The great Poet, J. V.: The great Poet, J. V. Cunningham, once described having to sneak up on a poem as if it were a watch dog to whom you offer a juicy steak as a bribe. Perhaps you should consider an opposite strategy: let the Cosmos sneak up on you and deliver a poem to your doorstep when the time is right. But keep looking for it; your enthusiastic patience will make the process go faster.
No trespass at all, I welcome: No trespass at all, I welcome the feedback.
With everything I have had going on in the last 10 months, I'm not sure I see much writing coming soon. The Cosmos is open to me, definitely, but it seems to require other gifts.
I hope I am not trespassing: I hope I am not trespassing by offering this comment. Now seems to be a time of new beginnings; or, a continuation of your original writing, but in a different venue, with a different emphasis. The whole Cosmos is open before you, and you need only select a subject. The words may not flow at once because the well (to borrow a metaphor from Mark Twain) may need priming, but it will eventually begin to fill, and then you will be able to draw from it. I am reminded of a young lady, nineteen years old, who was vacationing with four friends in Geneva, Switzerland. They had been reading ghost stories for entertainment (no such thing as television back then), and decided to have a ghost story contest, who could write the scariest. Everyone but the nineteen year old girl started rapidly; she experienced a most frustrating writers block. Finally, on either the night of, or the night before June 16th, 1816, she had a nightmare that kept her awake the rest of the night and gave her the idea for a short story. At her boyfriend's urging, she expanded it to a novel, which was published in 1818. Her name was Mary Shelley, and that first novel of hers, Frankenstein, has never been out of print.
I started writing after a: I started writing after a traumatic event that occurred in my Freshman year of high school, which was in 1996. After I was put on anti-depressants and other psych meds in October of 2002, I developed a writer's block that won't go away. The novel I was working on, I can't find the original version of it and whatever I last did to it was a complete and total annihilation. It's depressing to even open the document anymore.
In 2007, I underwent open: In 2007, I underwent open heart surgery, and my survival chances were three in twenty. After the surgery and my release from the hospital, I had a follow up appointment with the surgeon, and I thanked him for saving my life. (I might add, before continuing, that he did not share my Faith.) He replied that he had done nothing at all. When I asked him what that meant, he told me that when he opened my chest, the mess that he had found was beyond even what he had been trained for (and he is nationally recognized as an expert on that kind of condition). I asked him what he did, and he told me---and I say this in all truth---"I picked up my instruments, put my hands inside you, and my hands began moving by themselves . . . for eight hours they moved by themselves. I never knew what the next move would be. Your God healed you; I simply held the instruments for Him."
Well, I should like to think: Well, I should like to think that your work has been waiting patiently for you to resume when the situation improved. I wish you the best in your endeavors. In my own case, which I do not presume to dare to compare to yours, I wanted to write Poetry since October 13th of 1975, and the first real poem did not arrive until sometime in the summer of 1994; nineteen years of wait time. I am an old man now, with a lot of medical afflictions, but the poems keep coming---for which I thank the Lord most humbly.
Thanks, I am grateful for: Thanks, I am grateful for your comment as well. I noticed I joined this site less than 6 months before I stopped writing, not for lack of trying. I wish I could find a way to write again, but in saying that... I am beginning to think the reason I developed writer's block was because of the psych meds I'd been put on 2 months before... and I've just gotten off them after about 21 years. Wish me luck! I have a book I started in 1995 and haven't been able to finish.
Yes it is. I have been a: Yes it is. I have been a member for over twenty years. I have seen a lot of changes here, mostly positive. There are some very fine Poets, and a few (but they are a few too many) poserus who think they are Poets and are not. I love this site, and I am very grateful to Jason for providing it to us.
I am grateful for your reply as well.
Thank you so very much. I: Thank you so very much. I take that as quite a compliment, indeed, and I am very grateful for your comment and for your visit to the poem.
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