Since my last blog post, I’ve tried to spare my thumb the irritation that excessive typing brings on, and my ears the noise of this thin, small, plastic thumb brace tap, tap, tapping on the spacebar. Still …
Time to give it another go. This brings to mind the many connective tissues involved in writing verse: meter, rhyme, alliteration, and the many tiny balancing points that must be accounted for in poetry.
If any one of these points is out of round, the entire poem suffers an acute pain which nags until it gets sorted out. Resting the poem awhile, untouched, can sometimes refresh it and help it to mend.
Otherwise, one tends to overwork it, which can break the natural flow of the poem and render it a stiff, obviously forced piece. It has to relax, to breath, and to become pliable enough to work with.
It requires intuitive skill to properly perform surgery on a badly mangled poem. Occasionally I’ve been unable to resuscitate a piece and have had to let if go. Nothing I did could bring it back to life.
Often, certain lines and the intended meaning of such a poem will re-emerge as a totally different piece than was intended, or even regenerate years later into the very form it was meant to be.
Sometimes, merely allowing an adequate and thorough resting period is the best medicine one can apply to a broken poem. So, too, with my healing hand, which is just beginning to ache now.
Until next time ...
Image: ohmyarthritis.com
Time to give it another go. This brings to mind the many connective tissues involved in writing verse: meter, rhyme, alliteration, and the many tiny balancing points that must be accounted for in poetry.
If any one of these points is out of round, the entire poem suffers an acute pain which nags until it gets sorted out. Resting the poem awhile, untouched, can sometimes refresh it and help it to mend.
Otherwise, one tends to overwork it, which can break the natural flow of the poem and render it a stiff, obviously forced piece. It has to relax, to breath, and to become pliable enough to work with.
It requires intuitive skill to properly perform surgery on a badly mangled poem. Occasionally I’ve been unable to resuscitate a piece and have had to let if go. Nothing I did could bring it back to life.
Often, certain lines and the intended meaning of such a poem will re-emerge as a totally different piece than was intended, or even regenerate years later into the very form it was meant to be.
Sometimes, merely allowing an adequate and thorough resting period is the best medicine one can apply to a broken poem. So, too, with my healing hand, which is just beginning to ache now.
Until next time ...
Image: ohmyarthritis.com
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