I’m always trying to word-craft my way to freedom and happiness. It’s even, often, that words are a lifeboat; I save my own life by and in the writing.
But what if I’ve been making a mistake? What if that which I seek can only be found, not in the words themselves, but in the space around the words—in the hush of the gap after the final stanza? What if, instead of writing that narrative arc (Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3 and the denouement), I started with Act 3 and just stayed there…?
I’ve started collapsing and re-constructing poems, rather desperately, with the illogical but deeply felt sense I can somehow save my own life and the lives of the poets who couldn’t save their own. Ariel is in the process of being re-found and re-imagined. With deep admiration and profound thanks to Sylvia Plath.