Tuesday, January 01, 2008

I’ve been up late into the night the last few nights, writing what Sexton calls essential crap which means writing even when you know it sucks b/c well that's how it works.

My writing head doesn’t trust me anymore so it has gone on a major hiatus. It seems I wasn’t listening, so every time a poem would come into my head, I’d tell it to go away.

I was trying to be loved, to love, be a good parent, trying to teach, trying to do my damn job which paid my bills. So my poet voice said *&%@# which sounds a lot like loud silence. You know, the kind of quiet that gets in your brain, slowly slinks down the spine—that scary quiet.

Now I am humbly crawling on my belly, begging to hear voices again. I’m here. I’m here and I’m listening, please talk to me.

4 comments:

Lisa Cohen said...

T--I don't think it's the voices that aren't speaking. Those poems you tried to push away are waiting for you. That quiet is a necessary quiet; the slack tide or the tiny pause between an exhale and the next inhale.

The voices are there and you will hear their music again.

xo
lisa

Molly said...

I agree with Lisa--definitely there are times when the writing needs a break, which is what I gave it over winter break. And now, the first day back, I'm ready for those morning poems, my everyday work. Just sit down and see what is there.

early hours of sky said...

I do believe that

but I also think that you age, the brain changes, the way one creates changes. I definitely write a lot differently than I did even five years ago. My body along with my brain has done this big shift of getting older. I don’t think it impossible to create but I think there is a brain development issue connected to creativity and youth.

Anne Haines said...

Creativity is definitely different as you get older. For me, it's been much better in my forties than it ever was ... but I have to pay more conscious attention to it, clearing space for it. Poems don't rush headlong out of me while I'm trying to do other stuff anymore, but if I sit down and clear away some mental clutter, the poems that do come are way better than the ones from 10-20 years ago. I have more control over them in a way, and in a way I'm more comfortable with giving over control to them. That doesn't make sense but it makes sense.

In my case -- thank god I write differently than I did even a few short years ago.

Quiet is very necessary. Poems will come back. They'll be different poems than the ones before and so maybe you don't recognize them at first. But they'll come. Promise.