Friday, February 09, 2007

Note to Self: Marianne Moore Would Have Hated You, Probably; Screw a Tricorn Hat on Your Total Pea-Head and Get Back to Work!

Do you know, I never felt better in my life than when I was refusing to write poems "on principle"? I do not remember which principle exactly. I didn't write a single poem for six whole months, and I was happy like a pig snorting slop simultaneously up its nostrils and into its mouth. What I mean to say is that I should not have looked at my poetry word count today but I did, and discovered that I have only written 205 words in the last month and a half. I say more words to my cat in a single minute, since she likes for me to narrate all her activities and certain ones need elaborate description. Also, to make things worse, the 205 words are about string. As topics go, that one is super shitty! An intelligent person wouldn't have anything to say about string at all, except maybe when they discovered a whole huge tangle of it in the pillowy fish lips they were currently eating. Then they might write a book, and it would be remarkable, unlike the one I am writing which has no lips in it at all except for mine, which are ridiculous like a miniature clown's. A teacher even told me that once, that I should "be Pinocchio in a play"! What does that even mean? Also, what kind of play would that be? How would the whale look? Whoa, they could maybe dim all the lights and dangle huge glow-in-the-dark ribs from the ceiling, and then the whole audience would be in the whale! That would be great, and maybe make some booming indigestion noises from time to time. And I could maybe be perched on one of the ribs, bent over and dragging my wooden-boy lips all up and down it, because let some other fool play the puppet, I am busy being an intestinal parasite. Holy crap, I think I just talked myself out of my worst poetic disillusionment on record.

2 comments:

Richard Epstein said...

There, there. Many excellent writers have had something to say about string.

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by (Shakespeare)

All sounds on Fret by String or Golden Wire (Milton)

Gatsby examined the parted string, muttered "Hum!" in an interested way, and tossed the book on a chair. (Fitzgerald)

The way Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string. (Frost)

'There's plenty of string,' said Mr. Dick, (Dickens)

Granted, I don't know if any of these were recited to the authors' cats, but I don't see why that's material.

Patricia Lockwood said...

I like the Dickens one especially--so terse, so eloquent. There really is, you know, plenty of string!