Creativity Update

This week has been a good week creatively--although I am aware that my definition of what makes a good creative week has changed.  Here's what it means at this point in my life:

--I've made some submissions to journals.

--On Monday, I wrote a rough draft of a poem inspired by a poem that Luisa A. Igloria wrote.  It was a jumble of images:  the body as a violin with a broken bow, the body as a swamp that hides slaves.  I knew that it was a mix of both positive and negative.  I wasn't sure what I was trying to say.  Tuesday was one of those days when I was limping through the day with pain in my feet and hips, so the ways the body changes as we age was on my brain.

--I pasted this Facebook post:

"I spent some time at lunch writing a poem. I was inspired by these lines by Luisa A. Igloria (read the whole poem here: https://www.vianegativa.us/2018/04/42413/)

"Is it my body
I inhabit, or do I only haunt
a country whose maps have grown...
unreadable?"

I played with this metaphor, the body as _______. I thought about the body as a swamp that shelters runaway slaves or a violin with a bow of exploded horse hair. More to come. Thanks Luisa A. Igloria and Dave Bonta for the Via Negativa site which never fails to inspire me in ways I didn't anticipate."

--Luisa and I are Facebook friends; she said she couldn't wait to read the poem.  That encouraged me to do some revision.

--On Tuesday, I made revisions--for me they were fairly significant, since the first draft was quite a jumble.

--On Wednesday, the poem was up at Dave Bonta's Via Negativa site; go here to read the poem.  I posted the link on Facebook.

It's one of those kinds of weeks that makes me happy to be alive and writing right now.  I may be writing fewer poems than I was 20 years ago, but I feel connected to a wider poetry community.