Personal Update - A Life Reconstructed

In 1903 Edvard Munch held an exhibition at the newly refurbished Kunsthandlung P. H. Beyer & Sohn in Leipzig, where Munch had been allocated the gallery’s skylit room. Eighteen paintings, inlaid in a light textile frame, were presented as a frieze in the room. Running as a horizontal band high up on three walls, the frieze essentially became a part of the room as a whole. The article therefore proposes to consider the exhibition as spatial art and examine it in light of the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. The documentation of the exhibition is a unique source for understanding Munch’s “Frieze of Life” and its spatial representation, even as the paintings highlight the role of the exhibition room at the turn of the twentieth century. The exhibition room played an instrumental role in how Munch developed his art.

Alan Sorrell: A Life Reconstructed

Personal Update:

A Life Reconstructed

With apologies, I have been sick most of the summer dealing with a surgical infection from eight years ago. At the end of last summer of 2022, I was dealing with a newly opened abscess on my foot which I managed until May of this year when a surgeon opened up the foot to clean it out and sent me home to let the newly opened gash heal.

However, the surgery failed and necessitated a second surgery weeks later resulting in the addition of a wound pump for the rest of the summer... this time with thrice weekly nursing visits to the home. But again, the open would wouldn't heal despite the care. In fact it got worse.

At which point, after eight years of sloughing it out, it was time to remove the infected foot-and-ankle titanium prosthetic which held my foot together. One I broken in my early teens attempting to stop my fall over the edge of a cliff I had intentionally and poorly navigated. And upon the same limb which I had played physical sports until my early fifties when needing a total knee replacement.

This hopeful prosthetic was removed a week ago, cleaned of gunk, and cemented in place with a time-released antibiotic. Since there was now extra skin all was bound up without the miserable wound pump I had come to detest. Nine days have past in morbid pain from loss of device, crutching around on tired arms, and awaiting removal of cast some nine days out. Thankfully, we found a couple knee scooters which helped immeasurably giving relief to my aching body and spirit.

Once this surgery heals there will be a minimum of two more surgeries until there is no longer any infection and the foot can be fused to the ankle without addition of any more mechanical devices. If unsuccessful then there might be a future holding an amputation with the addition of a fully mechanical half-limb and incumbrances to come. Hopefully not. But it is why I waited so long before finally allowing the doctors to remove the original prosthesis.

Tomorrow I speak once again to infectious services to determine if a picc line through the arteries to the heart will be necessary or not. I expect it will require a month or more of antibiotic infusions which I will manage along with a nursing visit once a week to change out the port placed into my arm. But I am no stranger to this practice either as my first wounds eight years ago were far, far worse... being quite long and wide, travelling up-and-down several parts of my leg. It is the main reason I will not "suffer" a second internal prosthetic; the other being that 35% of these second surgeries fail in infections again.

At that time I found myself slipping into despair, if not depression, as I looked into a black pit badding me step forward one more step. The pain was overwhelming. The worse being the first three months - though the next five months thereafter were no picnic either. And then there was the constant severed nerve pain which lasted 4.5 years. It required a steely will beginning with refusing to step forward into an oblivion I might not come out... though I remember blackness to seem a fathomless comfort to the septic fevers rolling through my body.

Anyway, I've been taking these past summer months to catch up with life. Find a little time for introspection. And to rest from writing, which task I've done regularly since the fall of 2009 upon retirement. A retirement I've not only filled with poetry and writing on the cutting edge of a new theology - which I've placed on my other website - but to leave my job and volunteer church ministries to work within my community.

During these past retirement years I held committee and board positions on City, County, and College panels; became a certified Master Naturalist through MSU's extension program (including a 100 hours of community service); and joined over two dozen environmental organizations working, planting, burning, strategizing, creating, and building a living ecology in West Michigan with others who bore the same passion and veracity as myself.

