I lied about this post. I said it would come about two weeks ago. I've got no excuses beyond the limits of my body and my own vices such as television and beers. I began writing it at work, pen and paper and all of that. Feels good to make words on someone else's dime.
The first difference between writing a poem every day and doing the 750/morning pages I find myself wanting to talk about is the flexibility of each. With poem-per-day project I allowed myself great flexibility when it came to time and length of writing and writings. I allowed myself to be more at the whim of writerly stimuli when it saw fit to strike. I wrote at all hours of the day and rarely ever scheduled writing or poem time unless I knew for sure I was going to be particularly tight on time that day. While the regiment & ritual of making a poem everyday was incredibly flexible the expectations I had for the products/poems created was fairly high (a fact I neglected to realize properly until I began the 750). I definitely have to admit that intention was more of a factor when creating poems specifically. Labor was evident in my body and fingers and frustrations as I was creating and winnowing and plucking at the various fibers to discern which are and are not a poem. I was working to weave something. And to some extent that work is a naturally tapped into in the act of writing (for me anyway) but usually it needs to be fueled from the less intuitive side of me.
750 taps into that but n a rare and sporadic basis.
750 happens every morning (usually 4/50 examples to the contrary) & before I do most anything else if I can help it. i am quite strict about it. Sometimes not even letting myself up to releave my bladder. Sometimes (esp if I am not staying at my own hose for the night) I wil have some food or coffee or conversation (sometimes to procure access to 750words). Occasionally I'll have a shower or some physical contact before writing but usually the writing happens in bed somewhere between 7:30 & 11AM.
In contrast to the daily poems, the content and aesthetic quality of the 750 matters very little. I sometimes write encouraging words multiple times, repeating things like "GO" & "move your fingers" & "keep it up/going" & "Keep typing".
Typing is the final and perhaps most potent difference I am finding. 750 is always typed-- which I have been experiencing great feelings of contention about. It has been a near constant subject I write about. I find myself alluding to the fact that there is much less actual physical contact and motion when using a keyboard vs drawing out the alphabet with my hands and fingers. Most of my daily poems began pen-to-paper, even if it was just the idea shorthanded for later typing. The first real lives of those ideas came from dancing fingers and ink. It wasn't just pushing buttons. At my worst that is how I feel about typing as a tool for freewriting. I worry anxiously about how I spell things (even after I turn the spell check off). And for some reason misspellings feel wronger and and less intentional when lined up in helvetica. This awareness of how much my writing pays attention to my body was a wonderful surprise to me. I looked back over my poetry blog and found that I write about my fingers and hands and generally use fingers and hands and ink in my images and metaphors to a startling degree. The upshot of this frustration is that I am working through it. Getting less and less bothered by my apprehensions about technology.
On a small and wonderful note which is slightly unrelated but is often receiving pretty word bits from my 750, I have started a twitter!
Showing posts with label 750 words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 750 words. Show all posts
Monday, June 13, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Fitting a year in 600 words (unsuccessfully)
I have been writing daily for more than 400 days running. For every day last year I wrote a poem. Poetry every day. It seemed slightly unfathomable at the time I began but I just kept going. Today I want to do a little bit of thinking and reflecting about the experience of making a poem every day. I am currently freewriting 750 words every morning these days instead of making poems daily (although I am still making the inevitable bi-weekly poem).
One of the things I became proud of, frustrated and enthused by was the amount of poetry I ended up seeking out to read/experience as a way of feeding my process. I am happy to report that I am slightly better read and cultured in general when it comes to poetry. I scooped up the words of Diane Wackoski and Frank O'Hara. I inched myself closer to the Seattle poetry slam community and whetted my ready eardrums with the sounds of Jeananne Verlee and fell in love with Andrea Gibson. The flashbacks to these first encounters are, even now, like fire in the churchyard of my memories. Each inspired me not stop myself. Helped me give up the habit of holding or hoping to hold the words I make as sacred. And now I have graduated to even more freely and frenetically churned out words. 750 every morning. Although I am still working on not lapsing backward in the instance of misspelled words.
