SHIELDING
There's this thing I always practiced as a boy--shielding. I had a soccer ball and worked to get comfortable enough with my feet so that I could rotate around either direction and keep the ball from someone trying to get it. I was such a confident shielder, I took on players twice my size.
I always believe that soccer has been a shield for my writing life. Whenever I realize how much discipline it took for me to master my own abilities and limitations as an athlete, I realize how much more it will take for me to master my mind and heart.
I don't believe that writing can be someone's first passion. You have to be passionate about something else first. Be it a person, a cause, a game--something lines the way for our words and ability to utter them.
A few of the Spalding Select, that small city of bloggers, have mentioned difficulty in the idea of pushing a poem out into the world that might cause someone else pain or embarrasment. I can't say that I ever thought twice about this in the past. I always believed that if a relationship could not endure what was written, how valuable could the relationship be? Now, closer to actually being able to publish something (than say, two years ago) I am beginning to see the reservation.
It's shielding all over again. This time, the writer must carry his/her poem and shield it from the person it may hurt by keeping the ball in shadows or dust.
I'm not sure that keeping wounds in the dark is the most healthy thing. I would rather cause the conflict that risked to reach to someone in an inimate way than have nothing but a sad, empty relationship with all those things to say, but unable.
What kind of way to live is that?
posted by Jae Newman @ 9:19 AM
2 Comments:
Probably keeping wounds in the dark is not an entirely healthy thing. But there are other ways of dealing with the wound besides publicly publishing a poem about the wound. Other choices are --
1)talking to the person in order to heal the wound (then writing a poem about that healing experience)
2)sending the poem to the person in order to start a reconciliation (then writing a poem about that)
3)working on yourself so that the incident is no longer a wound because you get to a place of forgiveness
It's your decision, Jae, and you'll learn and grow no matter what you decide.
Gwen
Just publish the questionable poem in a literary journal.
Unless you're writing about another poet who happens to have a poem in that very same issue, chances are sky-high the subject will never read it.
Problem solved.
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