This was my first new poem after starting my Substack. I started out posting old work, and that gave me the confidence to then do something new - but sometimes when you "want' to write a poem, you find that the poem doesn't want to be written.
Or at least not yet.
But a day later it sat down with me at the cafe and said "Here I am."
As I said to my friend Jed Moffitt yesterday, when commenting on the same poem:
"Poems are tricksy elusive things. If you look at ‘em straight on - they just disappear! You have to use your peripheral inner vision….
And then sometimes they just sneak up behind you and whack you over the head. You wake up hours later with a bad hangover on an unknown ship bound for a distant shore -
I love this, I can never write a poem when I sit and think 'now I'm going to write a poem', normally the poem comes to me usually at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of the night or when I'm driving along and it's as though he says 'write me now'. It's like an annoying friend, if I ignore him, he goes away and that's that. Sometimes I don't see him for ages but I have to give him my full attention whenever he drops around unannounced as I don't know when he'll be back... actually that's an idea for a poem, I think the doorbell's ringing...💡 🤪...
Hi Laura. Oh yes! It is indeed like that.... Go answer that doorbell !! I'd love to see the result, when you are ready.
For sure, I have sat down to write many times and found.... nothing, or maybe just fragments, or the shadows of an idea just glimpsed in the peripheral inner vision but already gone - escaped.
Then days later (or weeks or months) the Poem suddenly appears and - like a teenager to a parent - laughs at you for worrying.
I suppose this is why the ancient Greeks came up with the idea of the Muses.... because it often feels like an external power.
I have just revised and tidied up a poem which I wrote a few years ago to celebrate a specific upcoming event. I did have some idea of the topic, and the aspect of it which I wanted to build the poem around - but that was all. I tried to write a few times but nothing came.
So I just let it rest. I mean - I thought about it most days - as a general issue, but I didn't try to come up with the words or even with any kind off detailed thought. This went on for about 6 weeks and there was a deadline approaching, but then one Saturday morning I knew it was time. I sat down, started to write, and it all came out - in detail and with a very specific "concept" which just seemed to arise spontaneously as I wrote. I literally cried (which sounds ridiculously self indulgent - I know - but I simply had no control over it).
And I knew it was good. That is - I was not confident that other people would like it or find it objectively "good" or of "literary merit" - but I knew in my heart that I had said what I wanted to say, and in a manner that (for me) was of my best. I've just made a few minor tweaks in the last couple of days (tightened a few loose commas and replaced a worn out word or two), but re-reading it now still gives me that profound sense of satisfaction. (I cried again. Hopeless!)
I've reflected on this often and the only conclusions that make sense to me are that Poets (and no doubt many creative people) have a very active subconscious mind and a greater ability than most people to communicate with it. Our subconscious is working away all the time. Sometimes it is working independently - an idea or an image or an experience has set off a train of subconscious thought without you realising it. Sometimes it is working at the initial request of your conscious brain, as happened with my event poem.
It worked like this. The consciousness I think of as "Me" set the topic - just like a lazy Manager - and then "Other Me" or "Poet me" down in the engine room, started working on it, without supervision or feedback because "Manager Me" had no idea what to do with the topic and Poet Me did.
At a certain point, just as Manager Me was getting anxious, Poet Me rang a bell and opened a door and said "Here it is, mate. You can take the credit. Now fuck off and leave me alone."
Well. It's either that or it was Calliope and Erato. (To be honest, I do hope it's them).
That's just how if has been for me, it has especially been happening to me quite a lot over the last few months for some reason. I have more of an academic writing background and never thought I could 'do' creative writing but I have times when something prompts me and then the words have been coming to me without me seemingly trying to put them together, it's almost like magic and quite humbling because it's like a gift that I really don't think I have much to do with except for being open - and I keep thinking it might not 'happen to me' again, it's probably just a one-off but then maybe a week or two later it happens again, but then maybe nothing for a month and I think 'that's it then' 🤣. As you say I don't know if they're any 'good', probably not technically brilliant or anything but I feel like they are almost divine messages to me. I've been reluctant to share them because they feel so personal and I don't know if anyone else will appreciate it, but perhaps I will take the plunge - I actually wrote one about this experience of writing after reading your post so maybe I will share it. Thanks for inspiring me, I guess that's what substack is all about.
Hi Laura. I'm so glad my words reflect your own experience - and if you ever feel like sharing that poem, I would love to read it.
I find it interesting that you have an academic writing background. What you report about your creative writing makes sense to me in that context. I have always had a facility with words but - at school and then in other studies, and then later again in employment - the emphasis has always been on logical thought - the organisation of facts, the analysis of information, and then drawing rational logical conclusions. Everyone has their own style with that kind of writing - but they all have in common one thing: logical, rational, analytical thought.
Poetry and creative writing operate very differently - and they reflect a very different type of thought process. Typically, Poets link images, objects or events which are not literally related at all - but by bringing them together in unexpected ways we create new meanings, deeper understanding, or simply raw emotion; it's the difference between the factual and the metaphorical.
