21 Wednesday Nov 2012
Posted in poetry
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not the names
not eternal
not impermanent
not here
not there
not ready
not hungry
not cold
not tired
not hoping
not in this lifetime
not open
not closed
not time
not too late
not my friend
not my enemy
not right
not yet
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Letters from Edinburgh to Manila, and Back
What you did not build up, you cannot tear down.
I like this one particularly of the new batch. I wonder what might happen if you mixed up the “nots” in a different way. Perhaps have the opposites not so close together?
Thanks Rob!
This morning I didn’t feel in such a place to write; I wasn’t inspired the way I was to write “Letter” or “Anaplastic.” The first of the three (“Harmonize”) was more or less a toss-off Cage-style aleatoric to shake off the cobwebs. “Not yet” is the second (and I agree, the best) of the three- certainly the most poetic. The third was just a quick photograph (though we have’t got on a train).
I thought about the idea of shaking up the lines…. for some reason, it felt important to have them oppose each other directly. I don’t have any good reason for it, just a sense of trusting the process. (If I thought about any of this, I wouldn’t be able to write at all! I thought “Anaplastic” was a stupid stunt and it turned out to be a hit).
I think I’ll play with messing up the lines and see what happens.
You know, I just set out to do it and I can’t bring myself to. I have no idea why but it seems very important to leave the dialectics as they are.
However, just because I can’t bring myself to doesn’t mean it can’t be done. How would you arrange them, Rob? I’d love to see.
With your permission I’ll give it a shot. But it’s your poem and you need to go with your instincts. As you say, if you think about it you sink like a stone.
This has infinite possibilities and each rearrangement yields a different meaning. Here’s my attempt:
not the names
not eternal
not there
not my enemy
not ready
not hungry
not cold
not tired
not hoping
not in this lifetime
not impermanent
not closed
not time
not my friend
not open
not right
not here
not too late
not yet
You know what’s interesting about that? As I read it this way, the “not”s all lose semantic meaning. They simply become a skeleton holding the poem together sonically. Not hungry/not cold/ not tired becomes hungry/cold/tired. Entirely different tone to the poem that way. More longing, lonely, lost, adrift. Way cool!
I have this goal of writing and posting at least one poem a day. That doesn’t feel realistic with my schedule, but then again, finishing ModPo felt very unrealistic too.
If I’m going to keep to that goal I’m going to have some days where I don’t feel the poem I wrote is strong, but I still have to trust the process. I am a notoriously bad judge of my own writing, and if I wait until I think I have a strong poem to post, I’ll have an empty blog and another terminal case of writer’s block.
I talked to Al about developing as a writer. I would have even considered going after an MFA if it were practical, but it’s not. The thing he said was to write- write lots, write every day. So I’m going for it.
Good advice from Al.
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