In so doing, we have created the foundations necessary for empowering regional green infrastructures and green business practices to our part of West Michigan across local and state levels and all parts in-between. I could never have done this while working or raising a family. After 30+ years in technology and lay ministries I finally laid all aside and took the time to participate in creating healthy sustainability practices for habitat and clean water projects.

Over the last fifteen years I worked, volunteered, learned, and gave input across a number of ecological areas. Many of them politically unwanted but expediently necessary knowing the climate change coming upon us in the decades ahead. In these tasks I have greatly enjoyed being a part of community seeking to aide strangers via innumerable opportunities and probabilities. It was fun. And it gave to me the experience, perspective, and depth I needed to write of social contracts and personal enlightenments.

Now lately, one I get pass these remaining hard monts, I hope to continue working on both websites to leave with my family, friends, and interested readers helpful ways in which we might think about our personal value to one another and the greater good we might attempt for humanity. I see no reason not to thrive during these times of pandemic, socio-political upheaval, failure of religious institutions. At no time should we give in to adversity, perversity, calamity, bleakness, or short-sightedness. But at all times we are to give ourselves to diversity, modality, veracity, and tonality in the trying years ahead. It's what get's me up in the morning to create, destroy, rebuild, and envision communities of life.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

September 5, 2023

* * * * * * *

We will always rebuild

(a poem for the grieving)

by Jeanette LeBlanc

You are here.
You are here.

Even though everything smells like love and loss and burning.
Start with this.

You are here and it hurts.
It hurts because of all you’ve lost.
Your heart is a 3am siren, driving through that sucker punch bruise of a night sky.
Never a sign of anything good.

Here, nothing feels good.
Now you’ve begun.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy.
There is not enough air in the room.
The quilt on your bed is eight hundred pounds of weight keeping you from movement.
There is no going back

There is never any going back.
Now you’re getting somewhere.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon.
He is listening but does nothing.
There is nothing he can do.

You are on your knees in the grass,
clutching handfuls of earth.
This is progress.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon and there is nobody else to hear you
It is the darkest night you’ve ever lived through
You’ve lived through.
You’ve lived.

Do you hear me?
You live.
You make it.
You survive.

There is a faint tinge of light on the horizon and you made it.
Now we’re finally moving forward

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon and there is nobody else to hear you and there is a grief wail building inside of you.
Through the earth, through your toes,
Your legs, your belly, your chest and lungs,
The reach of your arms, your curled fists.
Your neck
Your jaw
Your face
The top of your head.

Have you ever seen a building implode?
Yes. This is you.
Now you know you have begun the work of healing.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon and there is nobody else to hear you and there is a grief wail building inside of you and you crumbling.
The ground shakes as her own broken pieces slide rough against each other.
There is a red earth landslide and everything is tumbling into the sea.
On the ocean, a wall of water rushes toward land.
Disaster cannot be prevented, only survived or not.
The earth knows well the pain of things that cannot be fixed.

Your pain cannot be fixed.
There is no shortcut through this.
This knowledge is the key to everything that will come next.
There is more to come.

Sometimes healing looks like falling apart.
Sometimes falling apart is the path to what can be built.
Sometimes, we go through the darkest nights and there is nobody but the moon to hear.
He always listens.
Now you listen.

There is not enough air in the room but you are breathing.
There is nobody here but you are held.
You have broken and the world is breaking and we will always rebuild.

Do you hear me, love?
We will always rebuild.

- Jeanette LeBlanc

Why We Read Books and Poems

Dylan Thomas Update

Just a quick mention that I had spent most of the last two days updating all of the older Dylan Thomas poetry posts for those who may have an interest in Dylan's verse. I had noticed that many of the 14 posts needed larger reading fonts from the older fonts once provided in the early days of Google Blogger and that many of the videos had expired on YouTube. To these I've added a few more articles to each one to help flesh out the many perspectives from Dylan's life journey. I hope by reformatting and upgrading each verse set they will become even more readable and enjoyable to delve into than they were before.

