we tried to teach J not to throw sand from the sand & water table (now officially a water table) on her daughter G and/or us after she read a poem I've been working on--
J: Wow. This is really beautiful.
Me: Do you think it's too...
J: I think it's done.
Me: I don't know...
J: Why do you say that?
Me: Because it's not edgy, it's not dark. (pause) There's no violence in it. [laughing]
J: [w/ her stern teacher's face on] It's important to show growth as a poet.
Damn, she always knows the right thing to say, even w/ sand flying all over the place.
3 comments:
I've been having a similar conversation---mostly without the sand and just among myself. After writing a somewhat haunting poem of my own and then reading Mary Oliver and Billy Collins, who have become the constant bread, I ask: Why am I not writing happy poems. Not happy in the sense of light or meaningless, but celebratory and enlightening. I do sometimes, but then the shadow rolls in....
Simmons
Suzanne--
That's it--I think we ARE twins. I have a sand and water table in my back yard which is now a water table/mosquito breeding ground.
A
Simmons,
I find the happy poems, the poems of praise, so much harder to write than the dark, shadowy ones.
And Alison, I knew it! I just knew it. ;-)
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