Now Listening to: Brill Building Pop Essentials: The Boy from New York City
Dear Reader,
This is going to be a mash-up of yesterday and today. Today, Thursday, Word Raccoon and I went out to water the flowers and came face to face with a raccoon! A literal, honest-to-goodness raccoon.
“WR, did you invite a relative to come stay?” I asked.
She whispered that she hadn’t, and I paused, mesmerized, wanting to take a picture, but not wanting to move. The wee one and I stared at one another, and then the adorable animal waddled away.
I thought that meant we’d have a good writing day. Auspicious. Eh…not so much.
I’m working on a poem that has been coming to me in fits and starts. It might be two poems. (Started it yesterday.)
It quotes Virginia Woolf talking about Aphra Behn, whose work I haven’t read since my early college days. But she’s quite the character.
Now I’m intrigued about her, and though the poem I was writing was Woolf talking about Behn, this second poem is trying to beat up the first and take its place. Rude.
The title is “Let Flowers Fall,” and I LOVE the title (it’s part of the Woolf quote) but the poem is anemic in comparison to what Woolf says. I am inspired every time I think of those words, but they aren’t sprouting yet.
The poem won’t let me work at it steadily; it tells me I know what this particular process is, and that the same thing happened with my poem about the Grecian urn and that I just have to mull.
I hate mulling.
No, I like it, just not for too long, but Word Raccoon and I are not privileged to see this type of poem birthed, usually. They gestate somewhere in whichever brain hemisphere is responsible for poetry and then they say, “Give me a pen, or a piece of charcoal, or whatever,” and then bada boom, baby, there it is.
Or, that’s the hope.
I want to see this poem. I’ve already named it. I’m excited for it. (I know I’m mixing metaphors or something but I’d rather mix a metaphor in a poem and get a poem right than vice versa. I only have so much brain power at one time, LOL.)
It’s the kind of poem I know better than to interfere with; I have to let it become. Which, on the one hand is immensely satisfying, but on the other, wouldn’t it be cool if our heads had a transparent section that we could watch our brains work from?
Maybe not.
I feel a little left out.
I know, I know, both types of poems are me, are WR, but it would be nice to watch it all come together.
Who knows? If I get stuck (I won’t; it’s already growing, I can feel it), I could pull it apart and play with it.
Nope. Nopeity nope, it says.
It’s an Important Poem.
Oh, jeez…that seems a bit self-important.
I wrote the above yesterday, and the poem has not deigned to let me near it today, either. Instead, after the gym this morning and finishing my ‘must-do’ list, I went back to reading that beach read and ended up finishing it today—which meant blissfully reading for hours. That seems very on-theme for a holiday weekend, even if it will be spent at home.
P.S. the board with the line from Behn to Woolf pictured is something I picked up at the thrift shop. For displaying poems. 🎉 Displayed here with more of my artsy lovies in the nest I made for them. Including Woolf!
No writing yet today, unless we count this. I think that wild raccoon made off with the words. Which is fine, as long as it brings some back to me. WR says she’d like a raccoon as a pet. I don’t think so!
Gosh, stay cool, those in the heat belt!
Drema