So - for me at least - I have become increasingly aware that I have two very different "mental operating modes." I'm also aware that the more I exercise a specific mode - the stronger it becomes. This all made huge sense to me some years ago when I came across the concept of Neuroplasticity. We can and do literally reprogram our brains as we go through life.
I'm just coming off the back of a very long period of intensive paid employment, and then self employment, which depended on intensive logical thought, including ridiculous amounts of report and analysis writing in full "logical mode."
I still wrote Poetry through that period - but it definitely reduced in frequency and it became harder and harder to switch thought modes.
One reason I'm on Substack - the main reason in fact - is to reprogram my brain back to more reliable and regular creativity. Initially I thought that would happen just by disciplining myself to Post old work, and create new work. The surprise for me is the degree to which reading the work of many wonderful writers here on Substack is also stimulating my creativity. I'm loving it!
And then there is the flow of comment and conversation between writers here on Substack - another pleasant surprise for someone like me who is, at heart, pretty reclusive. This kind of dialogue is mostly rational and logical - which means that logical me still gets to go for a walk and get some exercise too - but now it is in the service of creativity. So logical me and creative me have an outing together, side by side.
Which is how we are writing this to you, right now... :)
I was a social researcher for 15 years so was writing a lot of research reports, journal articles etc. and as you say needed to use analytical skills and organising content in a logical way, drawing conclusions etc. I guess I didn't have a lot of space in my life for thinking more creatively/ spiritually. But yes the idea of the two mental operating modes and bringing them together makes sense. I'm kind of flexing a new or rather perhaps dormant muscle with the poetry so I'm a bit fascinated with where that's taking me of late but yes perhaps I can find ways to engage both modes. They have both been a bit neglected over the last few years as I've been focused on my young kids and my self-employment. Ironically I sell books (have around 50,000 at home) but have not had much time for reading or writing 🤪
keep searching for those poems. you're obviously looking in the right places.
Thankyou, Sam. I sure will keep searching. They can turn up anywhere - often when least expected!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Beautiful and wry smile inducing.
Yep. I had to buy it lunch, too....
You let the poem come to you, David. The ease is evident throughout the poem, and that the words are enjoying their juxtapositions.
Thankyou, Mahdi!
This was my first new poem after starting my Substack. I started out posting old work, and that gave me the confidence to then do something new - but sometimes when you "want' to write a poem, you find that the poem doesn't want to be written.
Or at least not yet.
But a day later it sat down with me at the cafe and said "Here I am."
Best wishes
Dave :)
but of course !!! 😁
Yes indeed....
As I said to my friend Jed Moffitt yesterday, when commenting on the same poem:
"Poems are tricksy elusive things. If you look at ‘em straight on - they just disappear! You have to use your peripheral inner vision….
And then sometimes they just sneak up behind you and whack you over the head. You wake up hours later with a bad hangover on an unknown ship bound for a distant shore -
Press ganged into Poetry, bedad!!!
Salt beef and hardtack.
Rum and regret.
But a wild sea to sail……"
I love this, I can never write a poem when I sit and think 'now I'm going to write a poem', normally the poem comes to me usually at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of the night or when I'm driving along and it's as though he says 'write me now'. It's like an annoying friend, if I ignore him, he goes away and that's that. Sometimes I don't see him for ages but I have to give him my full attention whenever he drops around unannounced as I don't know when he'll be back... actually that's an idea for a poem, I think the doorbell's ringing...💡 🤪...
Hi Laura. Oh yes! It is indeed like that.... Go answer that doorbell !! I'd love to see the result, when you are ready.
For sure, I have sat down to write many times and found.... nothing, or maybe just fragments, or the shadows of an idea just glimpsed in the peripheral inner vision but already gone - escaped.
Then days later (or weeks or months) the Poem suddenly appears and - like a teenager to a parent - laughs at you for worrying.
I suppose this is why the ancient Greeks came up with the idea of the Muses.... because it often feels like an external power.
I have just revised and tidied up a poem which I wrote a few years ago to celebrate a specific upcoming event. I did have some idea of the topic, and the aspect of it which I wanted to build the poem around - but that was all. I tried to write a few times but nothing came.
So I just let it rest. I mean - I thought about it most days - as a general issue, but I didn't try to come up with the words or even with any kind off detailed thought. This went on for about 6 weeks and there was a deadline approaching, but then one Saturday morning I knew it was time. I sat down, started to write, and it all came out - in detail and with a very specific "concept" which just seemed to arise spontaneously as I wrote. I literally cried (which sounds ridiculously self indulgent - I know - but I simply had no control over it).
And I knew it was good. That is - I was not confident that other people would like it or find it objectively "good" or of "literary merit" - but I knew in my heart that I had said what I wanted to say, and in a manner that (for me) was of my best. I've just made a few minor tweaks in the last couple of days (tightened a few loose commas and replaced a worn out word or two), but re-reading it now still gives me that profound sense of satisfaction. (I cried again. Hopeless!)
