Saturday, May 06, 2006

Hibernation

For those of you who keep up with my Imperfect Poetry blog, you will probably have realised that I have become somewhat disillusioned with this whole poetic existence. Funnily enough, I have still been relatively regular with daily poetry postings but haven't been up to conversation on my Imperfect Poet blog, namely because I haven't known what to say.

So much internal dialogue going on that it is damn near impossible to translate all of that into written word. But here I am, still plodding along. I have spent the last two months systematically withdrawing from the poetry scene here in Johannesburg. I need a break, particularly from the whole 'performance poet' state of mind, and I am taking all the necessary steps to free myself from expectation, both mine and others.

This decision to hibernate has some interesting side effects. My focus all along has been on the overall development of poetry, in addition to my growth as a poet, and I have reached the point where the development work was draining my energy, drawing it away from from my personal growth. As I withdraw, my enthusiasm for the written word increases.

Where all of this is going, I do not know, but all I have is time to figure it out. The moment I stopped stressing about time and my definition of what is success, I started re-discovering why it is I enjoy the written word.

Meanwhile, I am still doing the occassional gig, in addition to all my business writing work. Tomorrow night, I perform at the National School of the Arts, a high school that emphasises the arts. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, just wanted to reach out and touch. Easy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just like most love I suppose. When you stop looking for it, it comes to you!
Peace...............

Kojo Baffoe said...

Yeah Helen, the hard part is letting go. While I recognise the need to trust in the universe, it is harder doing. Guess that's why they call it 'life'. Funny, in every language that I know, there is the expression "that's life!", c'est la vie, etc.