Thursday, April 24, 2008

The three-by-five philosophy

My frequent, wonderful teacher, Rod Jellema, used to exhort us to carry index cards and use them to jot down anything that inspired us: any germ of a poem, felicitous turn of phrase, whatever.

Of course, I keep losing the damn cards. Digging around for them a little earlier today--a process that also yielded the earlier "Poor Spoon"--I found a bunch, surely not all. My friend Barbara recently gave me a pouch that fits them perfectly; perhaps I will get myself organized before I die.

Anyway, I'm looking at them now and feeling not merely uninspired by, but downright hostile toward the words on them. Which probably means it's a bad time to even try to write. I'll see whether I can get something out of them later today or later in the rapidly dwindling month.

No comments: