I started a new poetry cycle yesterday. It began with “Having Vonnegut to Tea.” (I wrote it. Of course I did.)
I also had tea with Vonnegut (the mug, not the man) and those lovely orange flavored cookies.
Next up I remembered that the mascot of the elementary school I went to was a dragon. So out came “Stirrat Dragons Onstage.” It’s currently long and sprawling, but it feels like something I want to return to.
Here’s a link to photos of the ruins of the old school.
https://loganwv.us/stirrat-grade-school/#foogallery-27265/i:27266/p:1
No, you’re crying.
Other poems from yesterday:
Bus
Receded
Impermanence (which started out as the placeholder name of this newest collection.)
Then there’s one more. Let’s call it untitled, for now. Too tender.
This cycle-in-progress feels like it’s core Drema. One of those that could only have begun on a rainy day looking at photos of yet another part of your childhood in ruins.
If I’m not careful, these poems could spill over into the dreary poet category, and I will not be overly sentimental or overly dramatic. That’s not good art.
Word Raccoon believes she should have some say in that. Considering pink is HER favorite color, not mine, well…I am careful about handing over the writing to her.
(As a poet, I don’t want to just describe either, though. I’m not a camera.)
Later in the evening, I continued reading Saunders’ Vigil. I don’t know if it’s the time change or what, certainly not his fault, but I began nodding over it. I closed it, thinking I would move on for the day.
But a poem came to me: “Suffering.”
Then another, “Performer.”
One of them definitely belongs in Impermanence, which I’m tempted to rename Object Impermanence. Or is that too cutesy? It’s truer to the spirit of what I’m writing.
Honestly, this morning, as I hear the rain, curtains shut tightly for now because it’s dark out anyway, drinking coffee from my Brontë mug (wishing I had made tea instead), eating Greek yogurt with chocolate-dusted almonds, this:
Behind me is a great wall made of words.
It’s not solid.
Have you ever seen the illustrations in biblical story books of the parting of the Red Sea?
Yeah, it’s a water wall of words I’ve got.
This analogy is probably breaking as quickly as that water wall, but what I’m trying to say is that I’m drowning in poems.
Most days I don’t mind.
But what if… what if I’ve written too many poems?
Is there a pest control van I can call for that problem?
To which poems do I owe my allegiance? Which do I send on to loving homes (publication); which do I sit with?
How to prioritize?
Yes, yes, it’s an embarrassment of riches. And thankfully (I guess) I am not writing as quickly as before, not as voluminously. I am not often waking in the middle of the night and writing half a dozen poems.
Still, I’m having to learn how to sort my thoughts better. My ideas.
I’m trying to learn what is original thought and what is imitation or, as my blog post from yesterday suggested, just looking out yet another window at the same scene.
Here’s what I suspect is happening: the newest collection wants to dig around inside my memories a little.
It wants to allow the happy recollections, the joyous ones, and I’m not always sure how to do that without tipping over into naivete. Into tripe.
The past year has been me allowing the ark to come to rest. I have sent out a dove.
She has brought back an olive branch. But she has returned, which means no dry land yet.
(Pardon me; I think I’m writing a poem in the middle of my freakin’ blog post…now, where was I?)
(Mixing my biblical stories, too. I hope I will be forgiven.)
This is unpolished. Just thoughts rubbing up against one another.
It’s a dark, rainy morning.
Things “serious writer me” is not supposed to say, but that Word Raccoon, my writing alter ego, insists on:
– The rain sounds lovely.
– Strawberry Greek yogurt with chocolate-dusted almonds is at least a little bit holy.
– Poems are not a burden.
– I will never be a writer who hates the world, even when I am forced to hold reality’s hand.
– Sometimes literary aloofness is not just a way to keep out pain. Sometimes it holds love and joy away from the chest, too.
If this were a sermon, here’s where the preacher would finish and walk from the podium. The length of the silence after would tell how it landed.
I don’t have that luxury. But maybe I don’t need it.
If writing isn’t intrinsically holy, what is?
dremadrudge.com 