INSPIRATIONS NEEDED

Oddly, as someone who writes poetry, it has taken me a long time to actually learn to enjoy reading it.  Appreciation and enjoyment are two entirely different things for me, in case that were unclear.  There are a lot of things that I can appreciate for what it’s worth, that I don’t also enjoy…metal music for example.

Creative writing class after creative writing class forced me to read poetry during my undergrad years.  There were poets I’d never heard of, local poets, poets I hated and ones that I only liked for certain subtleties in their writing, and eventually it ended up fostering a desire to be exposed to as much many poets/writers as possible.  And I would still consider myself a far more avid reader of fiction than of poetry—baby steps. 

All writers, of any genre, has persistently heard that good writers are also good readers—meaning, the more we read the better writer we’re likely to become.  And the one fiction writing class I took in college, always advocated fiction writers reading poetry to learn how to pay attention to detail, make a moment feel how it would really feel, and that wordiness isn’t always the best method of explanation.  I believe that those lessons are true.  But as a poetry writer, I’ve learned quite a bit from my hoards of fiction…what exactly I’m not sure. 

I do know that it is far easier for me to tell a story in a matter of lines than it ever used to be.  Word choice isn’t as big of a chore.  And sometimes the simplest of things strike me as amazing or beautiful and I have the capacity to write something about. 

Office of Letters and Light pointed out some ways in which reading poetry might help in prose writing.  My favorite being “exploration” because of how he imagines poets to create.  I never thought of it before, but outlines aren’t something of a poets world.  The closest I’ve ever come to an ‘outline’ is an idea of what I want to portray via poem, or an image/phrase/line that just sticks with me and I know that I just HAVE to use it.  For example: while in Tucson at the beginning of the year, driving back from the mountains with one of my friends, all the saguaros of varying sizes with their arms reaching toward the sun, thirsty for it’s warmth, just really made an impact with me…and I conjured up this line—“as the saguaros reach their many arms to the sky, calling to gods.” 

It took awhile to make that one line into a poem, or figure out how to incorporate it, and by awhile I mean about a week.  For me, that’s a long time to write a poem when normally I just sit down, mash something out and then let it sit before revising a couple times.  My writing is very much like what that OLL blog thinks of when thinking of poetry writing.  It’s something that just kind of happens, with a little effort mostly in making the time to actually write.  And making time is often the harder part—and definitely something I need to make more of an effort at. 

OLL also led me to Dean Young’s “Elegy on a Toy Piano” which I thoroughly enjoyed and it made me feel compelled to start writing more often, again.

thefrogman:

Enemies tremble in fear whenever Pinkeye is near. 

[thereisaponyforthat]

(Source: cornonmacabre, via bookshelfporn)

Today I my dislike of the suburbs was elevated into a blind hatred. 

Previously, I just didn’t like the idea of suburbs.  A place were strip malls abound, housing developments have super strict rules, and every single apartment building looks exactly the same.  I still don’t like those aspects.  But not just because it feels like it takes something personal and individual away, but because it makes things difficult.

Driving around the city I work in this afternoon, I realized just how much alike every single corner of every single major intersection looks.  I know that I wasn’t in a neighbor that a high school friend used to live in, but if I wasn’t somewhat familiar with the area there is no way I would have known that.  The only distinction between that intersection, and the one by their old apartment, is the difference in restaurants and shopping in the small strip mall located there.  If you weren’t from the KC area, there is no way you’d know.

Also, for an area that appears to be inhabited by wealthy baby-boomer generation folks and well-educated 30 somethings, the level of unintelligence astounds me.  I work at a bank, and before working here, I always thought that banking basics were universal knowledge—things that our grandparents taught our parents, and they in turn taught us, and so on and so forth.  However, I’ve realized very quickly that that is not the case.  The wealthy and well-educated, procreated a generation of over privileged teens and 20 somethings who haven’t had to survive in the world without a safety net. 

Obviously, I know that not every parent in the KC metro area has neglected to share these life skills with their children or grandchildren even, but when faced with it on a daily basis, I begin to wonder.

Additionally:  The streets from one suburb to the other are the same name…but, what they don’t do is connect throughout.  They start and stop in dead ends and then pick back up, later, somewhere else.  Infuriating when you’re trying to navigate to new places.

Today, at work, my bank co-workers are being forced to enjoy (or at least listen to) this.  Plus any other Tiny Desk Concert I choose.

While reading another article at The New Yorker today, I saw this in my side bar…”Why Are So Many Americans Single?”  It caught my attention and interest.  Maybe because I’m a single American.  Maybe because, as such, I’ve been “pitied” and felt as if I were viewed as the loser who can’t manage to keep anything together long enough to not be alone. 

Even if communications technology has lessened the solitude barrier, I can’t say that it has hit me very hard.  Like every other American, 20-something, I use my smartphone every day…mostly texting.  But it does have Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and my gmail account all connected.  We’re always plugged in and interested in something or another.  My connectedness is 90% or more through people who are actually relevant to my life, but that’s not the case for everyone.  These means allow us to follow celebrities, authors, news organizations, or strangers.  We can be connected to almost anyone in the world without ever having to have real interactions.  So perhaps my solitude is a little more solitary than some.

But apparently, I’m doing something right.

Adrienne Rich, from “What Kind of Times Are These” (via the-final-sentence)

Amazing!

(Source: pusheen)

Marina Tsvetaeva (tr. Elaine Feinstein), from “What is this gypsy passion for separation” (via the-final-sentence)

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness; Edward Abbey