09-04-2012, 11:49 PM
When I’m writing, I’m usually thinking that I’m writing in the context of my book. And when I’m writing poems, they’re usually, but not always, part of a series that go to make one book. One of many books, but all part of my book. And I work on this book everyday. Because even when I have no pen or paper, and I’m conscious of nothing literary, eventually I’m going to return to this book. And this is the only constant in my life.
Whatever happens, and whatever’s done or said by me, or anything or anybody at all, comes back to this book to be given form. Not always its literary form; but its place in reality. That much has its place in the reality of anyone that’s willing to read my book. When I’m giving form to my reality, I mean that literally I’m carving my own functioning way of living out of this world of ready-made forms that I was born into.
So I’m saying two things: First, I’m asking how much do others here behave in their life in relation to whatever relationship they have with their poetry (and the poetry of others: from anyone to anything, from the bible to Kierkegaard, Karl Marx to Ayn Rand, Walt Whitman to Henry Miller, your father to your wife, Stanley Kubrick to Alex de large, Don Quixote to whatever the scientists are claiming, etc.) . And second, I see that I only have access to about twenty of my poems saved on this computer I’ve been using, and many of them make allusions to other of my writings that I’m currently not able to share, besides the short stories that aren’t considered ‘poems’; and that makes me think to ask:
Are you more likely to start out writing a poem for the sake of practicing the craft, or to advance and better express themes of importance than run through your life?
Whatever happens, and whatever’s done or said by me, or anything or anybody at all, comes back to this book to be given form. Not always its literary form; but its place in reality. That much has its place in the reality of anyone that’s willing to read my book. When I’m giving form to my reality, I mean that literally I’m carving my own functioning way of living out of this world of ready-made forms that I was born into.
So I’m saying two things: First, I’m asking how much do others here behave in their life in relation to whatever relationship they have with their poetry (and the poetry of others: from anyone to anything, from the bible to Kierkegaard, Karl Marx to Ayn Rand, Walt Whitman to Henry Miller, your father to your wife, Stanley Kubrick to Alex de large, Don Quixote to whatever the scientists are claiming, etc.) . And second, I see that I only have access to about twenty of my poems saved on this computer I’ve been using, and many of them make allusions to other of my writings that I’m currently not able to share, besides the short stories that aren’t considered ‘poems’; and that makes me think to ask:
Are you more likely to start out writing a poem for the sake of practicing the craft, or to advance and better express themes of importance than run through your life?