Friday, November 19, 2010
Free Write/Ramble
I act out, fly off the handle, dissolve into a mess of “I can’ts” and drive people crazy, or drive them away. Being told to stop when I am in the middle of the melt down does not work because at that point I am unreasonable and do not believe I can stop. It also makes me feel worse about me, driving me deeper into the feelings of “I can’t do anything right,” and, “I am a bad person.” I feel like crap knowing my actions and reactions are hurting other people. Reminding me of this in the middle of it all doesn’t make me feel less like shit, or more like stopping, in fact it is the reverse. When you tell me you don’t like my poetry, the ones that hold me together by taking the power out of the thoughts by putting the dark thoughts into public words, I feel like I am a failure as a writer. When you say “Maybe somebody will buy your book…” I again feel like a failure. I feel as if my poetry is rotten and won’t be identified with or useful to anyone. But the point of the poems is to bring the dark thoughts and hurtful things to the surface, to show others who think the same that they are not alone, to let the world know we feel these things all of the time and keep going anyway, these are my points. I hope someday to write poems more of hope and less of my process, but I am in my process, I am not at the end of it and it brings out all of the dark to get to the light. For me there is a light, burning from within and without. It comes from me, from the Is, from all living things. I just have a lot of dark, painful, hurtful, fucked up shit between me and being in the light all of the time. I live in the light as much as I can, but for years of living in the darkness, the light is uncomfortable, bright, burning and feeling dangerous. I feel exposed in the light; funny how the cure for feeling exposed is to expose all the dark, all the pain, all the nastiness to the light and air, and to others. I don’t want others to know how often I let myself be victim. I already feel at fault for all of the bad that happened to me, but to expose that to others is just too dangerous. And yet here I am, exposing; my autobiography, my poetry, my secrets, all coming out for others to see. When I relay this to others and am believed, I am relieved, it is freedom. When I am disbelieved or questioned, I want to crawl back to the place where I never tell, where telling brings punishment or death. I don’t want to live in that fear. I don’t want to live with the feeling I am a freak for my memories, for the awful things done to me. I know some of the stuff I remember is beyond common understanding, but that doesn’t make it untrue or me a liar. When I am called liar, it is like a huge door shuts and no more can come out without hours of time with those who believe and understand. They give me safety. One gives me fear. I walked out of a life with a family because the fear and the memories couldn’t be contained anymore. I lost a mom, a nephew, a daughter, and more. I am alone in the world save a few friends and a niece or two.
Freedom
This poem is totally raw and unedited because I allowed it to flow. This is my voice and those that share space in my head. I like it. Maureen
They write, and I write.
They talk, I listen.
Their words, through my hands.
We write, I write.
Who writes? I don’t know,
And it doesn’t matter,
Not now.
Writing comes
From somewhere inside us,
In ways no one taught us.
Words, strung together
As only i/we can.
And they write, and I write,
And we write through
My hands.
You see the words,
Credit me,
I credit us.
Writing is escape,
And writing is forbidden.
We write the same,
In our head,
With the other hand.
Once their voices
Were part of mine.
Now they find their own,
And we write, they write.
My hands used
To tell the untellable,
And give up the secrets.
We write
Freedom.
They write, and I write.
They talk, I listen.
Their words, through my hands.
We write, I write.
Who writes? I don’t know,
And it doesn’t matter,
Not now.
Writing comes
From somewhere inside us,
In ways no one taught us.
Words, strung together
As only i/we can.
And they write, and I write,
And we write through
My hands.
You see the words,
Credit me,
I credit us.
Writing is escape,
And writing is forbidden.
We write the same,
In our head,
With the other hand.
Once their voices
Were part of mine.
Now they find their own,
And we write, they write.
My hands used
To tell the untellable,
And give up the secrets.
We write
Freedom.
When Do I Tell People
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That I have people
Inside me
To help out
To protect me
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That days have shapes
And colors have shapes
And plushies talk
And cats do too
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
When small voices
Come out of me
Southern voices
Many voices indeed
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That I see the world
Through filters
Of hurt so deep
Imagination can’t reach
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
Medications hold steady
A ship that rocks
And tosses thoughts
Twisting perceptions
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That mental illness
Is not a death sentence
Nor is it contagious
Nor are we dumb
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
I am just like them
Living in the same world
Seeing from off center
What they see as well.
What do I tell them?
That I have people
Inside me
To help out
To protect me
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That days have shapes
And colors have shapes
And plushies talk
And cats do too
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
When small voices
Come out of me
Southern voices
Many voices indeed
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That I see the world
Through filters
Of hurt so deep
Imagination can’t reach
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
Medications hold steady
A ship that rocks
And tosses thoughts
Twisting perceptions
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
That mental illness
Is not a death sentence
Nor is it contagious
Nor are we dumb
When do I tell people?
What do I tell them?
I am just like them
Living in the same world
Seeing from off center
What they see as well.
What Poetry is and What Poetry is Not
Poetry is not literal. Poetry is not the voice of the poet. Poetry is not prose. Poetry is figurative, imaginative, symbolic. Poetry is a voice, an idea, a thought. Poetry is thought provoking and open to interpretation, many interpretations. Poetry is shorthand of emotion and idea. Often in the words of a poem a reader feels or sees his or her own emotions in the words or images of the poet, and assumes that those feelings are the feelings the poet intended. It is not possible, without asking the poet, to know what her intentions were.
Interpreting poetry is not something that is taught enough, or well enough in school. People often have no idea what the purpose of a poem is. Many are written for effect, some tell stories, some are just pretty, all are visions, not of the poet, but of the reader or listener. Poetry really should be heard and not read, though reading allows one to see the words in connection to one another. How to read poetry is a lost art, to know how to read the punctuation, the enjambment (or even knowing what that means,) is to truly know poetry.
