because it has been very dull of late

taking a drawing class once, the group had various seed pods and small vegetable matter, substances that were earth colours or leaf matter in the whole spectrum of shades, including living and dead vegetation, sticks, twigs and the like. our task was to select one first from the collected stash and attempt to render it with pencils of choice, or graphite and charcoal ...you know, just pick something and start.

the tutor moved around the group looking at the works in progress, but saying very little. we had a time constraint, more to do with the length of class i think then any creative component.

the tutor moved in and around my process a couple of times but looked and said nothing, which for me at the time, (being young and wanting to please or be praised or be noticed or be instructed or guided in some way) had an unsettling and creepy outcome, in that, even though i had thought my work finished half way through the time allocated, i continued on with shading and line marking, ending up with something which was boldly, loudly, awfully awful.

the fact that i knew this somewhere in my own instinctive creative awareness did not stop me from blundering on, perhaps, waiting for someone to shout, stop.finis.end. but the tutor was way too clever and way too practised to interfere before the fact. after the session time ended, we did get our feedback and she mentioned to me about my piece, that she noticed the work was finished very early and was good, perfectly executed and then when she came back i had ruined it. i had over rendered, over worked it. yes, i had killed it and i knew it but couldn't stop wrecking it at the time, because i couldn't trust myself without approval or instruction.

i never forgot that class that night, that experience. i discovered in a not too different way the same thing about creating poems. although, i'm still discovering things about creating poems, but one of the things that i do now is stop and walk away or cut out great chunks and get rid of or start again with one good line or two good words or you know whatever and i poach good lines and sometimes i write about them. i put a lot of shit work up on my blog because i like the immediacy of doing it and later some (most of it) gets reworked or i kill it off. or bin it. rarely something feels right and i keep it (mostly it doesn't happen that way) - but sometimes it does.
the book holding job's hand was written in my notebook without too much messing, i had managed to find a rhythm early on and was interested in minimalism, so i actually thought edited as i was writing - but work that evolves in that way is rare for me and most likely was a result of reading and thinking about divergent subjects prior to inspiration, which came about or was facilitated by a line of text discovered in a google search.

if people were to read me as a poet by my work on my blog, they would be reading the girl in the drawing class, unsure and untrained and awful sometimes. i don't mind this, as for me, the blog is a tool and an adventure. so many blogs out there are setting themselves up as the alpha and the omega. there are clusters of self congratulating, clusters of serious shit, clusters of hips, clusters of wanks, clusters of everything wonderful and awful in personality and talent.

i do love blog land, but it has been very dull of late and way too precious and seems to be lacking a little generosity and humility. the great ones announcing the great things and the little folk responding in comments, the leaders and the followers. it is a sham really, isn't it? a big game or a hoax of sorts. sometimes it's a conversation and everyone can join in.