Sadly the weekend is slipping away. On the positive side, I was able to get some positive vibes back into my writing. Yeah!!!
I'm working on both new stuff and rewrites for a particular submission that I've been planning and while the deadline is fast approaching, I don't as of yet feel particularly stressed about it. Surprising as that seems.
Parting thought for the weekend - "I shut my eyes in order to see." ~ Paul Gaucuin
I suppose one could argue that poetry has become a habitual aspect in my life. Without considering this in a negative connotation that is often associated with the word habitual, I have up till now viewed this in the context of what I have considered a lifestyle. For several years, I have convinced myself that a poet (or any artist) would only enhance their level of creativity by developing a lifestyle that had a vigilant awareness to their surroundings that allowed them to constantly be open the the poetry in things.
What would follow or at least one would hope- transforming theory to reality, is that by achieving this poetic point of view, it could only result in good things in connection with their work. If you hand not fully achieved a poetic lifestyle, to the extent you were striving to get there, again would be a positive thing, no?
Perhaps achieving such a state of mental awareness and focus has noting to do with improving the poet's work. What if it is simply symptomatic of a neurosis?
![Photo_010809_002[1]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_p2XZ7Fsradc/SbvnYFRFRbI/AAAAAAAAA_M/JUTd8BL66FI/s1600-h/Photo_010809_002%5B1%5D%5B3%5D.jpg)
So Saturday has arrived. Big sigh. Even though is was a short work week for me it seemed long.
Since I've been back, I've received a rejection letter. I've completed a journal and started yet another. I'm filling them up at a rate of about 1 every three months. I've received my copy of Mortal from Ivy, which I have enjoyed and will have more to say about in a later blog post. And this morning I've been sending out more work.
I'm trying to decide if I want to the the Annual Poetry Month broad side I've done for the past two years. I've got a couple poems in mind and I've had positive response from people the past two years, but these are different economic conditions and I'm awaiting a price figure from a different printer. If I'm going to do it, I really need to decide in the next 48 hours.
The picture above is to top of a beaded vase my wife did with a bouquet of clown noses in it. It was pretty cute.Below is another view if the lower part of the vase.
![Photo_010809_003[1]](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_p2XZ7Fsradc/SbvnZl1eWSI/AAAAAAAAA_U/e4WUTet8Y6c/s1600-h/Photo_010809_003%5B1%5D%5B3%5D.jpg)
It's not the sharpest picture (from camera phone with poor lighting) but you get the idea. Just thinking of the concept was creatively genius much less the execution of the idea itself. I'm not sure how she can do these things with no pattern to guide her.
Anyway, I'll tie this into my post today by saying that this year there will be no clowning around. I submissions last year were down from the previous year. I'm writing more, I just need to work harder on rewriting material and keep sending the stuff out that is publishable but has come back. Some of it just needs to find the right home.
a few random items from my journal this week...
Feb 14 - At times like this Alice will sit at a small table/pouring Earl Grey as we sip from miniatures/and talk about what, I never recall.
Feb 15th -In talking with Meghan yesterday I can tell she is getting excited about my upcoming visit.
Feb 16 - Yesterdays rewrite of An American Whim came after receiving critical comments (that I sought) from PB and AD. AD gave me the most critical (technical) view while PB spoke to things she liked about it.
Books are scissor stacked/in piles, on end tables,/desktop, the thick of carpet/on the floor next to the easy chair
Feb 17- Where has this month gone to? Already a shortened month it appears to work against the benchmarks I've arbitrarily set...
Feb 18 - MR emails me, "you of all people have new stuff and old stuff." Feel like I've been busted.
The pretext for the afternoon / was as one sided as the face /of Mount Rushmore but not near/as stark....
It was not with the exchange/of currency or anything so mercantile/
Feb 19 - was so totally whipped out from work today...
A poet friend the other day was giving me feedback on one of my poetry drafts and in response to something I had written said, "You should read Wallace Stevens if you haven't lately. The crazy things that guy does with repetition and refrains." So, I went looking for a Wallace Stevens poem and read The Emperor of Ice-Cream which I found enjoyable. I then moved away from the poem and began to type. Keep in mind I often begin drafts in longhand. There were just two words that came to my mind and they were, "The pretext" and nothing more. Where they came from I couldn't say, but after typing them from the keyboard with just a momentary pause I began to type again and in relatively short order, maybe 20 minutes at the most I had a draft that I stopped working on. After moving away from the draft for some time, I went back and quite frankly felt that I could do nothing more to it. Not by addition or subtraction other than a change of title.
