I have a book of poetry that I am really late on delivering…. I totally lost my way… but I think I am finding it again.
It is called Via: and in it there are three books in the book: book of locks, book of gates, and book of keys.
I keep knowing what the poetry is about and then feel – oh no I have to rewrite it.. Is it about the phases of the moon, Inanna, the maya stone writing look like keys?? I have started thinking that perhaps this book is a sequence there will be a Via I, II, III, and different keys gates and locks. This is actually exciting to me and makes me think of B.P. Nichol, my favorite poet, and Martyrology, even though there is really not a simple correspondance.
For me this poem is a somatic poem. I call them splenic, because they work on your organs (like the spleen), they come from my organs (I hope). This morning I had a reading and this incredible actor and poet and artist read the poem and certain parts gave me shivers, or sweats, or my heart pounded. I had a physiological response. My spleen was reacting. My emotions not so much, no tears in the writer or reader sadly. But thats not really what I am after, or at least that is not what I am writing or feeling moved to write.
How does change happen? We move our legs, our mouths, our fingers and things change. I am writing this with my hands, my hands are moving and i am writing this, and I am changing, and maybe you reading this, are changing. I can have an emotion or a thought, but eventually to change something, I must do act.
I totally had a point when I started writing this… Ah yes…keys
So this week I had another idea for this collection… keys in guidebooks. I have recently started studying to become an herbologist – I really know how to do a midlife crisis – I am aces at that. During my training I had a revelation, you have to learn how to use a fieldguide, they have a key that you need in order to use the book. I just thought you take the book and go out and just try and match leaves or stuff… NOPE! I sort of became obsessed with different keys of different fieldguides and how to use them — here is scat! What if the book of keys is the key to the other part of the book – like a fieldguide… well I will leave that to VIA5. My diviner told me VIA I is done 🙂