Inspiration

(I’m about to put up like three different posts because I have poor time management and I figure if I’m up front with my intentions, it’ll be less bad.)

So Maya was asking about inspiration today and I deftly dodged by giving my favorite word (which was also part of the discussion, but still), mainly because inspiration and motivation are difficult for me. Lately I’ve been “inspired” to write poetry about losing my mother, which I generally do not like to talk about. It’s so much easier to type things out than say them out loud.

In a more general sense, inspiration and motivation tend to shift a lot for me. Lately, it’s been the above reason, but before, my inspiration tended to be little images in my head, sort of like what Jay was talking about. As for motivation, I always think that I can work better under pressure, because that’s when I need stuff done. Motivation to do poetry and inspiration for poetry rarely line up right, though,which is always difficult. Thoughts?

One Reply to “Inspiration”

  1. I think that the things that inspire us are often the things we need to work through. I spend a lot of time in my poetry talking about struggles with depression, which I sometimes feel is cliche or overused, but I need to express. I can’t wait for the day when my depression doesn’t shape my poetry, or rather the day when my poetry isn’t defined by my depression. I want it to definitely be a part, because I think that mental illness can shape one’s worldview more than they’ll ever let themselves believe, but I don’t want it to be the loudest voice.

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