fallen verses

It’s no secret that I haven’t been writing here much. Even if it were, the easily accessible archives would have foiled my attempt at secrecy. When I started Fallen Verses, almost a year ago (crap! over a year ago, and I missed the mandatory blogoversary post/navel-gazing!), I intended it to be a site about poetry, and the poetry I was writing, and other “neat” or interesting things I cam across. I never really meant to have a personal journal sort of sight where I contemplate my own life in public, or, being a poet somewhat in the confessional school, only in the areas in which it informs my writing.

I achieved a variable amount of success with that.

I wonder if that reticence may have been detrimental, or if there really is enough self-pitying on the ‘net without my adding to it. That ship, however has sailed. Fallen Verses is not a personal journal, hasn’t been, won’t become one. That does leave me with a bit of hole in the content. Other sites are much better sites to catch up on poetry and I haven’t been writing any. I have also not found a whole lot out there that I want to share with the world. So, expect continued slow and sporadic and pointless meanderings here for a while.

But I specifically want to talk about why I haven’t been writing poetry recently.

We all, I’m sure, are familiar with the dictum “write what you know.” What we all know best is our own lives, and since I began writing that has been the main fuel for my writing. Not as baldly as the true “confessional school” poets, and not exclusively, but it has been a large focus. I feel whenever I attempt to write these days (and I do attempt) that there is nothing of interest in my life to write about anymore. I’ve written everything I needed to say (so far).

Though, I don’t think that is true. I think the rest of what I need to say would be uninteresting, self-pitying drek, and I am performing a public service by not allowing it to pollute the interwebs.

The problem I’m finding is that I am left with little inspiration. I am a terribly undisciplined writer and without that unconscious prompting, it never happens.

I was going through the feeds in Google Reader today and one of the posts by Seth Godin seemed appropriate. Go read it, then come back here.

Okay. I think in poetry we have the same kind of curves, whether they should be called real and slick, or appolonian and dionysian, or modern and classical, whatever, who cares. however you want to divide things (and there are probably many valid ways to do that) there is a division and the two sides are distinct. I favor the Dionysian/Appolonian split.. One side born of passion and emotion and intensity and all those ephemeral words. The other about perfection, refinement, discernment (”cold” words, you could say).

Most of my poetry has been written from the first style (some even being “well-written” but, still, poetry of passion). I’ve burned through that and there is no more firewood for a while. A time to step from the art to the craft of poetry, right?

But my internal editor won’t let me get past that dip in the middle. I cannot knowingly allow myself to write things with the expectation that they will be terrible. Neither the impassioned imagery, nor the crafted sentences, but some terrible hodge-podge. <shudder> I know that, to be a better writer, I should be working in and through that point, but writing something so bas even I don’t want to read? Hard to do. And that is why I haven’t been writing. As always, I’m curious to know what other people think (and that curiosity isn’t really a limited thing) so feel free to chime in on the comments below.