Past, Present, Private, Public, Poetry, and Prose
I went back and changed a few entries from "private" to "friends only." Ones that seem less scary to share, now that time has passed. Others I re-read, and the emotions still felt too raw. I my cursor hovered over them, and I thought "no, not today, not yet." I see I was writing back in the earliest days of parenting more than I remembered. So many things about that time are a bit blurry, and yet others are so sharply focused, the edges still hurt.
Also I am flipping back through my paper journal for poems written last year. I got going on poetry writing last year, and the first couple made it to LJ, the rest not so much. I'd like to find some of the good ones, and put them up here. I'm trying to re-start my poetry writing, so new poems may appear here too, as they emerge. Looking back over old entries, I see I tried to re-start both my LJ writing and poetry writing at about he same time as this year - February.
I stopped writing poetry sometime in college. I sort of started up again as a new parent, actually. I would have such a short window of time to write in my diary at the end of the day, that I resorted to writing my journal entries as poems instead - efficent, and straight to the heart of things, and requireing less from the rational part of my brain, the part that was having a hard time functioning due to prolonged sleep deprivation. Those ones were not meant as a literary pursuit, more of an act of despiration. I haven't looked at them since; it would be intersting to me now to have another look at them.
Last February was different. I was feeling the same urge as now: less input, more output. I was casting about for a creative outlet, and I was feeling a need to write. Blogging? Memoir? Short stories? Then one night, a poem came to me, and I wrote it down. I put int in here: Late Night Poetry, dated Febrary 27th, 2015. I sent it to a friend, a poet and a mother, who I knew would understand. And it turned out she was finding her own way back to poetry, right at the same time.
Poetry requires you subvert the rational, the linear, the expected. Things which I could use a little practice at.
Also I am flipping back through my paper journal for poems written last year. I got going on poetry writing last year, and the first couple made it to LJ, the rest not so much. I'd like to find some of the good ones, and put them up here. I'm trying to re-start my poetry writing, so new poems may appear here too, as they emerge. Looking back over old entries, I see I tried to re-start both my LJ writing and poetry writing at about he same time as this year - February.
I stopped writing poetry sometime in college. I sort of started up again as a new parent, actually. I would have such a short window of time to write in my diary at the end of the day, that I resorted to writing my journal entries as poems instead - efficent, and straight to the heart of things, and requireing less from the rational part of my brain, the part that was having a hard time functioning due to prolonged sleep deprivation. Those ones were not meant as a literary pursuit, more of an act of despiration. I haven't looked at them since; it would be intersting to me now to have another look at them.
Last February was different. I was feeling the same urge as now: less input, more output. I was casting about for a creative outlet, and I was feeling a need to write. Blogging? Memoir? Short stories? Then one night, a poem came to me, and I wrote it down. I put int in here: Late Night Poetry, dated Febrary 27th, 2015. I sent it to a friend, a poet and a mother, who I knew would understand. And it turned out she was finding her own way back to poetry, right at the same time.
Poetry requires you subvert the rational, the linear, the expected. Things which I could use a little practice at.