tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29519072.post7144690003854037405..comments2023-12-11T19:34:51.189-06:00Comments on Eine Klage-Welt: James Owenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07614935078978354375noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29519072.post-29065944302805436242008-05-11T19:07:00.000-05:002008-05-11T19:07:00.000-05:00Roxana: Writing by hand or keyboard --- a more com...Roxana: Writing by hand or keyboard --- a more complicated question than it seems. I usually write first drafts on the computer, quickly. But then I <I>must</I> print the poem on paper and revise, slowly and over and over, by hand. This revision process eventally means a completely different poem emerges from the draft, and in revision I do feel something like a close connection between hand and mind.<BR/><BR/>It's still more complex that that, though. I can't commit to words on paper or computer screen without walking first and thinking. It is the rhythm of the walking that feeds into the first draft, then the rhythm of the hand and the breath that sets a tone for revision. Writing is a very physical act.James Owenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07614935078978354375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29519072.post-3041629479959488132008-05-11T19:00:00.000-05:002008-05-11T19:00:00.000-05:00Sorlil: Yes, sound almost always comes before mean...Sorlil: Yes, sound almost always comes before meaning. I think there are poems that are alive for me as sound, even though I couldn't tell you what they <I>mean</I>. And surely this is the way most young people first come to poetry. I remember being 11 or 12 years old, having stumbled (somehow) across <I>The Waste Land</I> and ending up with big chunks of it memorized, though I can't imagine that I understood it at that age. What Eliot himself called the "auditory imagination." This still leads me when I am writing. If a line doesn't "sound right," that's a sure sign that I am saying somethimg stupid.James Owenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07614935078978354375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29519072.post-89993780317852541922008-05-10T17:54:00.000-05:002008-05-10T17:54:00.000-05:00Paul Valery said that every poem starts with a lin...Paul Valery said that every poem starts with a line, a phrase graciously given by the gods, and then the poet tries to build the text around, or upon this unique expression without being capable of attaining its inital perfection anymore. <BR/>do you write by hand or use a computer? I know many poets talked about their hand, that at some point the images and the words seem to flow directly through and out of it, as if there were a mysterious connection between brain and hand, and sometimes the pencil also... as if the words write themselves through the hand, and the poet is just a spectator...Roxanahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05650840495095863057noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29519072.post-87005966542667400322008-04-20T18:21:00.000-05:002008-04-20T18:21:00.000-05:00'willy-nilly perforations' - nice one! I do the sa...'willy-nilly perforations' - nice one! I do the same, collect words / phrases that have that weird something about them that I know will grow into a poem somehow.<BR/><BR/>For me a poem begins invariably with an image, word, observation. I very rarely know what the poem is going to be about when I start it.<BR/>I generally have a current obsession / muse which my poems always end up intentionally and unintentionally coming round to. <BR/><BR/>Mostly I try to let sound associations lead me in a poem, keeping with sense of course, and in that way I'm often surprised at how the poem turns out. Normally around two-thirds way into the poem I suddenly realise what it's about and try and pull it all together at the end.Marion McCreadyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04657757253873577465noreply@blogger.com