A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Eighteen

There is something lagging for me these days, as I have said.  It is a bit of a lull in some aspect of my creative imagination which manifests largely in me not having an idea of what to write.  The result of this, though, is that I am forcing myself to work anyway, and finding myself following ideas that are not fully formed, that are often built on a snippet of language or some small thing that gets into my head at that moment.  These pieces are quite different from much of my other work, and while I do long to get back into gear again, I am also intrigued by this new work.

In many ways, I don't think this work is necessarily as strong as the poems I am more akin to writing, but that may be both a matter of my own bias and a result of it being a new area for my work.  Muscles have to build strength, and I must learn how these poems function, what I can and cannot do in them, and how best to hone this kind of work without losing the process that makes them unique.

Honestly, until today, I had not really considered this question all that deeply.  I did sense that these pieces were not the same as many others in my portfolio, but I didn't see that through the lens of exploration that lets me recognize the gift I am receiving at the moment.  In not having the same level of inspiration as I have at times past, I am finding a new response that lets me find a way to propel myself without a predetermined idea of what ideas and images I am seeking to explore.  Until today, I had considered these pieces in a way that was not really wholly accepting, as might be indicated by some of my comments about them.  Now, I do recognize, still, that their may be times when I resort to getting something, anything, written, but that is not the same as taking an opportunity to write without a prescribed and set notion for the poem.  

In a sense, this is really, as much as anything, my attempting to look at the situation I am in from a new perspective, one that liberates me from much of the anxiety that can build around not feeling that the ideas are flowing.  It is often even more difficult to come up with an idea when feeling that anxiety and the pressure it carries.  But, I know that even without that kind of inspiration, I am still able to do my work, and often am quite proud of the results.  So, if that is the case, why should I even worry about the issue?  I can work in either condition, with positive results, so I am seeking to embrace this improvisational form of writing that is not so familiar to me, without dismissing it as lesser work in some way.

Of course, I am setting out to do that in order, I hope, to coax out that inspiration again, for it is still something I prefer.  Maybe that is fine, or maybe I need to let go of that desire and realize that being able to do the work is the important thing.  In either case, I am certain that taking on the attitude that this writing matters and is not only about keeping up with my workflow will be a good thing.  It may well be that I discover, by thinking this way, something unexpected and wonderful, that it changes my poetry in ways I cannot imagine.  I am sure, though I don't know what it will mean, that my relationship to that kind of work is changing, and that the work itself is growing deeper as I get more attuned to this way of working.  Indeed, the poem I put up earlier tonight is one that came from that process, and I was rather surprised by it, to be honest.