extraplorer

extraplorer on tour

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I’m back!

OK so the ‘year of the poem’ has not turned out exactly as envisaged in my January posts.  The year of the poem turned, quite quickly, into the year of hardly any poem at all.

Until now.

After months of almost continuous business work and travel, devoid not only of any written down poems, but of any poetic moments at all (maybe they were there, but so fleeting that they escaped before I even had a chance to notice), I am on a poetry course.  Four whole days of thinking and writing about poems.

So I thought you might like to join back on the adventure of extraploring…

To get us started, last night we did a welcome unlike any I’ve attended on a course (this is my first ever poetry course).  We didn’t ‘go round the table and say our names’, no, too prosaic by far, we went round and said our favourite words.

I was in immediate and total bliss: ‘swipe’, ‘splash’, ‘twilight’, ‘botch’, ‘gossamer’, dollop’, ‘interstices’, ‘lime’, ‘splendid’.  A (to be honest) motley collection of us all suddenly united under the banner of ‘I love words’.

And then… well, I will keep you posted with our exercises and writing and you can see how we get on.  One thing to note: This is an ‘editing poetry’ course so some of the questions I have sometimes asked might get answered here.

Wish me luck!

 

 

year of the poem – thoughts

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Having christened 2016 the year of the poem, I have been continuing to ponder the actions that will honour the name. How can I weave a path that eschews the rigidity of pre-planned milestones and preempts the risk of listlessness?

A living structure is starting to emerge.

It turns out that somewhere in me, a poetic year is unfurling itself. I want to talk about poetry, I want to ask people about poems, I want to explore poem things. The year of the poem is on its way seemingly of its own accord. Milestones even as an idea are already redundant and floaty listlessness seems remote as the momentum gathers itself.

While it is still early in the year, I am coming to understand that the year of the poem declared itself. It was going to happen and I merely announced its arrival.

So instead of worrying about the year of the poem becoming a place of constraint, or requiring a battle of wills (‘the year of the poem‘), or a list of ‘poetry resvolutions‘, I discover a curious peace, requiring nothing more than my own love and attention.

Some more small notes:

* An interesting question occurred to me:  What if my mother (and fan of extraplorer) was not complimentary about my writing merely from motherly duty, but because she –  an adult woman lover of literature in her own right – really saw a gift?

* What if I was not excited about my own poetry merely because I love myself (ego, ha!) but because I could recognise something good there?

I do not usually think of myself as someone who is unduly self-critical, but as I give myself a little shake, I notice the dust of a million tiny arguments belittling my writing drifting away from me.

happy birthday extraplorer

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Well!  Having been away for a week or so with work, I peeked in on extraplorer today and guess what? A trophy was there to say ‘happy one year anniversary’ to extraplorer blog.  And of course it put me in reflective mode…

One year of extraplorer has brought so much richness to my life.  The little ‘likes’ to my poems have given me so much more confidence about my writing.  The encouragement of poet-eye-view that the possibility of posting creates has caused me to be more intentional about how I see beauty in the world – this has genuinely shaped me to ‘discover more beauty through writing’.

One sadness is not posting as often as I would like.  Today I was thinking about it and wondering if it is even OK to have a blog if your posts are not super-frequent.  The image that came to mind was one of the sea… there are swells and sets and gaps between sets and choppy little waves, and flat calms, but no one says that we should not bother having a sea because it is not consistent.  I think this image is going to help me be more peaceful about posting when I can, and not worrying when I can’t.  This is especially important for me this year of finishing an academic book project, developing my other daily work, often involving traveling overseas, and continuing to pioneer some unique projects (as well as hoping to find love…).

One thing that I sometimes wonder about is whether extraplorer should grow to be about creative living, as well as just my own creative work.  I am not sure?  I am a bit concerned that things which are about ‘how to’ can become restrictive… I like mystery, and don’t want to flatten out the mystery of living too much.  Still not sure…

My hopes for this coming year are to continue to discover even more beauty through writing, to have a poem published, to write more poetry based in the workplace, and to generally explore some of the themes I have already been looking at like ‘things I want to tell my children but might forget’.  I want to create more found poetry in different ways and to just daydream and see what happens.

I want to keep on extraploring…

extraplorer 2015

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There’s no doubt about it, one of the highlights of 2014 was starting extraplorer, and even though I have had a few lean writing weeks (which coincide with fat everything-else weeks), I have loved being able to post over Christmas when and where I have had a moment of inspiration or observation.

extraplorer has taught me a lot in the just under three months that I have been posting.  In my first post, ‘teetering’ I wrote about the moment that a small child lets go of the furniture they have been using to navigate walking (confining them to a world of edges of things) and takes a first independent step.  extraplorer really has helped me to grow in confidence with my writing.  It has been so wonderful to have a quiet space to try out things.  My WordPress ‘Annual Report 2014’ filled me with joy and delight, despite the modesty of its successes.

It is not only the passion for the piano that opens doors.  Being able to say that I ‘write found poems’ or ‘have a blog’ has opened doors too, including being given a personal escort to take photos in a ‘no photography’ exhibition, and an incredible cosy chat with a local goldsmith.

I don’t want to weigh down extraplorer with hopes, or expectations or even resolutions for 2015, but one thing I have realised is that extraplorer acts as a kind of barometer of how much space I am making for myself to be myself.  It’s not that my other roles aren’t me, but there is something special about the quiet moment at home, or in a foreign cafe, where I sit down and open my laptop and begin to write.  There is something deep about myself that comes to the fore then, which is not always fully present at other times, or which I am not present to.

My wish for extraplorer is to continue to grow in courage and curiosity, to be open to new and old truths, to be alert to beauty wherever it may be found.  And as extraplorer helps me to grow myself and my writing, I want to extend my reach in sharing this with the world.