these are not things I expect a particular result from, but they are still valuable, having the potential to yield results that will be useful in the future as well as in whatever results.  As well, experimentation implies a liberal attitude, within which one may try out various possibilities.

It feels to me that the fact that these ideas are coming through in my work is a sign that I am shifting my thinking.  That is to say, I don't believe that the poem would have come out if some part of me was not already ascribing to a new belief that included ideas that poem points towards.  I don't know entirely where that is taking me, but I feel excited to find out.

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