It will sound silly, perhaps, but at a time recently when I was at a low ebb and couldn't really see any way forward for my writing, this format came to me as something of a liberation. [Writing onto a phone screen is fine for three-line ku but, because of the narrow column width, it's impossible to write a monostich without it being broken up. So, what is an elegant one-line in your head appears on screen as (and might be read by other people as) a two- or three-liner with horribly ugly line breaks. Terrible.] Anyway, one despondent evening, by chance I found myself typing some of my existing ku into this word-shopping-list format, and whoosh, got a huge surge of energy. This piece is particularly pleasing to me because it flows so nicely. In other instances, I still have to make a judgement whether a section break would be effective or unhelpful; and I can still be irked by an indefinite article being, visually, too short, or another word too long. But at least that's just the English language I'm up against there and not the annoyances of technology.
Not silly sounding, but most perfect. In your poem (I know you don't like the word but I have nothing else to use) I can feel the "huge surge of energy" you felt. I felt the same when I first found the double colon. These findings are gifts, blessings.
Mark, There's something really right about your work in this long, skinny, vertical line.
ReplyDeleteIt will sound silly, perhaps, but at a time recently when I was at a low ebb and couldn't really see any way forward for my writing, this format came to me as something of a liberation. [Writing onto a phone screen is fine for three-line ku but, because of the narrow column width, it's impossible to write a monostich without it being broken up. So, what is an elegant one-line in your head appears on screen as (and might be read by other people as) a two- or three-liner with horribly ugly line breaks. Terrible.] Anyway, one despondent evening, by chance I found myself typing some of my existing ku into this word-shopping-list format, and whoosh, got a huge surge of energy. This piece is particularly pleasing to me because it flows so nicely. In other instances, I still have to make a judgement whether a section break would be effective or unhelpful; and I can still be irked by an indefinite article being, visually, too short, or another word too long. But at least that's just the English language I'm up against there and not the annoyances of technology.
ReplyDeleteNot silly sounding, but most perfect.
ReplyDeleteIn your poem (I know you don't like the word but I have nothing else to use) I can feel the "huge surge of energy" you felt.
I felt the same when I first found the double colon.
These findings are gifts, blessings.