i should be working you know...
A funny thing. I don't know if you ever read the 'comic' story Rogan Ghosh serialised in the short-lived Revolver about 15 years ago. There's no reason why you should have. Anyway, to simplify, toward the end of the story one of the characters attains enlightenment and rushes home to see his lover. His enlightenment is manifest by his growing four additional heads, but as he rushes home he reverts to his old state as each head in turn vanishes. This occurs to me because I'm well aware that my current spate of creativity will die down eventually. Much the same happened after summer 96, and it felt like a great disappointment. When I was in the midst of my flow it felt much as it does now; I feel invincible, happy, don't care if a poem doesn't work, hardly able to keep up with the rush of ideas. I feel smarter, stronger, more capable. But I know that sooner or later the extra heads I've grown will start to vanish. It'll be harder and harder to think of things to write, harder and harder to write with any competence or confidence. But for now I'm mostly enjoying myself; 16 poems in 14 days and three more on the way, two supplementary visual pieces (a painting and a collage) I want to do, and other stuff I've temporarily put to one side.
One aspect of this level of productivity is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is that with so many pieces being created so quickly, often in batches, and frequently setting off new chains of thought, the poems become one poem. They retain an individual identity, but increasingly they become parts of a single extended and fragmented poem. The advantage in this is that it's easy to be even more experimental within individual poems. If a poem doesn't have to stand alone, if it's supported by a wider context, then it can cut adrift from tradition further than might otherwise be possible. The disadvantage is that some poems, and not only experimental ones, struggle to work out of context.
I really must get some of this stuff posted, otherwise you'll start to think I'm making it up...
One aspect of this level of productivity is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is that with so many pieces being created so quickly, often in batches, and frequently setting off new chains of thought, the poems become one poem. They retain an individual identity, but increasingly they become parts of a single extended and fragmented poem. The advantage in this is that it's easy to be even more experimental within individual poems. If a poem doesn't have to stand alone, if it's supported by a wider context, then it can cut adrift from tradition further than might otherwise be possible. The disadvantage is that some poems, and not only experimental ones, struggle to work out of context.
I really must get some of this stuff posted, otherwise you'll start to think I'm making it up...
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