I recently posted some poetry & prose by others on Extension of Amboire's Attic; one of them, Permanently, is by Kenneth Koch. I googled his name because I wasn't sure if I had copied the layout of his poem properly. While I was looking for that, I came across something he wrote that seemed to strike a chord with me; I wanted to share it.
In an essay called "On Reading Poetry," the late Kenneth Koch wrote:
Suppose you want to get an experience into words so that it is permanently there, as it would be in a painting—so that every time you read what you wrote, you reexperienced it. Suppose you want to say something so that it is right and beautiful—even though you may not understand exactly why. Or suppose words excite you—the way stone excites a sculptor—and inspire you to use them in a new way. And that for these or other reasons you like writing because of the way it makes you think or because of what it helps you to understand. These are some of the reasons poets write poetry.
I've been feeling on the verge of creative output lately; I'm not sure what form it will take. But nearly everything I see or read has been piqueing those feelings! I'll let you know what I come up with.
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2 comments:
I'll read over some of my old writing sometimes, and it'll take me back. It's weird, cause it might be something that's changed, maybe something I had forgot about, but when I read it, I'm there again. I remember.
I feel that if your writing takes you back to the way you used to feel then on some level you still feel the same way. Maybe they're just forgotten feelings. I have changed so much in the last 4 years that when I read what I used to write most of it doesn't touch me anymore. I can't feel what I had felt at that time.
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