i wonder if poets of yore
ever practiced writing
with mundane daily tasks.
i know they wrote of the very human
feeling of falling in love,
but were there ever any poems of
getting a bit of poppyseed stuck in their teeth,
or that feeling of falling right when you’re about to
lose consciousness to go to asleep?
there were poems with storms as metaphors,
analogies,
but were there ever poems where storms were simply storms
and they enjoyed in the moment,
and wrote in the after
of feeling the thunder
shake
and quake
the whole house?
i feel as though my poetry hits a spot
that hasn’t necessarily been hit
that hard
yet;
the mundanity of human existence.
and i can’t be the first person
to put prose emotions into poetry,
but i do wonder if the greats
of late
or long
ago
ever did what i’m doing
it just wasn’t as accepted
or expected
then.
writing about poetry
May 11, 2022
poetry
is coming
[and going]
this morning
nothing sticking around long enough
to become a full fledged poem
but damn, are my tried and true topics
flinging themselves towards my brain
making me start
multiple
pieces
just to get bored and toss them aside
(or get distracted by other things
and totally lose my stride)
so
poetry
this morning
is coming
and it’s going
and i’m just a vessel
half finished poems
can flow through
[maybe to you]
May 3, 2022
it is
very
hard to concentrate this morning
and i don’t know if it’s from
the stress of last night
or
the vividness of the dreams
or
the sadness of this morning
or
the lack of coffee in my bloodstream
or what
but
it is
very
extremely
extraordinarily
bizarrely
quite
hard to concentrate this morning.
~~~
i feel like i’m getting a better handle
on what makes my poetry
my poetry
(but i really have
absolutely
no idea
still
about what makes any poetry
‘good poetry’)
~~~
i would like to write
another
slam poem;
start a flow
and just go,
balance out the rhythm and rhyme
with internal structure,
alliteration,
and find
the transitions,
the cues,
from one section
to anther,
playing with words
and meaning
and framing
the repeating
as metaphor
as a tool
as a lock to turn the key
and find out something new
about me,
about life,
about our home planet earth,
and our collective strife
to stay alive
when all we want
is eternal sleep
(not necessarily because
death is the answer we’re looking for,
but because all these
isms
and power structures
and so-ingrained made up concepts
keep us so wide awake
that sleep seems a necessity
we never get to get
[when was the last time you had
an actual
honest to goodness
no stress
very good
night’s sleep?]
so i guess
that’s what this poem’s about:
the collective trauma
that is
white supremacy/capitalism/america
and how the one thing
that could give us
the fight
we need
to dismantle it
is the the thing
it keeps us
from doing
every
single
night.
(and are my daytime naps
my making up
for this lack,
or is that just a symptom
of the depression
my awareness
of these systems
gives me?)
((or is that a subject
for another poem
for another day?))
April 29, 2022
so much poetry
about tired/sleepiness
about writing poetry
about grief and grieving
but where’s the poetry for me?
where’s the poetry where i actually wake up?
where’s the poetry where i analyze and create new forms/
new words/
new kinds of poetry?
where’s the poetry where i feel
(at least a little)
more healed after writing it?
where’s the poetry where i have a sense of accomplishment
post-writing
rather than a sense of
‘well, i guess that’s ok enough to stick on the poetry blog’?
where’s my big/epic poem?
April 15, 2022
i have so much to say
(otherwise, how would i write a poem
a day
for a whole damn year?)
but so much of my time is spent
figuring out
in words
what exactly i’d like to say
and then
overthinking
how someone might
misconstrue my sentences
so i nitpick
and pick out
word
by word
by punctuation
by phrasing
adding extra notes
to prevent
misunderstanding
even though i understand
not everyone understands
where i’m coming from
and not everyone wants to
truly
listen
and not everyone
will read my words
so carefully
delicately
chosen
and not everyone
has the same associations
with words
and things
as i do
but i still
hover
over my buffet of words
hoping to make art
out of language
hoping to create meaning
where once there was nothing
but i spend so much time
figuring out how to say things
that sometimes i forget
what i was trying to say
in the first place.
March 28, 2022
i really don’t know what i’m doing.
my only post-secondary education
in poetry
was over a decade ago
and i can’t really remember
anything i learned
(granted, that’s probably from
all the trauma/trauma responses
i was experiencing
at the time),
but i digress…
i feel like my skills
with words
would improve
if i could just
Remember
those words.
i often know exactly what i want to say,
and that there is a word
that’s perfect,
but i can’t for the life of me
remember it.
or i know what to say
and i also suspect
there’s an even better word
that would fit the scheme/
rhyme/alliteration/pattern
better than what i have down already
and the harder i try to think
the better i understand
all those analogies
of holding sand
in tightly grasped hands
the desperation
erases
all sense of
every word
i’ve ever known.
so that’s why my poetry
is a little
imperfectionistic,
a little
‘flying by the seat of my pants’,
a little
self-aware/meta/laughing at my own poems,
because otherwise
the grasp would be even tighter
and the only remaining
grain
of sand
would be that of my name
(and even that
i don’t always remember
right away)
March 26, 2022
interestingly,
i think a lot of poetry
that takes itself seriously
is the poetry
that
takes days
maybe even weeks
(months? years?)
to write;;
and i enjoy my
fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants/
reference-my-own-writing/and/
my-strengths-and-weaknesses/
make-jokes-at-my-own-expense/
a-little-bit-meta/
poetry-writing.
and i think part of the reason it works
is because i’m churning out
poem
after poem
day
after day
and if i were to
ponder every syllable
and say something
as if i weren’t just a human
typing some words on a computer,
there wouldn’t be that kind of levity
[or brevity]
//long ago
poetry was an art
with all kinds of rules and regulations,
but i get bored and frustrated
playing inside of boxes,
so this time-period
when all rules of poetry
are being re-hashed
and it’s far more about
how a poem makes you feel
than anything else,
this is my time to shine
[and my time is mine]
//
March 21, 2022
i still don’t know
if i’ve learned anything
from this
poem-a-day
experiment
i have no idea if i’m a better writer
a better poet
(if there is such a thing
if one is predominantly participating
in free-verse
and experimental expression)
i feel like i’ve
experimented
with schemes and patterns
i might not have even tried
before this every-day
poem-writing
made me contemplate
what made my poetry
mine
and what made my poetry
interesting
and what made me
excited
to write
and what made me
excited
to read
even still
i have no concept
of what good vs. bad poetry
is
especially in relation to my own
and therefore
i have no idea
if i’ve gotten even a little bit better
(or worse)
but i haven’t run out of things to say
so there’s that.
March 4, 2022
losing focus
abandoning poems
trying to find the dopamine
to follow
(
damn,
if i find it,
i give myself full permission
to follow
fully
)
February 22, 2022
continuing
on
a trajectory;
a reconstruction?
a fun date deduction:
[2/22/22]?
a pondering of poetry and pain?
the contemplations i create
co-habitate in my brain
until the day
they’re ready
to be
set free…
…and even then, they never truly leave home;
they come back and visit
for dinners,
for vacations,
for mid-week excursions,
for time away from their new habitudes
and i conclude
that i’m never truly concluded
with any sort of
meditation
which is good?
i guess?
kipventures 