In the midst of naviagting my late teens and twenties, I believed the healing of my childhood meant engaging with what I could do with my earned money: collecting.
I now say as a joke, a collector is really a hoarder who wants to come to terms with how collecting serves the collector.
When the term arrested development came a public term, maybe through the TV show?, it was a new use of language to focus through.
Suncoast Era, Gen X, and the Losses We Felt in the Seventies and Eighties
We only have so much time, so trying to push yourself into being creative is barrier making
It's an assignment, so it's already a resistance
Some students really aren't interested in poetry but they enrolled in the class anyway
Students are used to Turning something in and getting a grade for it. They aren't used to really writing something they would want to read or want to ride. Or that they would even have written by a deadline.
I'm asking them to share emotions with using words that they wouldn't normally share. That the art has to be there.
Art and sharing feelings are never encouraged in classroom settings. They are not often graded on. Again, the grades!
Students are more focused on what they need to do for homework then they are on the experience of being in a classroom where they can be themselves.
This one of my best writing practices is to have a pile of books beside me.
Even if I feel stuck, I can pick up a book and in no time at all I start writing again.
Engaging with the language itself changes my own way of thinking, that then words that are coming from somewhere come out in a way that's different than they would.
Of course the prompts are also wonderful.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mondaysarefree/p/exercise-001-the-list?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2dy8e9
Check the sources for: Here’s Sontag’s list of beliefs, list of likes and dislikes, and list of rules for parenting.
Essayism by Brian Dillon
