attention

year of the poem – philosophy

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The writing and thinking about the (as yet unrevised) ‘washed up’ poem has left a domino rally of thoughts tipping over in my mind.  The idea that the poem was teaching me how to write it was phenomenal.  But the next thought topped it; perhaps it was true of all things.

Paying close attention is the essence, for me, of what it means to be a poet.  The poet leans in to the idea or thought or person or moment or object, listens intently with her whole being, and in that listening, the secrets of the poem are revealed.  No listening, no poem.  No attention, no inspiration. No patience, no-thing.

The idea that this might be true of all things did not itself come out of nowhere.  As I mentioned before, I read some lines a little while ago with the phrase ‘you are truly the poetry of God’. This idea of being poetry has lingered.  I have spent some of the time on the journey between my home and the café where I do my work pondering this; what if life was inherently poetic?  What does it mean to be the ‘poetry of God’ (whether or not one believes in an actual God)?  What am I learning from poems that is true of life?

In my (paid) work, there is a lot of time spent learning theory and models and then ‘applying’ it to people, to work with them better.  This has value, but recently it’s been making me restless.  What other ways might there be to learn better how to create together?

The idea that people (and projects, and all things) have a poetic nature is liberating because it simplifies things down to one thing; pay close attention; the person, thing or project (or self) will tell you who and what it is and is becoming. It will almost reel you in to its field so that you start thinking and acting in the way that will help create it. You do not have to be afraid that you don’t understand or know or have the skills yet, if you pay close attention it will reveal each step when you’re ready. It is beautiful.

This is also very helpful for me because I am continually doing work that I have never (or no-one has ever) done before.  I am constantly faced by projects which are an entire unknown.   I love this idea because as I lean into the project, listen carefully – even do actual listening to the people involved, it will tell me how to co-create it.

(A funny note:  I tried to make this thought process into a poem – I thought it would be fitting -but it would not go at all; it didn’t want to be a poem.)

washed not quite up

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Yesterday’s poem, ‘washed up‘ is one of my first poems on extraplorer where I feel like I have not quite got to the proper form of the poem.  Most of the poems I write here seem to write themselves a little bit.  They slide out onto the page, and I usually work to some kind of internal rhythm as I write them, a kind of inner knowing of the form which I can pay attention to, and there it is.

The idea of washed up has been stolen by the Emily poem.  I had an idea for a collection of poems called ‘washed up’, and I might still try to make this because it is a glowing idea still.  But I was also very impatient to used the idea of washed up and somehow the Emily poem came along as I wrote the title.

I like most of the poem (and thank you readers who also liked it), but I think that it has got more to come.  I can tell that what I would really like to do is to make the poem more formally restrained than my normal very fluid writing.  The first stanza captures the feeling of this.

‘She set sail
for distant shores
from home.
She stayed indoors.’

The 3/4/2/4 syllables in each line I think set the pattern for what the other stanzas should be like (maybe with some variation).  For me, this rhythm emulates the rhythm of the sea.   I like the idea that the formal restraint could also emulate some of Dickinson’s writing (for example), while the sea rhythms would make it embody the idea of it being washed along the currents.

Another thing that maybe needs to be sorted out (I have only just realised) is that there is a clash of imagery between something in a bottle ‘Glass bottled / tears’ and a notebook which is what I originally envisaged.  I would like to think about these more and see if they should both stay or only one.

As with the formal constraint, I think the use of some rhyme here and there (‘shores’/’indoors’, ‘tread’/’instead’) makes it also have an element of homage to Dickinson’s writing.

I would also like to work out whether I really like the repetition of ‘small hand’ ‘distant shores’.  I think it might be too heavy-handed.

At the end of the day, I was too impatient to post the poem.  I really wanted to have written something, which is a very different feeling to feeling something is ready.  But also, I feel excited that the poem might be something I could craft. For me this is progress because until now I’ve been scared to do too much crafting in case I get self-conscious and can’t write.  Instead this poem is giving me a little gift because it wants to be crafted!  Amazing!  Maybe there are some poems that want to be and some that don’t (poem as a pet  metaphor has snuck in again, hooray, my favourite).

The poem is teaching me how to write a poem.

Awe.

(I would say ‘back soon’ but it might take me a little bit of time to work this out…)

year of the poem – diary

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Perhaps I already had an inkling about the year of the poem.  But I had forgotten all about it.  My sister-in-law hadn’t however, and among my lovely Christmas presents was a Faber and Faber Poetry diary.  This asked-for gift came into the category of things I absolutely did not need – I already had very serviceable book and iCalendar diaries after all – but had an instant on-sight irrational desire for.  I wanted to own a Poetry Diary even if I never even really looked at the poetry diary.  I wanted a Poetry Diary even if a real poet would never use such a self-conscious wannabe item.  I wanted a Poetry Diary because somehow it conferred on me a magical inclusion in the year of poetry doings and poetry imaginings that and things that are important to Poets.

Needless to state, such a wanted but not actually that useful item stayed in its bag until the 10th January.

But on Sunday, there was a moment of glimmering quiet when I felt like getting it out.  It turns out that I do have a use for a Poetry Diary, and I am using it to record my postings and ideas for things.  I do have a normal daily journal where I write down poem things, but if I finish the journal before I use the idea, it gets a bit lost.  In the Poetry Diary, I can record ideas as I have them, as they flit in and out, and then when I have forgotten how to write, I can flick through and stir them all back up into a flutter.

And I can record mini milestones – ‘most likes ever; 18’ – and overlook poems that turn to blog dust – [no likes whatsoever, not even accidentally] – but see a developing journey that helps me recall that I am on my way to somewhere, and coming from somewhere and although it is a vast unknown, there is a little thread of titles and ideas and thoughts that is held in place neatly by days and weeks and months, and I can ponder the mysterious and beguiling thought that the diary has gone ahead of me…

And then, when I look at the diary’s other pages, I am immersed in the evidence of a quiet hum of poetry across time and space, inhabiting the hearts of those who sit quietly and allow the deepest realities to surface, or who catch joyful moments in their nets and tickle them into words.

And I feel love.

It seems that my relationship to the Faber and Faber Poetry Diary 2016 goes far beyond need.

poem by the light switch

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(For Ruth)

Water is taught by
click – on
thirst; Land 
wipe off grubby finger mark
click – off
by the oceans passed;
Transport, by the throe;
click – still off,
click, change bulb,
click – on
Peace, by 
‘What do you mean,
“what am I doing in there?”‘
its battles told.
Love, by memorial
click – off,
(distant) ‘I’m here now’
mould; Birds,
by the 
click – on
(forgot something)
‘oh look it’s…’
click – off
snow.

Note: This poem is an homage to my friend’s music teaching room where she had taped lines by Emily Dickinson to her wall, above the light switch. On investigation, the lines are from poem CXXXIII in the ‘Time and Eternity’ section in Collected Works (1924).

inside out

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I sat at the long table the other day
under a window that spewed sunlight
onto me, and onto my chair.
Sat with the same old brand-new
journal
in the same old stance
at the same old beginning of
the new year.

The customary pen
hovered quite
unexpectedly,
did not pick up the
thread, turned back
to me pointing
questions.

Which I could not
answer straight away,
which I had seen flit by,
but they had been
minding their own business.
Now they looked me in
the eye.

Reached inside and pulled.

My feet left
the ground,
somersault in
existential wonder,
zero gravity,
disintegration and
very me,
distilled,
substantial,
astonished,
delighted, dizzy
with relief and marvelling;
a new-born truth:

I have become her.

I had no idea
it was even possible.