Writers' Blocks

Are you tired of the poems yet? Well, too bad, because you're getting more. I have this strong inclination to keep posting old work throughout Lent, I'm not sure where it's headed, but that's what I aim to do. In trying to "write more," I've discovered all these obstacles to trying to write post college-life. First of all, no deadlines. If I have as long as I need to do my work, why do it now? Second, I seem to have forgotten how to find inspiration, write poetically, revise, or do anything good, ever. I had a couple of false starts, as well as some playing around with old work that was supposed to go somewhere, but it all seems to have fallen out of the old brainpan. Sometimes I even manage to scrape together an idea, but when I go to put it on the page, it doesn't sound like a poem. I would say that I've just lost the touch, but one of my favorite pieces that I've ever written was written post-college. Which brings me to the greatest stumbling block: work ethic. I bet if I sat down every day, even for as little as half an hour, ye olde skills would start coming back to me. But, that hasn't been happening. Sometimes I wish my schedule wasn't so erratic. But, I have to remember, I've come a long way already. Six months ago, I thought the Craft was stone-cold dead and I would never be a writer again. Silly me. You can't kill your art. You can only cryogenically freeze it so that it falls into a very deep sleep and it takes tons and tons of work to figure out who you are enough to wake it up again. That's all. Piece of cake...?

This week's installment of "old-poetry-meant-to-inspire-me-with-my-former-skill" is from my senior capstone project. It's a little darker, but it feels appropriate.

Finding the Geraniums, Gone

With the winter coming on,
I guess they felt they had to do it.
But now the green mounds, the
neat plots of geraniums are
decimated. Each plant has left
a crater in the world of wood chips,
a conspicuous absence of flower
and form.

And I wonder, who did this?
who decided that unnatural yanking,
prying palms and fingers should
do the work a jealous frost had
set aside for himself

It must have been a dirty job.
I think they struggled, as
they were torn from the ground.
I can tell, because around
each pothole there is a strewing
of dark flannel leaves,
the bright drops shed
from blood red petals
like a scattering of hens’ feathers,
in a butcher’s yard.

Another Poem

Because isn't that what you want on a Friday afternoon, when the world is nearing spring? When I was a senior in college, I did a capstone project around the theme of object poems (don't ask me why that, I'm just sitting here trying to remember, and I can't for the life of me). I did a whole series on the theme of wooden spoons. I do have a strange sort of fascination with them. This poem is really odd. I really had forgotten all about it till I was going through my stuff. But I love the progression of it. You'll see...(oh, it's a prose poem. Don't be thrown off by the lack of line breaks.)

a lifetime in spoons

Should I tell you how from my infancy I have wanted a wooden spoon, how I tossed aside rattles and binkies in inarticulate rage, waiting for someone to recognize what I really needed?

In toddlerhood, my first steps were goaded on by the promised prize of a wooden spoon, but when I finally crossed the room, they had quick-switched it out for a baby doll, as if I would never know I had been cheated.

I have been a difficult adolescent, engaged in shouting matches with my mother about whether I could wear my dangly spoon earrings to church, whether my first boyfriend could bring me a box of spoons for our date, each hardwood nestled in its little paper cup. Madly criticizing her drawer full of other spoons, stainless steel, cheap nylon and sad plastic; melting in the pot, turning yellow and cracking, ruined by age until I passionately wept at the sight.

Someday, though, I will grow old enough to acquire a house and a fence and a kitchen of my own, to get all I’ve ever wanted. Then I will fill that kitchen as I please, stacking heavy ceramic bowls and lighting archaic candles in the evening, hanging the walls with spoon prints, and mounting my favorites on plaques like hunting trophies. When my parents finally come to dinner, squawking about my lack of taste, I will serve them soup, forego the silver, and set the table with wooden spoons.

Still Waiting...but in the meantime...

Hey, folks. Well, we continue to slog away over here. Many things have been going on, some good, some not so good. It is still Lent. And I think it still does make me feel pretty crappy a lot of the time, but I do think that it's worth it. I do think I'm getting somewhere. I'm having new thoughts. New ideas. Sometimes I feel like our backyard looks right now, squishy and muddy and full of dead leaves that should have been taken care of last fall and weren't, so now they're just sogging all over the place. But soon. Soon. Soon we'll dig out the fire pit so we can have bonfires and sangria. Soon we'll start seeds for the garden. Soon I will plant my sister's cosmo daisies along the back fence. Soon new life will start over. Sigh. Oh, please, let it be soon.

Anyway, one of the exciting new developments is that one of the art groups I work for is starting to do an interdisciplinary artist critique once a month. We had our first on ever this past Thursday, and it was a big success, with a photographer and a painter doing in depth presentations, then others just brought in one piece of work and we left comments on sticky notes. It was a great night. But, for a while, I thought that I was going to have to share some of my writing, just because it was our first time around and we weren't sure who would volunteer. So I was going through some of my old stuff that I haven't touched since graduation, almost three years ago. It was quite the walk down memory lane. Some stuff was "OMG, I can't believe how bad this is!" and some stuff was, "Why did I ever look down on this? It's so much better than I remember!" Especially the fiction. I always insist, whenever I mention it, that I can't write fiction at all, that I tried and it was terrible. But looking back on it I can say, yeah, this isn't perfect, it's not wonderful, but it's not that bad. It's actually pretty okay. So, I'd like to share. Here is a poem I wrote way back, I think in my junior year. Approximately 1 million years ago.

Need to Know

At my grandfather’s funeral,
I waited until no one watched
the casket very closely.
And then I sidled very near,
finally getting a boost from the kneeler;
so I could touch the pale hand
that lay on his chest, clutching
the gold crucifix.

The hand was stiff, and waxy as
the candles that lit our vigil.
I pulled my hand out quick
and turned around slow.
To see if anyone had noticed,
But no-all of the adults still pulled
their long faces and talked
in hushed voices about how
much we all had lost.

My cousins were all too young
to dare me, so I had dared myself.
There was no trace of mourning in me,
just sheer, ribald curiosity.
To touch the hand of death,
to learn to know the feeling,
and to pull back quick, and not get caught.