Lately I’ve been running a little low on drive for writing, which sucks! It’s even worse when you just bought Skyrim again and are playing it for the first time in 5 years. I think the reason people keep coming back to it is because it’s a masterclass in interpretative work, and it lets people make their own stories as they go. Gameplay isn’t too shabby, either, which is nice. But this isn’t a gaming journalism website, this is about writing, so let’s talk about that!
The things I have found myself writing lately deal intensely with rhyme and similar sound structures to words used elsewhere in the poems. Take this excerpt from “Will” I wrote a few days ago:
“With broken endurance
And no longer will
Find a mythic will
To avenge myself
Yet you will”
So of course the word I’m looking at here is “will” with its many definitions and possible rhymes to words like “kill” or “hill”. But in the poem, aptly titled, I focus mainly on that idea of having a will to use a will. Will the speaker even use it? We’ll find out eventually.
What I keep going back to is intense bouts of wordplay bookended with extremely unorganized writing. Unorganized in the sense that there is no form that is followed or anything spectacular going on except for bold-faced expression through English. It’s nothing I’m averse or inexperienced with, but when I used to think of poetry it was totally about the wordplay.
My poetry professor from last spring did a good job of making sure that I was putting rhyme where it would matter and not using it for the sake of using it.
My mentor from high school always stressed that motions in drawing and implications of design work were strategic and intentional. That’s what he always said, “strategic and intentional”. Last spring is when I really started paying attention to that, and it definitely shows in my work from the summer of 2016 as well. A lot of is it a little bit shinier than what came before, take Zero Discord for example.
It’s really long, extremely layered, and of course is a massive love poem, with a photo to boot!
I don’t write a lot of longer works these days, but a lot of the longer works I do have linger somewhere around being barely short enough to be read aloud comfortably and way too long to be read on stage, which is annoying. Zero Discord would be a very fun 5 minute read, I think. Other poems like Slam, Bitch, Slam are a little long because they require a little backstory to go with it.
I’ve been engulfed in enjoying my free time, lately, maybe a little much.
Lately I’m listening to Redfoo’s “Sock It To Ya”. A very jaunty tune about fucking about and not really caring. I try to emulate that in my day to day life!
We’re all here together, might as well enjoy what with the PLUR police and Thinkpol presence at every doorstep. That in mind, we’re back in full force. Onwards!
Consume Reality! 