I'd buy that for a dollar if I was looking for a way to relate
Conversations For
Transformation
to poetry. The thing is when I'm writing
Conversations For
Transformation,
I'm not writing poetry. Nor am I trying to be a poet. If it turns out
there's a relationship between what
Conversations For
Transformation
evokes and what poetry evokes, I'll take it. But it's not where my
focus is.
I can see how
Conversations For
Transformationshowing up
as poetry is an inevitable result of the process they are, given what
they bring forth - that is to say, given what I intend for
them to bring forth. In this way, you could say they do
evoke a poetic experience - for this I'm responsible. But this poetic
experience is simply a by-product of their
creation.
It's a by-product I can count on coming forth in the process of their
writing. It's a by-product I don't have to have my
attention
on when I'm in the process of
creating
them.
But there is one aspect of
Conversations For
Transformation
which does have something deliberately in common with poetry:
Conversations For
Transformation
are inspired by a muse if you will. Actually they're more
than inspired by their muse: they're
in service
to their muse. And they don't have to be - it's important you get this:
they don't have to be
in service
to anything ... and they are. The muse they're
in service
to is
source,
the
source
of my life and my experience, the
source
of your life and your experience. Yet this isn't significant, any more
than the your hair color or your skin texture is
significant. They're just
what's so
about you. The
source
of your life and your experience is simply the
source
of your life and your experience.
I'd like to address people generously telling me
Conversations For
Transformation
evoke an experience like poetry evokes for them. This is
interesting ... The mindset I'm in when I write
Conversations For
Transformation
is really closer to the mindset of a
computer programmer
than it is to a poet's or even to a writer's. What I do isn't assemble
words which evoke an experience like poets and writers do. What I do is
more akin to pushing buttons, flipping switches, and turning
dials (so to speak) to cause an experience like a
computer programmer
does. As a
computer programmer,
my
tools
for directing the way a
computercrunches numbers and runs apps and games are
a keyboard, a mouse, and code. As a writer of
Conversations For
Transformation,
my
tools
for directing the way the
machinelistens for the possibility of
transformation,
are
words.
This
poet laureate,
this
poet Laurence
isn't simply writing evocative poetry or prose. Although it may seem
like that sometimes, the truth about what I do, the truth about what
I'm up to is waaay bigger than that.