I've reflected on this often and the only conclusions that make sense to me are that Poets (and no doubt many creative people) have a very active subconscious mind and a greater ability than most people to communicate with it. Our subconscious is working away all the time. Sometimes it is working independently - an idea or an image or an experience has set off a train of subconscious thought without you realising it. Sometimes it is working at the initial request of your conscious brain, as happened with my event poem.
It worked like this. The consciousness I think of as "Me" set the topic - just like a lazy Manager - and then "Other Me" or "Poet me" down in the engine room, started working on it, without supervision or feedback because "Manager Me" had no idea what to do with the topic and Poet Me did.
At a certain point, just as Manager Me was getting anxious, Poet Me rang a bell and opened a door and said "Here it is, mate. You can take the credit. Now fuck off and leave me alone."
Well. It's either that or it was Calliope and Erato. (To be honest, I do hope it's them).
Best Wishes - Dave :)
That's just how if has been for me, it has especially been happening to me quite a lot over the last few months for some reason. I have more of an academic writing background and never thought I could 'do' creative writing but I have times when something prompts me and then the words have been coming to me without me seemingly trying to put them together, it's almost like magic and quite humbling because it's like a gift that I really don't think I have much to do with except for being open - and I keep thinking it might not 'happen to me' again, it's probably just a one-off but then maybe a week or two later it happens again, but then maybe nothing for a month and I think 'that's it then' 🤣. As you say I don't know if they're any 'good', probably not technically brilliant or anything but I feel like they are almost divine messages to me. I've been reluctant to share them because they feel so personal and I don't know if anyone else will appreciate it, but perhaps I will take the plunge - I actually wrote one about this experience of writing after reading your post so maybe I will share it. Thanks for inspiring me, I guess that's what substack is all about.
Hi Laura. I'm so glad my words reflect your own experience - and if you ever feel like sharing that poem, I would love to read it.
I find it interesting that you have an academic writing background. What you report about your creative writing makes sense to me in that context. I have always had a facility with words but - at school and then in other studies, and then later again in employment - the emphasis has always been on logical thought - the organisation of facts, the analysis of information, and then drawing rational logical conclusions. Everyone has their own style with that kind of writing - but they all have in common one thing: logical, rational, analytical thought.
Poetry and creative writing operate very differently - and they reflect a very different type of thought process. Typically, Poets link images, objects or events which are not literally related at all - but by bringing them together in unexpected ways we create new meanings, deeper understanding, or simply raw emotion; it's the difference between the factual and the metaphorical.
So - for me at least - I have become increasingly aware that I have two very different "mental operating modes." I'm also aware that the more I exercise a specific mode - the stronger it becomes. This all made huge sense to me some years ago when I came across the concept of Neuroplasticity. We can and do literally reprogram our brains as we go through life.
I'm just coming off the back of a very long period of intensive paid employment, and then self employment, which depended on intensive logical thought, including ridiculous amounts of report and analysis writing in full "logical mode."
I still wrote Poetry through that period - but it definitely reduced in frequency and it became harder and harder to switch thought modes.
One reason I'm on Substack - the main reason in fact - is to reprogram my brain back to more reliable and regular creativity. Initially I thought that would happen just by disciplining myself to Post old work, and create new work. The surprise for me is the degree to which reading the work of many wonderful writers here on Substack is also stimulating my creativity. I'm loving it!
And then there is the flow of comment and conversation between writers here on Substack - another pleasant surprise for someone like me who is, at heart, pretty reclusive. This kind of dialogue is mostly rational and logical - which means that logical me still gets to go for a walk and get some exercise too - but now it is in the service of creativity. So logical me and creative me have an outing together, side by side.
Which is how we are writing this to you, right now... :)
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Hi Dave, I've taken the plunge and uploading my first poem on Substack - 'Musing My Muse' - I wrote it after our chat. I hope you like it.
I love it! Have just restacked it, with a note. I hope it brings you a few readers. :)
I was a social researcher for 15 years so was writing a lot of research reports, journal articles etc. and as you say needed to use analytical skills and organising content in a logical way, drawing conclusions etc. I guess I didn't have a lot of space in my life for thinking more creatively/ spiritually. But yes the idea of the two mental operating modes and bringing them together makes sense. I'm kind of flexing a new or rather perhaps dormant muscle with the poetry so I'm a bit fascinated with where that's taking me of late but yes perhaps I can find ways to engage both modes. They have both been a bit neglected over the last few years as I've been focused on my young kids and my self-employment. Ironically I sell books (have around 50,000 at home) but have not had much time for reading or writing 🤪
Surely every writer has had this happen to them - looking for the thing you want to write, unable to find it, giving up and then ……
I love this. The world is always readily offering us poems, it's up to us to be present enough to catch them.
Thanks, Ash. Yes. Poetry is everywhere. The trick is to see it, and to be open to it....
Everything sounds better in Spanish.... Or French and Italian for that matter.
Yep - Poetry can appear without warning, and it always has a message for us....
Best Wishes - Dave :)