santiago's dead poetry
If it hasn't already been mentioned you might anyway have noticed that santiago's been taking a bit of a hiatus from poetry recently. There are two reasons for this.
First I hadn't been finishing many pieces because it wasn't challenging anymore. Or rather it was much too easy to write in a standard style about a small range of standard subjects.
Second it actually became unhealthy. With a limited social network my primary mode of working out problems is through writing, which can often mean poetry. When you're confronted by personal problems that seem intractable it's easy to get into unproductive and circular arguments about what's wrong and how to fix it. Poetry became part of that unproductive cycle. Typically I didn't realise this until last week long after the hiatus actually began.
What tipped me off was realising another source of stress was just not there. So now I'm taking an official break from poetry just in time for my interview for the MA programme in creative writing. Timing. I'll let you know how it goes. It's already liberating and lifting my mood. At the same time it's unleashed a desparate though wholly positive urge to get on with creating something, anything with whatever comes to hand. It's good to be free.
First I hadn't been finishing many pieces because it wasn't challenging anymore. Or rather it was much too easy to write in a standard style about a small range of standard subjects.
Second it actually became unhealthy. With a limited social network my primary mode of working out problems is through writing, which can often mean poetry. When you're confronted by personal problems that seem intractable it's easy to get into unproductive and circular arguments about what's wrong and how to fix it. Poetry became part of that unproductive cycle. Typically I didn't realise this until last week long after the hiatus actually began.
What tipped me off was realising another source of stress was just not there. So now I'm taking an official break from poetry just in time for my interview for the MA programme in creative writing. Timing. I'll let you know how it goes. It's already liberating and lifting my mood. At the same time it's unleashed a desparate though wholly positive urge to get on with creating something, anything with whatever comes to hand. It's good to be free.
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