I know, I know, I know.
I've been feeling really disloyal to this page, which was the first of my many internet pages, leaving it unattended for such a long time. It used to be that I made a couple of entries here a day--though sometimes I wrote a little too readily back then, and should have practised a little more self-censorship.
But I've not been flirting with another woman, so to speak. In fact, I've been doing very little, except working. Getting up in the frozen dark of pre-dawn, trundling off twelve miles on the bus, shooting my wad (again, so to speak) for 8 or 12 hours depending on my shift, trying to do a decent job in exchange for my wage, coming home again to drink wine and go to sleep early for the next early rise.
I've written a couple of poems (posted on my MySpace page), but nothing stellar. I come damn near sometimes to forgetting I am a poet--which perhaps says more about me and my lack of dedication than the circumstances I'm in. To remind myself I read Ezra Pound on the bus in the morning. Nobody lived with a more single-minded purpose than old Ezra.
Anyway, the business of looking for a new place to live is out of the way, and I've got three weeks holiday coming up after three o'clock tomorrow, with nothing much to do except make the final preparations for my move on March 1st; so maybe the Poet will have a chance to stake his ground again in that extra breathing space I'll have.
We'll see, as your parents used to say when you suggested something they didn't want to do.
5 comments:
it would be nice to have a life like splake and be able to devote all of your time to writing - but, most of us have to work or balance other things in our lives that always to get in the way.
so you get to box up and write on your holiday. we are on our way north tomorrow into the land of the long white and will probably see tom long enough to say hello -
hey, splake, if you are reading this greetings - say hi to jikiwe and jack!
Short white hits us tonight. Temperature crashing as we speak, and six-to-ten inches of snow expected to fall in a few hours around dawn. When, incidentally, I'll be out in my boots waiting to catch a bus to work for the last shift before the holiday. But I don't mind. I love snow--we get it so rarely here--and I like a bit of chaos every now and then too. If I have to stand out for a while stamping my feet to stay warm while snow falls over the long rolling green I can see from the bus stop, I'll be a damn sight happier than I will putting on the kettle at work in readiness for another day at the office, I'll be a happy--if cold--little poet.
Yeah, splake does have the archetypal poet's life--though I'm not sure I'd be any more productive with his lifestyle than I am with mine. Presently I can talk myself into periods of extremely concentrated effort and get a few nice things done sometimes. I drifted and refused to work for ten years after I dropped out of college and wrote absolutely nothing worth a rabbit turd.
Have a safe journey through the frozen wilds, Tom. Snow brings mystery to everything.
Three weeks holiday, huh? I'm hoping to get some time off in about April, not far away, now.
You watch out for those letter bombs going off everywhere.
I do think it's insane that good poets have to work for a living--especially in your case, given that your bookshop probably carries a lot of authors who aren't fit to carry your coffee. The Lottery ought to reserve some of its charity money for the support of poets, writers and artists, providing the interesting ones with fat cheques so they can quit work and concentrate on their art. A thriving arts scene does contribute to the moral well-being of its society, after all, however unfashionable the notion is these days: the major poetry and prose publishers produce NOTHING of any worth anymore, and the radios are full of mass-produced garbage, and anyone who watches art movies is dismissed as a snob...and look where the world is (I'm not saying the correlation is absolute, but it doesn't help.)
The literary grants and funds are worthless, decided by middling academics and timid mainstream career men and given to people who will never write an interesting word in their lives.
You do see a lot of crappy books go through the store. And you think, "Jesus, is that stuff really better than mine?" And deep down you know it isn't. It's frustrating.
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