R.E. Slater

June 26, 2021

Central Lakes College instructor Jeff Johnson sits atop his truck, reading a poem by Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo, from her book "An American Sunrise", Friday, Nov. 6, in the parking lot at CLC in Brainerd. Johnson was distributing copies of her book to students in the lakes area. Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch

5 Poems About Books

and the Joy of Reading

https://www.bookishsanta.com/blogs/booklings-world/5-poems-about-books-and-the-joy-of-reading

by Bookish Santa

August 3, 2020

When I was younger, I often went to the park just for one reason: The Monkey Bars. I’d climb up to the highest rung, hook my legs around the frame, and suspend myself upside-down. It was the best thing I would do all day! I saw everything that I saw normally, except that it would all look so new, so foreign, and so different. I looked at familiar scenery from an unfamiliar perspective.

When you tilt your head sideways or look at something upside-down, a normal object can look completely new. It’s the same thing that you’re seeing, just differently, from a view, you’re not used to. A rarer take on something mundane.

That’s what Poems do to our perspective. They tell us what we may already know, in words and devices that we might not already know. The simple, musical, flowing narrative of poems breathe some artful life into Literature. Poems tell tales and convey feelings just as well as paragraphs or stories do. But they communicate differently, and that’s what makes them special (Oof, don’t I sound like a yearning lover describing her affections).

Well, I’m guessing, some very eloquent people of the past thought:

“So, we love poems, and we love books...let’s throw them together in a blender and make the best smoothie there ever will be for all people Bookish.”

You’re here, so it must mean that you’re somewhere on the Bibliophile Scale. Well, I’ve got just the thing for you! Or just the...five things? Here are 5 wonderful poems about the joy of reading and life as a Bookworm:

1. There is no Frigate like a Book
by Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry.
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll;
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul!

2. Old English Song - A Jolly Good Book
by Anonymous

Oh for a book and a shady nook,
Either indoor or out;
With the green leaves whispering overhead,
Or the street cry all about.
Where I may read all at my ease,
Both of the new and old;
For a jolly good book whereon to look,
Is better to me than gold.

3. The Book-Worm
by C.W. Pearson

To heroes who on battlefields win fame
We do not grudge the lordly lion's name;
Those who, insensible to others' cares,
Are always rough and surly, we call bears;
To those who learn no lesson from what passes,
The ever dull and stupid, we call asses.
All claim to be a lion I resign,
And shun all bearish traits and asinine;
Nature has cast me for another part
And I embrace my lot with all my heart;
To satisfy an ever-craving need,
All day upon the leaves of books I feed,
And by night I find a resting-place
In what by day appears of books a case;
Thus day and night I think my title firm
To be that busy idler—a book-worm.

4. I Opened a Book
by Julia Donaldson

I opened a book and in I strode.
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.
I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.
I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.
I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

5. My Book
by Annette Wynne

A little gate my book can be
That leads to fields of minstrelsy,
And though you think I sit at home
Afar in foreign fields I roam.

---

And here’s a bonus as dessert; A Poem about Poems, perfectly describing what it feels like once you’ve jumped aboard the train of poetry. There’s no going back, because poetry is ADDICTING.

Pass The Poems, Please
by Jane Baskwill

Pass the poem please

Pile them on my plate
Put them right in front of me
For I can hardly wait
To take each tangy word
To try each tasty rhyme
And when I’ve tried them once or twice
I’ll try them one more time:
So pass the poems please
They just won’t leave my head
I have to have more poems
Before I go to bed.

- Anukriti Sharma

Dilemmas and Choices, Tiredness and Task

Early February 2010 has found me pressed by some kind of personal spiritual warfare which has become deeply besetting to my task at hand of writing finely and conscientiously. With it came time and money concerns that are ever my old nemesis and bearers of bad news. But on the upside, I received an unlooked-for invitation to a college luncheon to meet the university president and while there hope to speak to a professor I've long been considering to discuss a book project I have in mind. And whether he would be personally interested in collaborating on it with me. It'll take a year or so to write but I already have the notes completed and am guessing its length at about 250 pages, maybe 300 with footnotes, appendices and diagrams.  I could probably write this in a couple of weeks but am thinking that a schedule of one month per chapter theme may be a more reasonable goal. But before attending to this task however I would like to finish my remaining poetry sets that I've roughed out for completion. I expect that to be yet another year in the making. And so, time, time, time. So fickled, so pressing, so withdrawing and never friend.

