Andrew Burke wrote:

>Judy asked, >can a poet truly lose the Muse?
>
>
Only quote in here, the rest is (my) commentary. I think this was a
discussion I stepped into (squish) back in 2003 when I arrived here.
"Muse" has these visual overtones for me of the White Rock girl in the
filmy schmata, sitting on a rock. Or of French Romantic operas: _Tales
of Hoffman_ or _Werther_. At least Hoffman has the virtue of being more
like many real live poets: the jerk is a curdled idealist who is a
bottoming-out drunk who's literally lost his soul. He's got a Muse
traipsing around with him, of course a woman in men's clothing, to
protect him. "O Muse, je suis a toi!" That aside, I don't buy the
specific concept of a singular Muse, I DO buy the idea that being awake
to one's life and environment amounts not to inspiration but to being
able to take the words that come to you and labor over them until they
do (almost?) what you want them to do. In other words it's work. Maybe
the Muse is a coal miner swinging a pick, because some days that's what
it feels like, minus the warning canary. As Douglas noted, sometimes
you get one of those gifts dropped on you, the poem that writes itself.
I've had one or two of those. The Snaps project is great for it.
Mostly it is brain fever followed by a lot of self-discovery: THIS won't
work, try something else, and the rule I learned years ago--if you write
a great first line you've set up an expectation in the reader that the
rest of the poem will be that strong, and failure is not an option.

So yes, then, there IS an audience. Inner critic? Secret Other?

I started writing seriously only in 1990. Because somehow I'd decided I
really don't care what the definition of Poem is supposed to be. Before
that?--"What is a poem?" That wasn't necessary prep for the craft, it
was cowardice. Not giving a damn won out, too, over failed efforts to
appear Normal. I'm not. Paraphrasing Andrew: fear is the great enemy.
Is writing then a form of loving? There I run into a wall. I DO know I
do not write well when I am writing from hatred. Which is why I avoid
political writing and inevitably screw it up when I try. Someone (read
my blog?) described me as "mordant," but I have a good time that way.
That's how I write. Today, anyway.

Anyway I stopped for awhile in 1997, didn't go back to it for several
months. I did what I think of now as overwrote: not too many but too
ornate. By the end of 1999 I could not write a word. It came back. In
2002 I was practically wordless. Real life, i.e., I gotta get a job,
will suck the creative energy out of you, unless you consider a doctored
resume creative writing. But that time I was not afraid it would not
come back It came back to a different me. I've been beaten up more:
self or others, makes no difference. I'm less ornate than I used to
be. Maybe the voice is colder, maybe it is angrier. Fine. It's not
"it is what it is" (loathsome phrase) but it is where my observation and
life has taken me. It's all temporary.

I used to wonder...if I could have whatever I thought of as a happy life
(this equated with money), would I trade off any gift for words that I
have, never write again. The answer was Yes. For the moment, however,
writing IS part of my life, it's an essential. I never do not write
something daily even if it journaling, a random line, or a reflection on
Muses. Which this is, so I guess I'm done for the day....

Ken

--
Kenneth Wolman http://kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
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             "Only silence is shame."--Bartolomeo Vanzetti