Did I say last week that approaching strangers might be the most difficult task on my plate--and that I was even looking forward to writing poetry as a reprieve to that type of difficulty? Yeah...lies. It's easy to look ahead when you feel uncomfortable. But now that i'm here, having arrived at a week of attempting to construct short and carefully tailored word constructions, I am reminded again at the various ways in which things can be difficult. For me, attempting to write poems, let alone poems not entirely in free verse, has always been a sort of torturous experience. In prose I feel comfortable messily throwing words around as I find my way to my point; if anything, I enjoy piling them up into a skyhigh junkpile of wordcrap that, through accumulation, I am able to fashion into points and a directive, with the messy jumble helping to form an identity of tone.
Yeah, bullshit. poetry and i, we got issues. mostly probably because poetry emphasizes my laziness (or, if putting it nicely, difficulty being hyperattentive to detail) as a writer. So here's my attempt at a blank verse poem on loss. It's mediocre. There are one or two details like and the rest I'm unenamored with, so any thoughts you have on breaking this down would be appreciated. I'm still finishing my write-up last night's poem but will post tonight along with my attempt at a sound poem.
Pearls
When you were here and I was here and we
Lived here together, our world was a sea.
Each day our ship set out to sail, to trawl
For oyster pearls and other things so prized.
But pearls are not what we should seek when we
Need food, when we need love, when we are cold.
Do pearls quench thirst, or hunger sate, when we
Are sick with woe or worse, in deepest need?
I wish I could trade all the pearls for you.
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