Anyway. I've also been thinking a lot about writing mi poemas, if not actually writing much. Or at all. But I feel things are looking up in this area, because this morning I had a brainstorm about how to solve my problem with finding a new form and a new voice. It is the kind of brainstorm that makes me think, "Duh, how retarded was I not to think of this sooner?" I am feeling a strong desire to write prose poems!
I used to be really into prose poems, but I haven't felt at all close to that form for the last few years. Now, suddenly, it seems like exactly the form I need to use. Instead of fussing with lineation--wondering whether I should stick with the traditional flush-left variety, or try Wright's drifty dropped line, or go full-on Graham-eque--I will go in the opposite direction.
I'd already decided that in my new poems, I want to use dream logic, and I also want to invite in many sub-voices, archetypal ones, mystical ones, psychoanalytic ones, lyrical ones, all sorts of different registers and cadences. So now I'm thinking how excellent it would be to let them all pool together in a thick yet spacious linguistic field, a.k.a. a prose poem. Plus, I have to admit that my prose is probably better than my verse. (I almost said "better than my poetry," but as Russell Edson said, the opposite of prose is verse, not poetry.)
At any rate, I'm feeling more excited about writing than I have in a while, so that's a good sign.
In related news, I have a poem in the excellent new issue of RHINO, so buy that. There's a link over on the right. And another of my poems will be presented online at Glass: A Journal of Poetry (also linked over on the right), but not until August. But what they have up now is also worth reading, so check them out.
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