Writer's Commentary: Let Go
On Post: Let Go
Date: January 10
Remember how I mentioned I was no good at poetry? If my earlier attempt was too whimsical to convince you of my assertion, this entry should certainly do the job. This is poetry in the aggressively obvious, aggressively mediocre mold.
The problems started with the song. It is a good song, don’t get me wrong. I quite like it. But the lyrics and the title are like catnip to a future psychologist like myself. Of course I’d listen to it and find the idea of using it to explore a therapeutic “breakthrough.” Of course I would!
The problems started with the song. It is a good song, don’t get me wrong. I quite like it. But the lyrics and the title are like catnip to a future psychologist like myself. Of course I’d listen to it and find the idea of using it to explore a therapeutic “breakthrough.” Of course I would!
However, writing about therapy when you have done it is a problematic thing. You have to be ultra careful not to write about anyone you have ever worked on (unless you have permission, of course), even if it is un- or subconsciously. To do otherwise is unethical and/or a risk to your future. That fact, combined with the somewhat head-on nature of the lyrics made me think poetry was the answer. Going more abstract, as poetry does, would prevent me from pulling on my own past and would stop me from Mickey Mouse-ing the song.
(My documentary film processor always used “Mickey Mouse” as a verb or adjective to mean “the action on screen matches the music exactly and thus neither enhances the other and in fact might diminish both through repetition”)
Plus it was a challenge.
And so it was. A challenge I was not equal to. And I know this because my ever-supportive spouse, The Thunder, after reading this said (I paraphrase), “I didn’t love the therapy poetry one. It was…good, just not great.” Which, for everyone else would mean, “That just was no good.”
There is one good thing that did come out of it though is this was the last poetry (I believe) I did. If the pattern I had in the first 10 days held, I should have done three to four more. But I think this one, although I don’t it is awful, merely not good, taught me my lesson. Writing poetry is a challenge, but that doesn’t mean I have to keep doing it.
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