I became frustrated with my lack of background reading and noticed how all the time certain subjects and phrases and syllabic tricks of light were reused in my work. Some almost to the point of being worn down. I scapegoated all the time, blaming my repetition on the limited amount of poetry I perceived myself to have read. Reading books of poetry would simultaneously inspire me to compile a manuscript of my own as and intimidate me way down to the marrow. I would sometimes think I could never have enough pieces that were good enough and cohesive enough to accompany each other to be bound together. It's a struggle to be working on a book.
A new challenge arose for me. Before last year I placed my identity as a writer and poet as secondary to my other activities. And by secondary I mean that I would not bring it up when introducing myself, feel nervous about writing in public, and almost NEVER share my writing unless the space was every clearly constructed to be a space of sharing (like a classroom or writer's group). I was anxious about initiating any interaction's segue into the subject of writing or poetry. Because I was so often confronted by my own practices in poetry, their enlarged presence in my life forced me to talk about it with people in my life. I would tell people on the bus "Why yes I am writing. I'm writing what might be poem." I began reading to friends in cafes (with small wibbles in my tummy) and asking for feedback. I have made not-yet-successful attempts at booting up a writing group. And am SO MUCH better at fending off feelings of illegitimacy when it comes to being a poet and writer. It is my first occupation these days. When someone asks me what I do I answer "I'm a poet/writer/(sometimes performer). I write."
I just realized the subject for this post is WAAAAY to big to be done in a single post. By next Saturday I'll be back here. Writing about my mangled sordid relationship with the keyboard. Preview: I am a newly self-described pen fetishist.
Also I need to tell you about navigating the difference between the regimented "every morning" writing and the "just churn it out by midnight" approach of poem-a-day.
So much to share!
<3
One of the things I became proud of, frustrated and enthused by was the amount of poetry I ended up seeking out to read/experience as a way of feeding my process. I am happy to report that I am slightly better read and cultured in general when it comes to poetry. I scooped up the words of Diane Wackoski and Frank O'Hara. I inched myself closer to the Seattle poetry slam community and whetted my ready eardrums with the sounds of Jeananne Verlee and fell in love with Andrea Gibson. The flashbacks to these first encounters are, even now, like fire in the churchyard of my memories. Each inspired me not stop myself. Helped me give up the habit of holding or hoping to hold the words I make as sacred. And now I have graduated to even more freely and frenetically churned out words. 750 every morning. Although I am still working on not lapsing backward in the instance of misspelled words.
I became frustrated with my lack of background reading and noticed how all the time certain subjects and phrases and syllabic tricks of light were reused in my work. Some almost to the point of being worn down. I scapegoated all the time, blaming my repetition on the limited amount of poetry I perceived myself to have read. Reading books of poetry would simultaneously inspire me to compile a manuscript of my own as and intimidate me way down to the marrow. I would sometimes think I could never have enough pieces that were good enough and cohesive enough to accompany each other to be bound together. It's a struggle to be working on a book.
A new challenge arose for me. Before last year I placed my identity as a writer and poet as secondary to my other activities. And by secondary I mean that I would not bring it up when introducing myself, feel nervous about writing in public, and almost NEVER share my writing unless the space was every clearly constructed to be a space of sharing (like a classroom or writer's group). I was anxious about initiating any interaction's segue into the subject of writing or poetry. Because I was so often confronted by my own practices in poetry, their enlarged presence in my life forced me to talk about it with people in my life. I would tell people on the bus "Why yes I am writing. I'm writing what might be poem." I began reading to friends in cafes (with small wibbles in my tummy) and asking for feedback. I have made not-yet-successful attempts at booting up a writing group. And am SO MUCH better at fending off feelings of illegitimacy when it comes to being a poet and writer. It is my first occupation these days. When someone asks me what I do I answer "I'm a poet/writer/(sometimes performer). I write."
I just realized the subject for this post is WAAAAY to big to be done in a single post. By next Saturday I'll be back here. Writing about my mangled sordid relationship with the keyboard. Preview: I am a newly self-described pen fetishist.
Also I need to tell you about navigating the difference between the regimented "every morning" writing and the "just churn it out by midnight" approach of poem-a-day.
So much to share!
<3
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