At least the ‘Frustration’ poem now has a solid draft. Concerted effort, achieved by ignoring the
blandishments of pop ups and the ever present danger of being sucked into the unending visual carnival of
YouTube delights last night, meant that the pages of agonized scrawl became
something coherent. At least to me. You can try your hand at making head or tail
of it at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es
– and don’t take the beginning of that sentence as a defining reflection of the
sort of English of which I am capable and which I put into my poems! Usually.
I have the
notes, in my little red book, for an extended poem to be written in linked
parts and I might get down to that over the weekend and see what I can make of
it. It will end up being a sort of
collection of reflections over a few days; a sort of series of selective diary
entries. Worth failing at, at worst, and
putting with the other ‘work in progress’ which may be brought back to life by
later inspiration.
There is
something about writing down intentions that does make them slightly more
real. I have few illusions about my
capabilities when it comes to application if I am not totally engaged and
sometimes the picture of Homer Simpson skipping after butterflies is one which
I find strangely attractive, but the satisfying rush that one gets when a poem
has reached the AD (acceptable draft) level is hard to beat. I wonder when poems are, or can ever be,
finished? Each read-through can point up
places where you sense a certain uneasiness, and I have had the supreme
satisfaction of deliberating about some poem or other and then, after
cogitation changing a comma to a semi-colon.
And in true Romantic Poet fashion, collapsed in nervous exhaustion after
such an effort!
I re-read
‘Existential bus stop’ (also in smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es)
and had the delightful experience of reading it as thought it was by someone
else. This happens sometimes and that
sort of forgetful authorship can give the reader a greater sense of
understanding of what is written. There
are connections and suggestions that I read into the poem that I am sure (I
should know!) that I didn’t have when I wrote it. This doesn’t happen with all my poems, but
when it does it is like a refutation of the old saw that there is no such thing
as a free lunch!
Next week I have to break the back of the next TMA for the
OU course. Frankly, I will be glad when
this piece of work is out of the way and I will be able to concentrate on the
EMA and the continuing search for the paintings of Alvaro Guevara. I am well into this piece of work and there
is a possibility that my essay may feature in an exhibition devoted to the
artist in Leeds. That is something that
I hope that I will be able to make happen and will be an especially pleasing
end to the course.
But, as I
said somewhere above, the writing down of intentions is the first stage in
making them a reality, or at least what the intentions are supposed to
achieve. All the thoughts are partially
in place; it’s just the ordering of them and presenting them in coherent
sentences that is required. And of
course all the irritatingly fiddly academic bits which take the real time. Reading through the comments on the internet
forums that we have, I think that more time, effort and heartache is expended
on the production of bibliographies than on the actual writing of the body of
essays themselves. I’m sure that it is
good for the soul. Though I am not sure
that it is actually very good for anything else!
The second entry on Toni’s blog is about to be attempted as
he attempts to bring his entries up by 100%.
Another decent restaurant and another excellent meal at a more than
reasonable cost. Toni has almost decided
to develop his acclamation for good meals into informed approbation – leaving
himself enough wriggle room to make helpful suggestions. A fairly simple one in the restaurant that we
have just patronised is to provide the items on the menu del dia on a printed
sheet menu – not a difficult suggestion to take on board I think! See what you think about Toni’s blog in its
early stages on catalunyaaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es
and don’t forget to leave a comment. And
I don’t care if you haven’t been to the restaurant that he has written about,
comment on the methodology!
Meanwhile, in the real world (!) I have to go upstairs and
get down to work on the poetic series I wrote about a few paragraphs ago. But you have to understand those were written
before lunch and it’s now clearly in the afternoon.
It is now even later.
A draft of the new poem is now in smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and is at
least something to work on. I was amazed
at how easily this poem came compared with the work that had to be put in for
‘Frustration’ – it remains to be seen how far either of these remains in the
state in which they are written in the blog.
But then looking for changes is one of the reasons for buying the book.
Toni has now completed his second entry for his blog, and he
has suggested using the blog to record our experiences when we next do the ruta
de tapa in Castelldefels. This is an excellent
suggestion and will give a more lasting memory for our various excursions into
the further reaches of places to eat in Castelldefels.
Meanwhile,
I will continue to digest my excellent lunch (see Toni’s blog) and prepare to
finish the TMA for next week.
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