Writing puts the 'art' in my heart

"I wanna see the whole world, and I wanna write down everything."
- Harriet The Spy, 1996

When I first watched Harriet as an 11 or 12 year old, I was inspired. I wanted to write. Since the first time I wrote a poem when I was 6, I've known that writing would always be something I could own, and something that would own me. Over the past almost 15 years I have grown up through my notebooks, journals, capture books and keepers.

I love words with a passion I can not escape. No matter where I have tried to turn in times of *blehh*, the only place I've found the slightest bit of solace (besides in my fellow humans) has been in pencil and paper. When I am without words, I am forlorn. I am not a brilliant wordsmith. I am not a grand writer by any means. I am a slave, rather than a master, to the art of written expression.

I was going through some old emails, and found some lines from Roger McGough that I thought I might share with my blogreader/s. Here is an extract from the email (a fair while ago):

**

I've been writing again. I bought a huge book of Roger McGough's poetry and I've been inspired. I solely thank McGough for breaking my 18 month period of writer's block. His work is conversational and insightful in a way that, instead of intimidating me, draws me into my inner writer. How are these for some awesome lines:

"Valerie fondles lovers
like a mousetrap fondles mice"

and

"...we made love songs with our bodies
I became the words
and she put me to music"

and

"you will put on a dress of guilt
and shoes with broken high ideals..."

One of his poems is about how the sun likes horses because it makes hay, but doesn't like cats because it makes hot tin roofs. I like that sort of thinking. Another one is called "What you are" and every stanza begins with "you are the...". A couple are:

"you are the moment
before the blindman puts on his dark glasses"

and

"you are the distance
between the accident and the telephone box
measured in heartbeats"

**

On Friday, I bought the complete verse and other nonsense of Edward Lear. It's incredibly clever. I also bought seven other second hand books. 8 books for $50, not bad at all. But I'll have to stop because that's my second $50 book buying spree in two weeks!

In other news, Leigh played at the Prince tonight as Louis and the Honky Tonk. He was stupendous! I didn't wear a pointy hat.