Currently I'm finishing up a large body of poetic pieces which will take me through most of this year I believe.  And I've yet to find a publicist who could help me market my material successfully when I get these completed. It probably would help if I would look but it seems a large and disappointing task ahead of me at the moment.  I started writing for myself the last two years and believe that what I've written will inspire many who would read my material on a number of different levels and in a number of different areas of their life. Generally, I've written what I deem to be popular poetry and not cryptic poetry for every age - having written some pieces for kids and other pieces for adults; some for holidays, others for events; some for life stages and others for momentous times.  If anything, I wish I had more years to expand each select area I've written about, embellishing each area with more similar themes; especially fun/practical/whimsical pieces for kids and adults who are still exhilarating in their childhood at whatever age they may be.

Currently, I'm stuck in the middle of a prose piece which is atypically long (about 15pp) and grasping for clarity and direction. I call it "The Tapestry".  It's completely written through its first four sections but I intend to re-write parts of each as well as to add additional sections to it while re-orientating it away from the first half's western mindset couched in dualistic/dichotomous terms towards an eastern dualism focusing on the balance and harmony of the first half's themes.  It may then consist of two parts dealing with the same/similar subject matter but written paradoxically showing two sides of the same coin, as it were.  All of it couched in a storyline of mystery and "aha" moments.  Upon completion, it'll be the third piece complimenting two other pieces ("Stars and Moon," "Celtic Nights") which I've written, each as different in subject material and style as from the other, but forming a neat trilogy that I had never expected and only saw belatedly during their development.

This current prose piece is a dark read about fate and destiny, sovereignty and free will, determinism and choice couched in mythic Egyptian symbolism using Genesis as an overlay. The other two pieces deal with several other biblical themes of eschatology, harmatology and soteriology while utilizing either old English folklore or Celtic tones, and each set in allegorical or biblical parable format.  They are fun reads (esp. alone in the dark) and may mimic Edgar Allen Poe a little bit - but never as cleverly as he had done!! Beyond that, they require a bit more thinking amongst them and do not simply serve as idle tales in-and-of themselves for mere thrill.

However, between daily obstacles, demands, and necessities, I've found these past weeks a difficult run and it would be nice to find some funding and an office or cottage somewhere from which I may daily write that could produce inspiration to my weary soul, and that without interruption and with considered focus. It's hard to be creative when pressed by so much, and its hard to write everyday when I'm stretched by so many personal demands. Still, even when I don't feel like writing I've found that once I sit down to attend to the task at hand, that words and ideas will flow out from me, along with lots and lots of new material that someday I hope to develop. Which is all well and good, I suppose, but my frustration lies in the fact that I have so much to write about and constantly fight for the time to do this ungrateful, unending, undying task so well while so finely misunderstood and slighted by my fellow companions ignorant of its possible consequences and blessings. Its as perplexing some days as my would-be allegories.

As always,

Peace

RE Slater

February 9, 2010


Addendum

I did meet with the professor above and had a delightful time discovering an old friend made ever more close because of a common mentor and teacher each of us had studied under but at separate times. The bond was encouraging and his help both welcomed and professional as much as it was warm and personal. I couldn't have been more happy at this discovery. Now for ability and strength to begin this belated task of some 25+ years in the making.

First Christmas Update

I unfortunately got sidetracked by a commercial project the past 30 days and lost time writing.  Given the choice I'd rather have been writing but probably could've used the break... so I'm going with it.  A week ago or so I spent rearranging my titles list into a possible content structure and finished Flagpole Days, Autumn Harvest, Solitude, my Swahili poem, added a Carmina, tried to rewrite Hiawatha failing to find the rhythm or tone I wanted, and rewrote Painted Rooms again.

