my latest snarl

Writing Sabbatical

the answer is always yes

As I noted on my blog, Barking at the Back, I'm taking a writing sabbatical; which is, I suppose, a rather ambiguous term. Does it mean a sabbatical from writing or a sabbatical to write? Well, as an old friend used to say every time he was asked an "or" question, yes! I'm going to discontinue blogging to free up time and mental RAM for writing fiction and poetry. For publication.

Although I will be submitting poems to online journals, when I say "publication", I am referring to publishing on paper. I just can't imagine publishing fiction online, probably because I find it difficult to read it online. It is also clearly important to me as a writer that my work is put into print. It is somehow more affirming as an artist to be deemed worthy of gracing someone else's small rectangles of dead tree. All of which makes me wonder: is this verbal distinction in favour of paper publication an indication of my snobbery or my conventionality?

Yes.

Obviously, since I’ll be submitting them for publishing elsewhere, I have to prohibit access to some of the poems here. I will happily supply updates as to where they can be read, of course.

The poem below is not "my latest", it is an old favourite. The picture is a detail of the life mask of William Blake I found here, in the blog archive of Creative Review.

	

Just as the shoreline
Can't hold the sea
Nor the afternoon the sun,
So my children ebb
And flow from me
On the hours that swiftly run.

Just as the cloistered
Are unprepared
To see the dress undone,
So is my kneeling
Halt and impaired
When the psalms are boldly sung.

Just as the mountain
Will tear the cloud
And the rains must surely come,
So my praying
Is torn by doubt
And disfigured on my tongue.

Just as the widow
Embraces hope
And the hungry crave a crumb,
So my fingers
Grasp at the rope
Of the bells I want unrung.

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