It might be poetry...

Hot days here in my little town, an unusual heat, but what a blessing we have mountains and forests around… Poetry tries to call me; I feel this, no doubt. However, I cannot think of any damned line. I am empty. If poetry is really part of my life, then these days are not the ones that could prove it. I am banal, common, stupid time to time, just a person like any other. I am waiting for something unclear. It might be poetry… It might be also my disposability to lie myself. Who knows?

How many poems?

I have written many poems since I begun writing in my adolescence. They must be hundreds, maybe one thousand, but only a part of them I have published. I admit that the number might be important in this matter (as it might say something relevant in terms of writing experience), but poetry is especially a matter of quality, without pretending I say anything new with this, of course. When you are a poet mainly (rather than a novelist, for instance, case in which you need to be more disciplined), then you have much to deal with time, again and again, waiting moments, inspiration, appropriate mood, long time searching, and the result is not always the one expected and wished. That’s why I have written prose and articles in the periods when I felt poetry did not come. If I may try to make a joke, I would say that whenever I was not inspired I wrote prose and articles. These kinds of writing require hard work and documentation, things that depend on your determination and power only, but poetry is not always on our side... That does not necessarily mean we should just wait for inspiration to come. By contrary, sometimes poetry expects us to look for it, to challenge our own resources and to go ahead. Thus there are more chances that we should write not just good poems, but also many...

Poetry does not allow me to be indifferent.

Just some thoughts, as a try to answer this question: What does poetry mean to me? Poetry is simply part of my identity. My family, my friends and other people know me like that: a poet. As time goes by, I think I have to take this into a serious consideration, more and more. I would not dramatize, though, by saying that sort of things poets like to say sometimes, that I could not live without writing. That would not be true first, and then I think life itself has enough poetry and enough richness and beauty that we should not to be in need of making a choice. What is true is that poetry has helped me to live life in a way I like. It has become my life style. I mean it has increasingly influenced me for the last two decades (since I wrote the first poem), in my thought, in what I do, in my general way to see things, in how I am. I found this not bad at all, because I know how prosaic life can be when it can’t be found any sparkle of sensitivity and any grain of poetry in the day to day life. By saying this I do not contradict one of the previous sentences, but I want just to stress that to comprehend life, to see the poetry which it naturally comprises, we need a personal effort of sensitivity, and that it can be done through poetry, either directly, as poets do, or (if not poets) just by looking always for our best feelings and for our best resources to care. If poetry adds something important to my identity, then that might mean poetry helps me in my life in a very concrete way. How? It simply does not allow me to be indifferent. The story is longer...

Who/What influences me and why?

There was a question on TJMF Publishing's website (where I like to be as often as I can) that sounded something like that: Who/What influences you and why? I tryed to answer, though it was not very clear in my mind what was really going on in what this subject was concerned. Anyway, I discovered in my adolescence that I could write. Since then, the main motivation that has leaded me on my way as a poet has been the belief that I have to say in poetry not only something new in terms of personal experiences, thoughts, feelings and so, but also that I could write about them in my way. This is the belief still I feel I need to reconfirm again and again, because each time I write I feel I do not reach the goal in its entirety, a wish that cannot be in fact properly reached up. It is not clear that there is a person or more influencing me in writing, maybe except the great poets I never cease to read, some of them being alive. The diversity of the nowadays poetry encourages me to continue to write poetry. It is true this is not a time for poetry, as we can see, but the human sensitivity always finds its path despite the historical époque. Poetry, aside other arts, is the expression of this sensitivity that people look for, more or less consciously. In a way I continue to write because I do not want me to lose any grain of sensitivity I feel I have gained so far, and I am influenced in my writing by the type of life I live, by the literary mediums I frequent, by the people with whom I discuss daily, by the books I read, by the little sufferance and the little joys I experience each day, by the chances to travel in Europe that I have had for the last years due to some "writers-in-residence" grants, by the acute consciousness that each and every single day that God gives us is the most important one, by the feeling that writing gives me a sense of life, make me feel better as a human being despite the unpleasant thoughts and situations we have to face time to time, by the sense of death which I feel as a natural part of my soul and by many other things whose list could be infinite, as poetry is.

Inspiration

I am not quite inspired these days. There is only a struggle with simple facts of life such as these tv channels offering kitsch 90 percents, all being discharged in our apartment. Poetry comes when you do not look for it, but you can’t just expect for it to come. To keep yourself connected, so to say, supposes that you should keep yourself a bit away from life itself. And this life compasses also your beloved ones, from whom you want to be nearby as long time as possible. And this life is also supposed to nurture your poor lines… Look at me! I am speaking having the air of someone experiencing a drama just because he has some temporary problems with his own writing, and this is while in my country, in my town still there are people living in poverty, for example, which is the real drama, and I, I am worried about whether or not inspiration comes. Even now, by mentioning this, I feel I am pathetic, because I know in the same time that there is no real connection between these things: poetry and the drama of humanity. Better I should go to the church. At least I will try to pray for my soul there. It’s sunny outside. A promising day is just beginning.