Place the pen on the page before inspiration hits – that’s important. You write – that’s what you do.
And as the pen moves, a combination of memory and new ideas combine, they interact with the catalyst called inspiration and you’ll find that the further the process is allowed to progress, the more the New takes hold and memory drops to a whisper and before your mind can comprehend the words, you find an unexpected theme. This time it’s about the evil of memory and how it needs to be subdued / reduced, put in its rightful place so that the New can breathe / can grow / create a new memory that will one day abdicate space to the next generation of New.
One day we might find there’s no heir, no one who cares enough to continue the line, but until that day we’ll have generation after generation of New - each slowly growing old, gradually fading thin and becoming a memory that knows its space and gives way.
I pause.
That’s always a mistake.
To Pause.
That’s when memory sneaks back in, raising itself above its whisper, giving pause to the New and raising an appetite for a brew which lifts the pen…
Is blueberry jam on madeira cake wrong?
Listening to Poetry Extra on BBC Sounds. Inspired by William Stafford.
