“National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month.” (Wikipedia) So... I realised recently that January was the last time I actually finished a poem. January! That's over two months ago! Since then, I've started stuff, scribblings in various note-books, but never finished, as I tell myself 'I don't quite have time yet', or 'I need the right space' etc etc ad nauseum. And all along, the truth is actually more that I'm just terrified of just allowing for the messiness of producing stuff that’s just not as good as I think it could be, and so, just ending up not bothering at all (there’s a lot of ‘just’ in that sentence…). I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist, exactly, but I’ve grown up with constant repetitions of ‘what’s worth doing at all is worth doing well’ (resounding in my head, nearly always in the deep and mellow...
Where are all these taken from? I want commentary!
ReplyDeleteOK, commentary you shall have:
ReplyDelete1. Picture of Zainab (my sister) on the coach home from Portsmouth, back when we both lived down there. I think she was asleep at this point.
2. This was my flat (bedsit) in Portsmouth. I loved that place - it was tiny, but I took it because of the windows on three sides - it was gorgeous waking up late on a Sunday and lazing in the sun (I think I possibly did this about three times when I was there, due to a combination of hardly ever being there at weekends, there never being any sun, and being very bad at lazing in bed).
3. This is a tree that I used to spend ages staring/day-dreaming at out of the window of my office/clinic in Portsmouth. I love trees.
4. & 5. Fields, snapped from trains, probably both somewhere between Portsmouth & London.
6. Dust motes in sunlight coming through the window behind the fish tank at home.
7. Hikmah (my niece) asleep in the sunbeams, with her funky boot-slippers, and a stuffed dog (Alexis De Los Flamencos) that I was given as a birthday present by fellow Erasmus students in Belgium.