Monday, February 13, 2012

The Little Things

I have been looking at what I do recently, comparing it with what other poets do.  For those of you out there who say artists shouldn't compare themselves to each other, I can't help it.  I am past the whole thing about comparing myself to see who writes best.  I know I don't and I am okay wit that.  What I am talking about is where most of my poetry comes from.  Most of what I write deals with the past.  My past, the distant past of my home town, but not so much the recent past.  I seem to have a disconnect between the narrative "I" in a poem if it means talking about who I was just a month or year ago.  Ask me who I was 30 years ago and you can't stop my tongue from flapping.  However, if you want me to write truthfully about who I am now, record some episode from my recent, real life, then I shut down. 

I see a lot of other people write about their lives and I see people who can weave their lives into these wonderful poems which are quite moving, but that's not me.  I write poems based in history, and anything more recent than say the past 20 years is going to be skipped as a possible topic for a poem or simply be terrible---too terrible to survive even the first draft.  Another thing I would love to try is magical realism.  I can't seem to get my feet off the ground when it comes to writing/creating a magical realm for my psyche to inhabit.  I can make strange observations, but that isn't really the same, is it?  I am not complaining, mid you, I am just wondering how we (poets) fall into the familiar routines we seem to when creating our poetry. 

Is that all there is to voice, being able to tell a poem without seeing the name?  I'd like to think that's at least part of it, knowing a poet before seeing a name.  I guess I just need to be content to be writing about anything, really.  At least I am writing

1 comment:

  1. I sometimes compare what I do and what other poets do. It's basically the fact that I don't put myself out there that I would like to know what other poets have done as their first steps and those that followed. As of late, I havn't made that my large focus in my developement. It used to be an routine. Now I just read other peoples poems and write, write, and write everyday.

    As far as writting about my life, I have in a sense learned to be more ambiguous with what I write. Meaning, I tend to establish the place in a poem coupled with what I feel or might feel in regards to the subject. Sometimes my poems are a small portion of my life while other times they are a collection or rather an recurring theme in my life.

    It took me a couple of years to be content with writting about anything. It came about as I read what other people my age(24) and above were writting about and decided not to write those typical cliche poems about heartbreak or love as many poets I know tend to do. Not to put their work down or anything. I just know what works for me; and that is not staying stagnant in my poetry, thus, I am always reading and experimenting.

    ReplyDelete