Be Open...Then Edit...Edit

One of the goals for me...in writing songs and poems over the years...was to keep trying to break past saying...that which was totally predictable...or crude. I
remember once looking at some of my earliest writings...and shuddering at how bad they
were...but how that very fact...may have pushed me towards...reaching for something
finer...and on the way to doing that...developing a dislike for the crude and the
predictable. Somewhere...in my reaching...I began to write from that territory inside
...that was always nudging up close to the edge...of the irrational. I think that...
in creating poetry...it is important to be as wide open as you can be...when you do so. Doing so...may pave the way...for magical phrases or images...to emerge...i.e. to write good poetry...you can't box yourself in with...that which is totally literal...you have to learn to "fly" in your imagination...and...that can sometimes take you to some rarified places. This morning...some words I first wrote in a song...
keep coming back to me...that point the way...to why it's important...to look at
whatever nuggets you return to earth with...from your flights...and go over them...
to see if they hold together...in the cold morning light. The words I remember are
..."Wisdom is a fool's word...wise men never say". At the time I first put them on the page...I was writing from that place...where you just let the words roll...and are
not preoccupied with the sense they make...or not. Years later...when I looked at
the song in question...as I did my final edit of it...prior to turning it into a
video...I changed those words to..."Fools may speak of wisdom...while wise men have
no say"...nudging a bit closer to what I really meant to ssy...from the start.
Some nuggets can be left in the same state in which they first came to you...while
others need to be changed. What you pray for...as you write your songs and poems...
[was just thinking that for some convenient reason...blogging may be exempt from this
discipline]...is that you have...the wisdom to know when...to act...as is needed.
.....................Quester.