The number of times I've written something on the spot like this and could not improve on it are like never. There is one occasion in which I came close to this, but still made some editing changes. It's not an occurrence that one has happen very often, if ever.
I may well wake in the morning and find room for improvement, but I don't expect it will likely change much. That's how good I feel about it. Better than some pieces I've worked on over a span of more than a year. It's moments like this that makes all the other eternal rewrites seem worth enduring through.
Thanks Amy for the advise. How the Emperor of Ice-Cream led me to the pretext and all that followed to write what I now call The Face of Mount Rushmore, I'll never figure out. They are nothing alike, but I'm sure that one lead to the other.
Instead of writing tonight I watched three rerun episodes of Boston Legal. Does that make me a bad poet? I'm being rhetorical here, a response is not required.
My new monitor for work has arrived. This is good because I was starting to feel a little gothic working in the dark so I could faintly see the screen.
Monday night is one of my TV nights. House & The Closer. Sill, I'll try and siphon off a little time this evening to write. Ah... just remembered Obama has a press conference tonight so the networks will likely be off time wise.
Last night I came across a D.H. Lawrence quote that struck me curiously. It goes like this... "Never trust the artist. Trust the Tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it."
So I thought about this for a while and I pictured some of my poems having to be rescued from me. So I'm thinking about some critic smugly determining the story line - assuming there is one, from a particular poem and then fending off the poet's ownership stake in the poem. The critic arguing, this isn't all about what you saw, it's about what I see. Then the two go round and round. Well I say phooey! It's about whatever the fuck you find in it. There. I'm through rolling in the gravel over it. Don't get me wrong, critics a a place in this world and I'm willing to listen to them just as much as the next guy.
Listening to Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 E Major
Mood: Awake
I'm up and ready for the day. I've made an unsuccessful trip to Target to see if their shipment of Skinny Cow Fudge Cones have come it. They haven't. This is like crack to my wife. Evidently to many others as well because they don't seem to ever run out of the other Skinny Cow items except this. When momma don't got no Skinny Cow Fudge, no one is happy.
Super Bowl Sunday is not quite as special to me as it may be many guys. I'll likely watch the game but with less enthusiasm than many. The biggest significance to me is that once it is over it clears the way for Spring Training and the real poetic sport.... Baseball.
There are a hand full of football teams I have some interest in, but not a lot for the sport in general. There have been past times that I've rooted for Pittsburgh, but I'm probably pulling for the Cardinals today. Regardless of how it turns out I won't lose any sleep over it.
I've taken the time off of work today to work on poetry submissions. Yeah! (I'm pretending there are cheers in the background).
It probably should not have to come to using a work holiday to crank out submissions, but whatever it takes. I did get some out on the 5th of January so I guess I'm not exactly procrastinating. I did fall off in my submissions in 2008, so I am determined to keep up with new submissions monthly this year. I guess a way to look at it is I only have 11 more months to go this year.
Listening to Savage Garden / Crash and Burn.....
It was cruel and unusual punishment working yesterday but this too has past. I need to go to the store this morning. Old Mother Hubbard is starting to look like she's among the privileged. I don't think procrastination as a plan is working. Time for the backup plan.
The sky is overcast and it's dreary out. Don't appear to be changing anytime soon.
I need to mull over some submissions I want in the mail by Monday.
Have a picture I want to work on too to submit to a journal. This would be the first time submitting photos.
Clock is ticking in my head. I hate that.
Having a glass of Chardonnay and wishing it were morning rather than evening. Daylight has slipped out of sight and in its place is the evening before back to the office.
I ventured out today and shot some pictures along the Missouri River and other places close by. Still a bit of snow lingering here and there but we'll see more of it before long. Winter is yet young.
I pity those poor souls who do not have the ability to experience seasonal changes. Their internal clocks must find the year very long and unforgiving. Having four distinct season is like having four times during the year to feel like there is a fresh start.
The clock we look at to see what time of day it is, is simply a man made arbitrary measurement to time. So is the calendar. But the seasons, they are natures clock.
It's probably a poet thing to prefer natural timing to some artificially contrived medium.
During the months of November and December our poetry society chapter elected to meet once a month rather them twice a month as usual.
It's not that I haven been writing, but it seems the result of this reduction in meetings has left me feeling a little off balance or something. These interactions with other writers would seem to have a centering effect on what I am doing.
I'm wondering if others that participate in group meetings with other poets/writers or any other arts related community find that such meetings provide a grounding or other beneficial impact on their work, to the extent that their absence over a period of time leaves them feeling some kind of tangible loss to their vocation or avocation.
