I am finding this process uncomfortable – without hardly any reason to do so, having written what, four posts on this blog,   I feel completely unmodern, nonmodern, immodern?? –nope, not words. That means I must be ancient, old, outdated.  Stings a little.

I suspect though, that anxiety lurks just below the surface, masked as a blog curmudgeon.  I’m anxious about attaching my words to me, for everyone to see. Not, because my ideas are too odd, or new, or rebellious, but because they’re likely too ordinary.  A curmudgeon is at least curmudgeonly; there’s some poetry in that.

I read recently that when Emily Dickinson died, her sister found 1700 poems in a drawer in her room, all neatly ordered and collated.  During her life she had only nine poems published.  We know her quiet process had wide impact eventually, but while she lived she knew little influence from her writing, except over herself.  Perhaps that’s why her poems have a stubborn persistence and her poetic voice clearly speaks. So Laurel, just write: fill files – or – wrestle some of it out here, and let the writing do its work in you.

A few lines from Miss Dickinson:

I had no time to hate, because

The grave would hinder me,

And life was not so simple I

Could finish enmity.

 

Not had I time to love; but since

Some industry must be

The little toil of love, I though,

Was large enough for me.