I like my little Billy, now if I could only get him to talk and tell me what poems to bring to the conference. Of course I am bringing my laptop which has everything I’ve ever written on it. I wonder if they will let me read by computer light.
Everybody keeps telling me to bring my “best” and I really wish I knew how to qualify that. Does that mean the poems I’ve placed or the ones I love, which may or may not be my most accomplished poems. But the poems say what I want them to say, they are well behaved poems. Oh btw, I don’t know which ones are my accomplished poems either.
And I wonder if I am the only one who has no fricken clue about her own writing? Am I the only one out there who has no idea what is her best? What makes strong work? Will it be strong enough?
I have never doubted myself as being a writer, it always has seemed the one thing I just was, but the closer I come to it, the more that little voice in side rises up and says maybe it isn’t so. Maybe, I will be sitting in a room and a women's voice will speak, her words will be sweet like Anne Sexton when she reads and that voice won’t be mine.
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4 comments:
I discover my best poems by doing public readings, by how the audience responds and how I respond to the audience when I read them. Otherwise I love them all. Or hate them, depending on the day.
Of course I am bringing my laptop which has everything I’ve ever written on it.Teresa, you've got me worried. You do back up your work, don't you?
Signed,
Ivy the mother hen
Yes Ivy I back up everything but my laptop is more like my notebook for me. Thanks for checking on me though, T
Rebecca, my favorite poems are usually the ones I am working on at the moment they are like new lovers demanding my attention. I read recently how Gluck hates reading her poems out loud because that is not the way she believes they should be heard. I gain more from a good reading than I do most workshops for all the reasons you stated above. Hopefully I will be still today and what I need to bring will come to me
I read recently how Gluck hates reading her poems out loud because that is not the way she believes they should be heard.
Maybe that is why I'm not overly fond of her poetry. I can't imagine anyone ignoring the music of voice to enhance poetry. I can't imagine not reading my poems. How else can I hear how they move? How else find the subtle sonic dissonance? I don't read them out loud as I write them (as I know some poets pretend to do) but they do seek the throat,the tongue, the mouth, always.
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