Comments on: Boredom and the Imagination

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:27:47 +0000

Last poem I wrote:
first line chimed a few times in my head while I was doing other things,
first two stanzas scribbled with pen on scrap paper in bed at midnight,
third stanza written on computer at work (couldn’t wait for pen and paper),
last line revised on tape recorder while driving in car (couldn’t wait for anything).

By: Steve Mackin

Steve Mackin — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:12:58 +0000

Anaesthetic! You nailed it. There is something about the mechanism of a screen, TV or computer terminal, the motion of electrons across the surface to create the picture, that is actually hypnotic.
I didn’t start writing until the advent of the word processor. I used to hate the act of rewriting. Drove me nuts. But then I discovered Word Perfect. Loved it! Loved the ease of editing on the screen, of bloking and copying and pasting. But when I started seriously writing poetry (very late indeed, in the steep slide to 40, before that it was always just a flirtation device), I discovered that the physical act, the tracing of pen across paper, was a stimulus to the senses, and a conduit between them and the imagination. I actually believe I hear better when I write, pen to paper. And for me it’s all about music, the syncopated beat and the sequence of vowels. Because of this psychic stimulation I find the shapes of the things present themselves with greater variety and finality. The pen for poetry.

By: Susan McLean

Susan McLean — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:46:05 +0000

As a child, I was bored a lot. Most television shows didn’t interest me and I had no friends, so reading was my way out. I had a lot of time to fill then, and there was such a wide range of books available that I could always find something to my taste. They were portable, too, so I could take them anywhere I went–and I did. As other offerings have expanded (more channels on television, more movies available on video and DVD, more sources of information and interaction online, I have found that I am reading books less. But books are still what I travel with and I still fit them into my spare time. For writing, I pick a spot that has no distractions, so I can lose myself utterly in my imagination. I feel sorry for the younger people who seem to need to be wired wherever they go–to a cell phone, an iPod, a video game, a laptop. I wonder what time they have to sink into their own imaginations. But I suspect that I am just seeing the average person and that there are a lot of less visible loners out there who also are bored with the shallowness of easy offerings and who get their greatest pleasure from literature and their own imaginations. Perhaps literacy has peaked and most people are headed away from words now, so that the number of verbally literate will be outpaced by the number focused on images.

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:14:00 +0000

Nice aphorism! Maybe this one is relevant:
Humanity cannot bear very much reality.
TS Eliot
Break my heart! You turned down an offer to translate Sappho?! Who else could do or has done it as well as you – I’ve read ‘em all – you’re the one.
ALICIA! forget about answering my questions or translating Sappho. TURN OFF THE COMPUTER AND MARCH YOURSELF INTO YOUR CORNER THIS MINUTE AND WRITE A POEM!