how it's going to be
Recently I’ve been writing a lot, in a way that I haven’t for a few years. The variety of what I’m writing has increased as well. Where I would normally be writing poetry and letters I’ve started to produce a lot of prose, especially essays on the practise of writing. There is also the children’s book I’m attempting to write with my partner, and a script on the attitudes to asylum-seekers and refugees in Britain. But it’s the essays on writing that are really interesting me, and which I will bring together here over the coming weeks.
It’s not that I think art’s more important than politics, or that I’m retreating in any way from my beliefs. Rather, amongst all the other things that occur to me, I want to focus more clearly on my two main areas of interest; human rights and art. There will still be political poems, satires and reflections, and they’ll feature alongside stuff on the theory and practise of writing. Around 99% of my links will be political.
Going back to the art though, I’m producing so much in the way of theoretical writing as a result of being so prolific elsewhere. It focuses your mind on what you’re doing and why, and so notes on different aspects of your art come out alongside the work itself. Especially when you’re a writer the temptation can be to incorporate this into your work. In small doses this is fine, but there’s nothing gets old faster than writing about writing. So, although I do put self-referential stuff in my poems, the more extended discussions are being saved for this other forum. It’s a way of stopping my poems from being polluted by too much navel-gazing if you like.
Although my blog would already appear to be polluted. Damn.
It’s not that I think art’s more important than politics, or that I’m retreating in any way from my beliefs. Rather, amongst all the other things that occur to me, I want to focus more clearly on my two main areas of interest; human rights and art. There will still be political poems, satires and reflections, and they’ll feature alongside stuff on the theory and practise of writing. Around 99% of my links will be political.
Going back to the art though, I’m producing so much in the way of theoretical writing as a result of being so prolific elsewhere. It focuses your mind on what you’re doing and why, and so notes on different aspects of your art come out alongside the work itself. Especially when you’re a writer the temptation can be to incorporate this into your work. In small doses this is fine, but there’s nothing gets old faster than writing about writing. So, although I do put self-referential stuff in my poems, the more extended discussions are being saved for this other forum. It’s a way of stopping my poems from being polluted by too much navel-gazing if you like.
Although my blog would already appear to be polluted. Damn.
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