Idle Hands...

Finish this sentence: Idle hands are ___________. Did you answer the devil’s tools or devil’s plaything?

How long can you sit with idle hands? Do you ever? Is this how you start to write?

In the most recent issue of Poets and Writers magazine there is an article about a writer who talks about stillness as he writes. “I’m very tolerant of stillness. I don’t mind sitting there for half an hour. I’d rather not move my hands just to move them; I’ll wait for the right thing.” Jonathan Lethem is a novelist not a poet, but his approach to initiating work on a page is maybe not a bad one even for poets. I sometimes will start with a line of something that comes to me. Maybe two or three different lines till something I feel something take hold. But when I think about my blog post on Monday and the Anne Sexton quote that I committed to thinking about all this week I’m thinking a lot more about the idle hands approach. The wisdom in the Sexton quote suggests listening hard. “Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard,” Sexton says.

It’s easy when you have a routine that says your take thirty minutes and write that you want to start writing as you sit down. The clock is on. Go! Such routine can probably create bad habits just as well as it can create good ones. But just as silence can be useful on a page, maybe it’s not a bad place to start to center yourself / your writing. In “The Artists’ Way” I think the morning pages are meant to drain out of your system all the residual sludge that can otherwise stain your work if you can’t get your mind off it. So maybe to start with, we should pause. A nice pregnant pause of sorts and then begin to create on the page as something surfaces.

on writing differently

Love this quote posted on Dana's blog - And with perfect timing:

"Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships. " — Charles Simic

But don't stop there.... her blog is a great read for poets.

Coffee, Journal and Me

Had to kill some time this morning, so I took my journal and coffee cup and stopped at Starbucks. There I sipped on my brew and wrote for roughly an hour. Without distraction I should add. It was a relatively prolific hour. Several ideas to expand on and rewrite.

I am following a story about a Boeing Subsidiary that is being Sued Over CIA Transfers of individuals to other countries for detention a practice known as "extraordinary rendition.""[VOA link] This is interesting because I seem to recall earlier stories that an airplane that was somehow connected to the Boston Red Sox franchise or owner was reportedly linked as well to one of these covert transfers.

It's nice to see Jilly back and up to speed over at Poetry Hut.

Misc on my mind

From my deck this morning, the ornamental tree that rises next to it is praising spring.

A few items of note:

Let me add Wilton Public Schools Superintendent Gary Richards to my 5 thumbs down award for his part in the Wilton High School cancellation of Voices In Conflict. [see earlier post] It appears that Richards along with school principal Timothy H. Canty were both in decision making roles with respect to cancelling this performance by students.

I have taken the dive into NaPoWriMo / a poem a day for thirty days in April.

Yesterday, I read Autobiography and Poetry in Slate. Dan Chiassonto and Meghan O'Rourke tackle confessional or autobiographical poetry, or if you will, the presumptive reader in some cases. I found the commentary between these two (if it really happened) to be thought provoking. Both making interesting points. Wonder what others are thinking out this piece? I'm going to sit on my thoughts for the time being. Anyone else who read it wanna share?