I got a good start on today in spite of myself. The bathroom scale screamed at me but I set that aside and got busy with a day’s work. First and most important, a chat with a friend, then a basic breakfast and a sit down in front of my new form of typewriter. I put the introduction to a poem together that feels sort of good. While writing, I realized something about style in creative work.
As I was writing my poem (which means mainly moving words around as if they were puzzle pieces), I saw patterns in what I was doing. The patterns are not necessarily new nor are they exactly along the lines of what education in the writing of poetry would produce. What I saw in my pattern was my voice? I understand now that learning the technique of someone (for example – a painter, say Pablo Picasso) will never produce art. Yes, you can copy movements, structure, elements of rhythm but it won’t be art. What gets produced will simulate art and won’t be art until it gets absorbed and released in some other way. It won’t be art until it is as unique as the individual producing it. It won’t be art until the hand of the artist takes the same line he learned from the master in a direction that appeals to the artist.
Yeah, yeah… I know that my revelations are largely things that ‘just everybody’ already knows. They are new to me. I am basking in the light that was always there. Shine on. Ha. It’s an ok day and that’s good enough.
Robert On The Air 