Looking forward, I have at least a dozen or so roughed-out poems I'd like to finish including four or five that are interconnected to a common theme, along with two legendary tales (one's quite lengthy).  I had hoped to get all of them done before Christmas and to book-bind them for my folks and family but can see now it'll be somewhere between March and July by the time I finish these.

It also seems that my creativity period has dried up as I search for better ways to express myself.  I'm going to take some time off to read a novel or two, and finish some other projects I have to do; maybe pick at things as I go along just to keep my hand in the task of writing and not get too far away from it lest I come to a stop altogether.  It's been a long 12 months.

My goal was a hundred pieces and I'm at 58 with 10-12 to go, making it 68-70.  I also have six completed short stories and another six I need to rewrite.  And then I have one very lengthy sports story I wrote a year ago which needs to be re-written in a different voice, as well as a theology book I've started.  But each time I do I get some personal disaster which pulls me away from it (which seems highly coincidental to me, as it's been a several year pattern ongoing).

My theology book consists of two major sections of 10-12 chapters each.  The first section is a teaching section and the second section reviews each previous chapter integrating them with one another.  I'm tracing major thematic elements between the testaments and tying them together to help simplify reading the Christian bible from its vast theological complexity.  It's mainly for my son and daughter as a biblical theological premier (not systematics theology but biblical theology).  Once it's written I have a theological professor in mind whom I wish to contact who teaches and thinks in the style as my beloved friend, and now deceased professor, Carl B. Hoch.  With his input I hope to remove inaccuracies and update it generally from someone much closer to the material than I currently am.

Overall, I like writing short stories, but I prefer the poetry format better because of all the many varieties that it allows for personal expression, creating new words and ideas, tone, coloring, shading, everything!  Sooo, I think I made a good start even though I'm short by 30 pieces, but its still enough to judge where I'm at and see if its any good (my general impression is that they each need a rewrite to sharpen up their tone and focus and readability) and whether they might stand up to reader interest or not.  I haven't tried a Shakespearan sonnet and would like to try that someday just to see if I can.  But with Flagpole Days I did try a running sentence broken into 12 verse sections and am quite pleased with its lilt and composition.  The thought occurred as I was listening to Mozart's Requiem which gave me the idea of seeing how many rounds/voices could be put into a musical piece and still get one overarching theme... I think he got up to 14 competing rounds/voices making for one massive sound which is exquisite to the ear held in rapture.

At this point I should probably find some outside opinions and a publisher to see what's next, though generally I find this a distasteful task and would rather not.  My knowledge of critics tells me to beware overvaluing their opinions... John Keats is a good example of perserverance by following heart/pen while allowing the task itself to resolve any future readership.  Too, I've only ever have written for me and my kids, but from the several people who have read them I think I should share them as they are generally liked, though I care not about this but whether they might add thought and contemplation as I speak my soul.  I do worry about how personal they are, but I'm sure every poet does. They are myself unsheathed as I can allow that task, and a reader will either like them or not. I cannot be anything less than myself and can only speak of what I hear and wish to write against the streams of humanity that sings its own songs alongside mine own.

RE Slater

December 10, 2009

Finding My Voice

Since last October of 2008 I have written as much as I have had time to - mostly poetry but a few short stories as well.  Through this process I have written what has been most important to me from years past but have known that these pieces would be a "developmental record" of my progress as a new writer formally seeking his own words and styles and thoughts.  I have consciously known that it will take some time for me to develop my writing style and have recently come upon a phrase most apt in describing my progress - that of "finding my own voice" as a poet and as a writer.  Too much of my style feels like it is narrative (though it isn't) and I should like to step back from that as much as I can, and perhaps read some poets to catch their style and help me in mine own more quickly.  But on this point I still refuse to read other poets so as to keep my words and thoughts fresh and essentially mine own and not theirs.  But lacking formal writing classes these past poets and writers may be of help to me and so, I shall intend to briefly explore some styles which appeal to me and my style, without straying too long in anyone matter for I still wish for my material to be fresh and original.

