Half-way through the day and nothing much achieved.
At the library yesterday took out Elizabeth Bishop and May Sarton instead of Robert Hass. I had forgotten about him. Memory failure, regrettably. Maybe I wanted to be among women again.
Read some May S before going to sleep. That was good. One of the books by EB is called One Art: Letters (R. Giroux ed., 1994, Farrar Straus Giroux, NY). A heavy book I am looking forward to. A writers' life, something to think about, maybe some further ideas about how to go about things. Sometimes an old idea can be expressed differently and it appears to stand up and command attention in a new way.
Celan is peering at me from the book cover as I write - I renewed him but they only give an extra week. At a dollar a time. I wish money did not matter so much for everything.
Was up early enough, walk and breakfast and then other 'urgent' matters took over.
Wrote two poems for my collection yesterday afternoon, in a window of time between one thing and another. The ballad is leaving me cold so far. I wrote something, but it was not ballad-like. I am going to attack it again now. At least I learnt more about Kate Bush, some respect.
Have just realised that I need to write a book review for Thursday and that I had wanted to write about Elizabeth Bishop. I'd better get on to that first. I won't have time to digest her writing well enough as it is. Also a blog review due, which is easier.
I had other plans for this evening. My afternoon is already earmarked for something else ('urgent') , and tomorrow afternoon too - seeing friends.
Showing posts with label Kate Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kate Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Monday, 30 June 2008
On the nature of obsession
Managing to work today and yesterday. Schedule mapped out for the rest of the day. I shall pay the bills at midday, not before.
Am reading more Paul Celan whom I find stunning, though as always, so sad.
A friend lent me poetry by Aba Kovner (Israeli poet) and Nelly Sachs (German), published together in an English translation by Penguin (1995), in the series Modern European Poets. Read most of it last night (slim).
I want to be impressed by poets and poetry, to have my consciousness raised by them about how to write well. This afternoon we'll be in town, shall return my overdue books to the library and look for Robert Hass's poetry and bio.
Discussing Rilke with G. About the language that I deem excessive, she said: - but he is in ecstasy.
Have been listening to Kate Bush and downloaded the words of her ballad on Pi, for our ballad exercise. The song is lovely, but the words and the meaning do not seem that special to me. Is my perception blunted ?
I was interested to find out what triggered her writing on this topic, but no luck. So many mathematicians have been involved with defining Pi.
"...with an obsessive nature..."
Any deliberate and continuous focus is always deemed 'obsessive' by those outside it - by that measure Cezanne was 'obsessive', so was Rilke, and in fact almost anyone who sets themselves a goal (Kate Bush? The monks in Into great silence?) must 'obsess' about it. (This is not an original thought.)
The DSM-IV or whatever number it is now would call obsessive what 'gets in the way of normal functioning', like repetitive handwashing or compulsive checking. Activities which do not create anything, which can prevent any creativity from occurring. Does that apply to finding out the value of Pi at x decimal points?
Never mind.
Am reading more Paul Celan whom I find stunning, though as always, so sad.
A friend lent me poetry by Aba Kovner (Israeli poet) and Nelly Sachs (German), published together in an English translation by Penguin (1995), in the series Modern European Poets. Read most of it last night (slim).
I want to be impressed by poets and poetry, to have my consciousness raised by them about how to write well. This afternoon we'll be in town, shall return my overdue books to the library and look for Robert Hass's poetry and bio.
Discussing Rilke with G. About the language that I deem excessive, she said: - but he is in ecstasy.
Have been listening to Kate Bush and downloaded the words of her ballad on Pi, for our ballad exercise. The song is lovely, but the words and the meaning do not seem that special to me. Is my perception blunted ?
I was interested to find out what triggered her writing on this topic, but no luck. So many mathematicians have been involved with defining Pi.
"...with an obsessive nature..."
Any deliberate and continuous focus is always deemed 'obsessive' by those outside it - by that measure Cezanne was 'obsessive', so was Rilke, and in fact almost anyone who sets themselves a goal (Kate Bush? The monks in Into great silence?) must 'obsess' about it. (This is not an original thought.)
The DSM-IV or whatever number it is now would call obsessive what 'gets in the way of normal functioning', like repetitive handwashing or compulsive checking. Activities which do not create anything, which can prevent any creativity from occurring. Does that apply to finding out the value of Pi at x decimal points?
Never mind.
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