For about a year, until the middle of last month, I seemed to be throwing up poems. I was writing far more than I was editing. The results were not very good. I have to reconsider them with fresh eye, and I certainly need to edit them, so I could be wrong: but that’s how I feel now.
I’d wanted, well, more hoped, the splurge of writing would stop; I’d hoped for six months. But the damned things kept coming. Now, though, I’ve not written a poem in a fortnight. That doesn’t mean I won’t write; more want to be expressed. If I sit down somewhere quiet, computer free and beer enabled …
Two things have happened. My eye is returning, I’m taking some relatively good photos. This weekend, for example, I liked. Secondly, probably more significantly, I’m returning to coding. It’s weird how those two very different things interact, programming and poetry, as though using language heavily to express conceptually takes a lot of energy from using language heavily to express conceptually.
My poetry breaks new ground. I count that as an achievement. I’ve not been so successful at getting it out there … but I’m launching my collection in Cambridge, Dublin, and possibly Paris this year, so my efforts aren’t entirely unsuccessful. Neither are they, erm, stunning.
My photos aren’t as significant as my poems. I take photos to please my minds’ eye, I experiment with various forms, and tools, but what I have not done is explore contemporary photography. I don’t steal, I don’t know other peoples’, better photographers’, good ideas. I don’t know where to look. Most photography out there is like most poetry out there, as original as adam. Yes, there are books, but which photographer? Which style? Yes, there are clubs, but they seem to concentrate on technique rather than art. Technique is vital, but it is the servant, I’ve not been to a club that didn’t treat it as master. On the other hand, contemporary photography is everywhere, so I must unconsciously absorb des modes. Perhaps I should google “photography as art”.
