So, I’m in this somewhat sticky situation, in that I went to grad school to make sure that I would write, and I’m reading a boatload (and really enjoying it), and writing critically (which I didn’t enjoy a lot the first time but kinda did the second time). But I haven’t been writing quite as much as I would like to.

Last night, after the power went off and came back on, I sat down and gave myself a task: I was going to look at someone else’s artwork and translate that into a poem. I chose a somewhat unlikely source (Ladybug saw the source material and the draft product– the rest of you will have to wonder forever, because I won’t give it up, and neither will she), and three hours later, I had a two-and-a-half page poem. Most of you don’t know this, but I rarely exceed about 25 lines. So this was a big damn deal for me, and it gave me a little fire for another project I have been wanting to work on.

The poem is flawed in a million ways and may not even be worthwhile if you don’t know what the unlikely source material is, and hell, may not even be worthwhile then. But I got about 15 lines that I think may stand on their own, and I’m insanely happy with that. Granted, those 15 lines were the least faithful to the assignment I had given myself, but is that not how we create? We set limitations for ourselves, and we break those limitations in the name of doing something more worthwhile. I’m going to try to keep the larger piece together, though I may pull those 15 lines out for something else. We’ll see how that goes.

But what’s more important is that I think I hit on an exercise I can repeat– hell, it’s been done about a million times before. Everyone talks about jazz in their poems.

No, my source material was not jazz.

Nor was it that “Cantaloop” song.

This is a keen meme:

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