One reads into the poetry what one wants to, and then all too often blames the poet for the feelings it brings up. Poetry exists only as words, symbols on a page without meaning until the reader or listener infuses their own thoughts and feelings into the words the poet put on the page. While it is true that the meaning is there for the poet, the poet allows that the readers will make their own meaning from the words. The recipient of the poetry does not, cannot know what is in the head of the poet at the time of the writing, nor can that recipient ever truly understand the poet’s vision, because the poem is seen or heard through the filter of the recipient’s life experience, emotion, thought, etc. It is unfair to blame the poet for reactions to the poetry, to the words, because the words are only words, and have meaning, and feeling only through the filter of the one looking at them, or hearing them. This is true of all writing in a way, but poetry most especially because the poet writes the way he or she does so that the words can be interpreted by the reader. The goal is to stir feeling, to create thought, to provoke, to be a catalyst in the mind of the reader. If poetry were meant to be taken literally or at face value, it would be prose. In creating poetry the poet looks for words that stir, that have more than a denotative meaning, more than a dictionary definition, the words are chosen for their connotative meaning, the feelings they bring out, the associations. . I am thinking of an example of a word, suicide, it brings up different thoughts and feelings for every person who reads it. For some the process of writing about it is a triumph because they are writing it and not doing it. For others saying it takes the power out of the thinking it. For others it is the contemplation of the darkest place a soul can go. Others have lost loved one to suicide. Sometimes suicide imagery, like the suggestion of a saber being too dull to slash a wrist,
The walls are sooo high
And the finely honed saber
I had when I began storming
Your citadel isn’t even
Sharp enough to
Slash my wrists
It isn’t about the wrist or the slash, it is about the saber and how dull it is. A person with dark thoughts on her mind will see the image of the slashed wrist and not the saber dulled to uselessness by attempts to break down defenses of another. Or is it about the slash and the wrist? It is about whatever is in the mind of the reader, but blaming the poet for what is in one’s mind is foolish and childish.
It is also a mistake to assume that the poet is feeling the things that are written on a page. The poet may be writing from a different voice, a different perspective than his or her own. The poet chooses a voice, a persona, and writes from there. The voice of the poem, the feelings, the words, are not always what the poet is thinking or feeling, indeed they are most often what the poet think someone else might feel in a situation or about a thing. A poet writes from her own voice, and she writes from other voices, it really makes no difference though because, again, poetry means what it means to the reader, not what it means that matters, but what it means to you! It can be assumed a poet is being negative when for him the poem is a triumph of positive imagery.
Interpreting poetry is not something that is taught enough, or well enough in school. People often have no idea what the purpose of a poem is. Many are written for effect, some tell stories, some are just pretty, all are visions, not of the poet, but of the reader or listener. Poetry really should be heard and not read, though reading allows one to see the words in connection to one another. How to read poetry is a lost art, to know how to read the punctuation, the enjambment (or even knowing what that means,) is to truly know poetry.
One reads into the poetry what one wants to, and then all too often blames the poet for the feelings it brings up. Poetry exists only as words, symbols on a page without meaning until the reader or listener infuses their own thoughts and feelings into the words the poet put on the page. While it is true that the meaning is there for the poet, the poet allows that the readers will make their own meaning from the words. The recipient of the poetry does not, cannot know what is in the head of the poet at the time of the writing, nor can that recipient ever truly understand the poet’s vision, because the poem is seen or heard through the filter of the recipient’s life experience, emotion, thought, etc. It is unfair to blame the poet for reactions to the poetry, to the words, because the words are only words, and have meaning, and feeling only through the filter of the one looking at them, or hearing them. This is true of all writing in a way, but poetry most especially because the poet writes the way he or she does so that the words can be interpreted by the reader. The goal is to stir feeling, to create thought, to provoke, to be a catalyst in the mind of the reader. If poetry were meant to be taken literally or at face value, it would be prose. In creating poetry the poet looks for words that stir, that have more than a denotative meaning, more than a dictionary definition, the words are chosen for their connotative meaning, the feelings they bring out, the associations. . I am thinking of an example of a word, suicide, it brings up different thoughts and feelings for every person who reads it. For some the process of writing about it is a triumph because they are writing it and not doing it. For others saying it takes the power out of the thinking it. For others it is the contemplation of the darkest place a soul can go. Others have lost loved one to suicide. Sometimes suicide imagery, like the suggestion of a saber being too dull to slash a wrist,
The walls are sooo high
And the finely honed saber
I had when I began storming
Your citadel isn’t even
Sharp enough to
Slash my wrists
It isn’t about the wrist or the slash, it is about the saber and how dull it is. A person with dark thoughts on her mind will see the image of the slashed wrist and not the saber dulled to uselessness by attempts to break down defenses of another. Or is it about the slash and the wrist? It is about whatever is in the mind of the reader, but blaming the poet for what is in one’s mind is foolish and childish.
It is also a mistake to assume that the poet is feeling the things that are written on a page. The poet may be writing from a different voice, a different perspective than his or her own. The poet chooses a voice, a persona, and writes from there. The voice of the poem, the feelings, the words, are not always what the poet is thinking or feeling, indeed they are most often what the poet think someone else might feel in a situation or about a thing. A poet writes from her own voice, and she writes from other voices, it really makes no difference though because, again, poetry means what it means to the reader, not what it means that matters, but what it means to you! It can be assumed a poet is being negative when for him the poem is a triumph of positive imagery.
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