If you've experienced something similar I'd me interested in hearing about it. Am I the odd one here or is this common?
If you've feel this same kind of impact to lack of contact with your own writing community, what kinds of things have you found to compensate for it's impact upon your own work?
I've been a little lax in blogging of late, so I will try and catch up a bit tonight
. It's been a long week and I am so glad that Friday has arrived. It will be so nice to have a short work week next week.
I elected to pass on the Mia Leonin reading at Rockhurst University last night so I'm unable to provide a review. Instead before retiring last night I read some of the poetry of W.S. Merwin and Dana Goodyear. Two poets I enjoy but quite different in style.
This week I ran across a short but dynamite explanation on the net written by Joe Carter entitled What Poets Do. In the simplest of terms, Carter discusses what poets do that makes them invaluable. Yes, I said invaluable. With all the usual suggestions that poetry is closer to irrelevant then not, such words pulled my eyes out of my sockets. I recommend taking a peek at his explanation here.
When a writer is engaged in the creation of a novel, there is an audience that he/she should have in mind. I've never quite accepted that premise where writing poetry is concerned.
It seems to me that when I am writing poetry I am having a conversation with myself. Quite frankly the process will rise and fall upon the very nature of internal conflict within this very conversation. I think it was Frost who said (and I am paraphrasing) that he never knew how a poem would end till it did. That underscores a good part of the conversation that takes place. This is true when in draft and it continues in rewrite.
I think the distance between poetry and philosophy can be placed on a pin head. It is during this creation process that some of my great philosophical battles with myself occur. Sometimes taking issue with long held notions. Sometimes standing something on end to see how it looks from a different view. This is true with the message but also is true with the form the message takes.
An example of the latter would be that sometimes I like to throw punctuation out the window and at other times I cannot convince myself that it works without it.
If someone were to ask me to describe poetry, my answer today, (and tomorrow this may be different) poetry is the sum of my parts jumbled. They may not look like me, or mirror my life experiences, but the product reflects an assemblage of who I am. My poetry is my biography.
This is different from "confessional poetry" in that it is not to say that what I write is about me or about my life. It is rather about what who I am can conger into image. This is what happens when I am in conversation mode with myself and a pen.
Ah, a win for the Phillies! I know many didn't think this World Srries was the big glitzy one they had hoped for, but of the final teams in post season, these were the two I wanted to see. I would normally be drawn to root for the NL team with a few exceptions, so a Phillies win is fine with me. Still, The Rays had quite a run this year and I am happy for them none the less.
Of course with tonight's game I am now at that point where baseball now falls into the black hole of winter, not to return till spring. There is a sadness that comes with that.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." - Bart Giamatti
On another note, yesterday afternoon I was in a waiting room at the Doctor's office and was drawn by the late afternoon quiet void of activity to scribble out a draft of a poem. There, I mentioned poetry in my blog post. I feel so much better.
Saw white pumpkins for the first time recently. I guess you never get too old to be surprised.
Surprises can be a good thing. But we often see them in a
negative light. Unpleasant surprises. In politics there is the often dreaded "October Surprise". You probably never want to see a mobile news team pull up unannounced at your business. The present economic turmoil, while somewhat predictable puts us in uncharted waters that continues of offer unpleasant surprises.
I think poetry often embraces surprise. Certainly learning to find the surprise in even the simplest of daily life has been a paramount importance to me as a poet. I think all art is about a perspective of view. Perhaps poetry more than any art form requires us to present unique perspective. It seems to me people that are most appreciative of poetry are the ones who are able fined the surprise elements in verse, who can read something and have that "Ah ha!" experience, seeing something in a different light.
I hope your day is filled with surprises... and I hope they are all good ones!
Technorati Tags: life as a poet,surprise
Bumper Sticker seen tonight on car in Target parking lot: Spiritual people inspire me / Religious people scare me.
Few Journal Bits this week:
notes to self....
topics to inspire future poetry
polite conversation drizzled us/two scoops of vanilla ice cream, side by side with chocolate syrup
flies behaving badly in a seedy joint
I should like to have been there./Been somewhere emotion ruled/even if to have been speechless/but in the body./To witness a pair of long exposed legs/and feel some kind of movement.//
the stakes in the garden lean from the westerly fall winds
Back home after a whirlwind trip to St Louis to See Daughter #2. Haven't done a Journal bits post in a while.... A few things from this past ten days.
Labor day and I'm trying to find a the silver lining in this knee pain. It's not like I'm off on a sick day or anything. No, I'm using a perfectly good three day holiday to be sick. Grrr!
