Thursday 12 June 2008

In an attempt to get the creative juices flowing again, I did a freewrite this afternoon. I spent five minutes writing on a title given on allpoetry: The inconvenience of being uninspired. Whilst the freewrite itself was nothing special, I took my highlighter to a few phrases which echoed my feelings quite accurately whilst simultaneously continuing my previous writing style and giving me room to write more.
I came up with a flowing prose...thing. Shocking that an English student has no idea what to call this. Anyway, I'm glad that it's the first thing in my new notebook, because I think it very accurately describes myself and the processes I'll be going through to write again.

My thoughts are unpoetic. What runs through my head is not unique or beautiful. I am not visionary. I cannot fill these pages merely by willing the words to appear. Each rounded, looped, crossed and dotted letter is the product of a mechanical thought. That which is mechanic is forced and planned - it can never be poetic.
If I were a great Romantic I would dedicate every line of this book to the muses, to Classical deities long forgotten and never believed in. I am a cynic in an age of atheism; the muses have forsaken me because I choose not to believe in them. A fair and mutual agreement I think.
I am not a great Romantic. My thoughts are unpoetic. Each curl of my hair does not drip assonance and similes. My blood does not cry out in metaphor or apostrophise an absent lover. My heart does not beat in iambic pentameter, my pulse has no foot. There is no romance in my body, just as there is no poetry in my mind.
Beauty cannot inspire me, yet it moves me. My soul craves melody, harmony and song. I no longer sing with my own words.
I need beauty in all things, but I am not a Romantic. I am no aesthete. I am not a poet.

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