A poet friend of mine dropped me an email as she liked the typo in my blog the other day. Instead of "suede boots" I typed "suede books." I was quite amused. If I ever open a bookstore (or start a press), I've got my name.
I'm just back from a walk and I've decided on my manuscript title. I'm not posting it but if you're interested, drop me an email. The manuscript is in alphabetical order and deals with the issues of trying to write about subjects that are important, but to have language and words get in the way. Funny for an English major to say, but sometimes I feel I have to make up my own words to find the right words.
It's similar to trying to talk with God, who has the words? How do you speak in a spiritual sense? Language is a tool, but it's also a buffer. It keeps separated from the true feeling of something. If you're reading about something or speaking about it, you're not experiencing it.
For me, someone who is never quite sure of her feelings, poems allow me to explore what is happening, how I see something. I've always been intrigued by people who know how they are feeling, I don't. I may feel a certain way, but I can't put a title to it--like anger, grief, or bitterness--but what I can do is connect it with an actual thing like a padlock, stillbirth, pincers.
I think this is why I write. I can't tell you how I'm feeling, but I can show you. And I never feel one way about something--I live it the world of gray, the fog moving across an island, one day I may visit there, the next I'm on a hillside. I see all sides of the moon and if I can't see it, then I imagine it the craters. I would much rather answer you in a letter as it allows me the time to understand what I'm thinking. The act of writing is so much easier for me than speaking. And I think I pull myself back from the world because the intensity of my "feelings" can be too great. I spend too much time rethinking what I said and how it came out. I think this is why I love the poem, because it doesn't become yours until it's done, it's perfect, until I understand what I am trying to say.
