Postcards from the Imagination

Now that I'm back on the poetic bandwagon again, I've driven it straight into the brick wall of voice. In the past few weeks I've written roughly five poems. Today, I printed them all out and had a look at them as a group. Unfortunately, I don't hear my voice in any of these drafts. Nor do I know what that voice sounds like. I only know it's not there in the poems. Realistically it probably won't turn up in the next poem, or the one after that, or even the one after that--and the only thing I can do is write through it until my voice finally arrives. That will take some discipline.

It's amazing how clumsy I feel in the face of a blank page, particularly because I do as I've been instructed to and read, read, read--constantly and competently. It's not helping my writing as much as I thought it would. I don't believe it's harming it, but somehow I thought I'd have greater control over language by now. Words are slippery as fish these days--and the small ones are the worst. Little silver poem fish which refuse to break ranks with their schools.