The Flood of Words

It is a phenomenon that began for me as Lynda's death approached last year and has not only continued but has done so with great force. I am talking about my newly re-discovered passion for writing. This journal is in itself some evidence of that, but unseen here are the many poems I've written and the handwritten journal I've been keeping daily since Pierre died. It's almost as if there are simply too many words built up in the back of my brain, calling for release, they require me to write in almost all of my 'spare' time. It seems that whenever I have a minute, or even if I don't (I am at 'work' right now) I am compelled to write something, as if the words will not let me escape nor allow themselves to be repressed as they were for so many years.

What I find happening now is the release of the creativity that I have long sublimated to the service first of my mother then of my son. Now freed of those twin obligations, I can actually concentrate long enough to bang out a paragraph or two, a poem or two and the liberation is delightful. Would that I could have remained mute and focused my efforts on helping Pierre, but now that that is no longer an option for me, I find I have little to impede me from writing as much and as often as I am able. If I have any real hope left, it is for my life to find meaning in words, and to leave behind some words that will serve others and perhaps recall me to them in some not-so-distant future.

So now there are in my head and on my desk all sorts of journals, poems, plays and plain old stream-of-consciousness blather. It is all coming out now. All I need do now is to improve as I write, to hone the edge and cut through to the resonances that will ultimately prove the worth of my work. In spite of the long odds and lack of immediate reward, I am committed to creating an identity for myself as a writer.

I've also committed myself to reading as well. I have begun to explore the world of poets and the tradition to which I wish to contribute and belong. I see that I have much to learn, but find that I have much to say that still has not been said. There is a world today that didn't exist for Yeats or Keats or Milton or even Ginsburg, and this is the world that I will envision and reflect. It is pointless to speak of modernism, so rapidly do things change in this modern world, but it is possible to hope that my work will reflect both what is new about my world as well as what is unchanged since Homer. There are old resonances to explore and new words to put to paper, but these will be hard to understand and eventually overcome without the context that reading brings me.

I feel as if I am re-born into the world of words, and begin this year as a child first learning to read an write. There is much to be done and I am here to do it!