A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Six-Hundred-And-Seventy-Three

It is often very odd to me just how much my writing has changed, in particular the poetry that I am writing.  For a long time, much of my poetry was narrative, with a lot of strange parables and other similar tales, but in the past several years, it has shifted and morphed in many ways.  Some of the changes have been things that developed, at least in part, due to my own thoughts and intentions as a writer.  For example, my poetry tends to use a very different kind of imagery at this point, in large part because I began to rethink the use of certain types of sensory description that may be inaccessible to readers with certain disabilities.  I do not want a blind or deaf person, to use a fairly simple to recognize example, to feel that they are being excluded from my poetry because of the ways the details are rendered.  While it is not possible, or advisable, to remove all the elements that are not accessible to every reader, I do still strive to make choices that move in that direction more often than not, and attempt to make certain that the imagery which is present will offer a variety of different approaches, creating a gestalt that contains elements I hope will communicate to just about any reader.  That is the hope, at least, and I do not pretend to know if I am achieving it.  My point is, rather, that the shift in thought has pushed my poetry into new directions and given it a different shape than when I was younger.  In some ways, this has my a bit disoriented.  I am not used to these new poems, to this approach and style.  I know they are still my work, still reflect my sensibilities and obsessions, still speak in my voice, but there is still something unfamiliar, as well, and I find it hard to be certain, at times, of what the intent is or whether it is being achieved.  Of course, it is always quite a challenge to judge the quality of art, especially one's own.