I can no longer hear
my own poetic voice.
I hunt in my last four years
for a new chapbook;
everything I find
is grey, unmoving, dead.
Those I thought
were finished poems
turn out to be drafts,
those I thought drafts
are discards.
How can my friends
have praised
these lifeless lumps
of verse?
Now I am on
the other side
of the fence
with those who asked,
bewildered,
what makes this
not prose?
Rapidly this lack
of song, colour, blood
pervades all else there is.
This must be
depression, I think,
that affliction
which others know.
I know I must stop
writing poems.
Now. Here,
let me explain ...
I know this feeling well.
ReplyDeleteDid writing the poem force this feeling out of you?
yeah, that's a familiar sensation/perception for me.
ReplyDeletesometimes it's lasted months but it passes. generally means I'm breaking thru to some new inner level, a reorientation as part before growth phase.
a lot of stock is placed in the world poem. communication matters. call it what you will in finer level after that.
Dear Jenny,
ReplyDeleteNo, but I was amused that, when I tried to blog about the experience, it WOULD come out as verse.
Dear Pearl,
I do love your final remark! Something to keep in mind.
The experience immediately followed writing the previous poem, Living Beauty. I was very pleased with that one and everyone "got" it and liked it, including even poetry-haters in my writing group. Also I thought it was a bit of a leap, as I did risky things with repetition and they worked instead of killing it.
Maybe what happened next was simply anti-climax. I was already thinking, though, that hopefully it signals a shift to a new level, so I'm glad to know your experience confirms that. I am also glad to know the feeling passes!