k: http://somethingkaty.blogspot.com/2006/10/open-season.html
a: You know what, and this might be more suited for a prolonged e-mail discussion, or something on Poetship, but I've been in such a rut, feeling completely uninspired, not knowing what to write about. So now, not only do I find this utterly beatiful, but almost miraculous in its subject matter. (((katyssima)))
k: about your drought... i have been reading some of craig perez's poetry and am still reading leonard's new stuff (slowly, savouring him) and so, i have been feeling inspired by the poets i'm currently engaged with (as well as italo's novel, which i love so much, i just wish i had a bit more time to sit and read... have had to take it a few pages at a time, which is frustrating, i think friday i will indulge myself and finish the book). also, well, this season. i actually saw some people, this weekend as we were driving home from the horror convention, holding dried flowers over a dead deer and one woman was crossing herself just as we passed. this made me cringe. i know the people thought they were being holy and good natured and sympathetic, but really, they were being ignorant--that might sound harsh, does it? but really they were. it was a pagan act, first of all, so why bring the cross into it? second of all, the deer doesn't need to be blessed and flowered. the deer most likely didn't even believe in heaven. it was a pathetic, black scene. i suppose they did something though, those people; they got me to think about the deer.
then only a mile down the highway were rows and rows of hunters' trucks all parked at the edge of the woods at the side of the highway. the circle of life or something absurd. as for the truck driver at the end... i just saw a truck pulled over, i didn't see any one crying... and i actually had a better line for the ending of the poem, but i decided that the reader should assume that, maybe, a deer had killed his father in a car crash or hunting accident or something similar... the line i had first written was
crying in the window of his rig
for every girl he ever fucked
i guess i didn't really want to publish the f word either, but once i wrote it, no other word would do. you get the secret, rated pg-13 version of the poem ^_^
aaah, what was my point? oh yes. your dry spell... i feel so stale over the summer. it's as if i simply don't see all the poetry around me, or don't have the vocabulary for it. once the leave start to turn though, and the word is a little less two-toned (green and blue), i begin to see the detail again. in the summer i don't pay attention to the side of the road, i look away from the car accidents and the hitchhikers. in the fall, there are funerals and hunters and turkeys between the parked tires of broken down verizon vans. there's so much.
i honestly don't think, having thought about it a lot lately, that the academic setting has anything to do with my productivity. at least not as far as the way my mind composes poetry. i have less time to type it up and post it, but i've been writing a lot in my little journal. it might well be ready for your birthday at this rate!
you on the other hand dear, don't seem to have a season... at least not that i can tell. although you play with clouds and colors and nature in your poems, i think, i feel, that your poems are motivated by the (in)humanity that surrounds you.
also, you're doing all these readings, and i'm not sure what kind of an effect that might have on your work. i've not done lots of readings before... although i've gone to lots of readings before (a few a week, if at least not one a week) and that certainly effected my poetry in a positive way (i was experimenting a lot, i guess). i imagine though, that if i were the one reading, i would have been writing less and perfecting more.
see our previous discussion on inspiration here.
