A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Forty-Two
My poetry is undergoing any changes of late. I believe I have discussed that their have been shifts in the kinds of poems I've been writing. I've certainly written less of my animal poems, and the general surreal fables category as a whole, though I know those things will return, and I've certainly not had a complete drought of those ideas. Yet, many of the poems that fall into those categories are certainly quite different lately. They have a different tone and are somehow less concrete and more nebulous. At least, that is how it feels to me.
In some ways, these shifts are a bit discomforting. That is not to say they are negative, as I do think my writing is improving and that these changes are in the service of that progress. Still, change can be difficult, requiring adjustment. In part, the discomfort is related to a sense of not really knowing what I am doing. I am in a new place with my work, and in that sense, much of my previous thinking is inadequate. There are new challenges which will require me learning and growing in my skills as a writer. That is, of course, positive, but that does not make the experience of going through such a transition less difficult.
As well, I think it is also that I am finding it hard to adjust my thinking around the work. By this, I mean two things. First, in terms of conceptualizing new poems, I am finding that I don't have as clear a sense of what to write about as I did before. I am in a different mode, so the poems reflect this. Many ideas I have which seem worthwhile don't work when I actually sit down to begin, and I have to come up with something else instead. This first issue is one that I think contributes to my sense that I am not as inspired, as it feels often that I just have a lot of ideas that don't work, and wind up having to sit for a while waiting for the words to flow.
The second issue, surrounding how I consider the work, is about reviewing it. Because it is so different, in many ways, from earlier work, I don't yet have a clear way to consider it, or even discuss some of the aspects. That is probably clear from the first paragraph of this post, in which I offer a very hazy description of one shift in the work. I think that I am moving towards a way of thinking and writing that may go in very different directions, but it is still early on, and I don't yet know what it is. I am following a path, one laid out by the work itself, but I must learn how to navigate it and how to understand the landscape that it traverses.
In some ways, these shifts are a bit discomforting. That is not to say they are negative, as I do think my writing is improving and that these changes are in the service of that progress. Still, change can be difficult, requiring adjustment. In part, the discomfort is related to a sense of not really knowing what I am doing. I am in a new place with my work, and in that sense, much of my previous thinking is inadequate. There are new challenges which will require me learning and growing in my skills as a writer. That is, of course, positive, but that does not make the experience of going through such a transition less difficult.
As well, I think it is also that I am finding it hard to adjust my thinking around the work. By this, I mean two things. First, in terms of conceptualizing new poems, I am finding that I don't have as clear a sense of what to write about as I did before. I am in a different mode, so the poems reflect this. Many ideas I have which seem worthwhile don't work when I actually sit down to begin, and I have to come up with something else instead. This first issue is one that I think contributes to my sense that I am not as inspired, as it feels often that I just have a lot of ideas that don't work, and wind up having to sit for a while waiting for the words to flow.
The second issue, surrounding how I consider the work, is about reviewing it. Because it is so different, in many ways, from earlier work, I don't yet have a clear way to consider it, or even discuss some of the aspects. That is probably clear from the first paragraph of this post, in which I offer a very hazy description of one shift in the work. I think that I am moving towards a way of thinking and writing that may go in very different directions, but it is still early on, and I don't yet know what it is. I am following a path, one laid out by the work itself, but I must learn how to navigate it and how to understand the landscape that it traverses.
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