It is now mid-October of 2009 and I continue to push out at least one to three documents a week along with my other duties and commitments as husband, father, dutiful son, son-in-law, consultant, community services and so on.  Thus, I have many half-written pieces which I wish to go back and complete as newer pieces continue to cross my mind and heart - all of which takes time away from my effort in finishing my original drafts.  And since I do not wish to lose these creative moments, I try to capture them while attempting to finish my rough drafts as well.  This is proving to be a hard process which can easily overwhelm me amid the vicissitudes of life.

I also have a theology paper I wish to write up as a book and have started this task as well (again).  But each time that I have made a major attack to get it properly going I seem to experience some little personally upheaval in my life.  The thought has crossed my mine that it is not unlike being prevented by the devil because of the severity of these roadblocks.  But, I do not think my words are so important that they haven't been said before and require any devil for prevention.  However, it has been a very odd and coincidental experience.

The book itself is to be written in 2-parts - the subject matter itself and then the integration of those subjects with one another.  This project will encompass the dozen-or-so major themes of the bible (sic, pertaining to "biblical theology" not "systematic theology"... this is a BIG difference) as they cross between the testaments and are integrated with one another.  This subject was a major part of my training in college and later seminary, and I should've pursued a PhD in biblical studies on this but did not.  I had neither the money nor the will to study any further, being somewhat exhausted after years of study and needing to work.  But my boy has shown an interest in biblical knowledge and perhaps my primer could be useful both to him, his friends and any young would-be Christian theologs wishing guidance in thematic matters.  At least that is my hope.

And so, I have been tragically stopped again and am writing of more practical experiences and observations from my personal life into my poems and trying to mix my training with my writings.  Perhaps these "lesser" poetic pieces will be of more aide in the long run to the general reading public than a large stuffy book filled with important "theological" subject matter.  At least that is my hope and one of my purposes in writing... to get God into the details of life, including my own, failings and all, in as many ways as I can be creative and "non-Christian" about it.

RE Slater
October 28, 2009

Happy Anniversary! Journeys of a Would-Be Poet

Dolan's pub (Limerick, Ireland) - Irish Traditional Music Session

July 7, 2015

The Monahan Twig; John In The Mist

Apr 25, 2021

Aspirations of a Would-Be Poet

by R.E. Slater

October 6, 2009

Thanks to a local group of Celtic musicians I stumbled upon last evening I have been able to re-imagine and complete a new set of verses today to add to a growing portfolio; this time writing of a Brigadoon-like experience through the greater length of today. Now for some rest after a long day of writing. My mind and hands are tired. I will take the rest of the week to firm up the edges of this new poem and refine it to make it more clear and more readable.

Last week I finished a personal narrative I had started working on in April as an all-too-common experience in my childhood. It starts out as a simple story but gathers additional layers of meaning as I add more thoughts and details to what at first seems a plain homily. I intend to add it to a selection of other personal narratives which will flesh each other out and perhaps provide historical relevance for the times I am writing about.

Otherwise, I spent one day simply re-organizing my stories in relation to one another and setting them into slip-case books which I can manage should I need to re-arrange them again. I retitled each book and can better find each written verse in compendium to one another. While doing this I found several poems which needed a word here or there, an adverb, a verb, a pronoun in re-reading them in a fresh light gained by distance away from these pieces. Without these additions they felt awkward to me and/or incomplete to the theme(s) I had intended. Even though I keep telling myself to refrain from overmuch editing at this point - that they are what they are and should now be left alone.

I should also add that I started on a short story and added a poem to it which is now completed even though the story isn't. I've also added some pictures to this story to help give it a more readable symmetry in describing what I was seeing. I think many readers will be better able to visualize what I'm writing about through the usage of these photos. Because of this, I may wish to add personal photo stock selectively to several previously written stories to help enliven their pages as well. Further, there is a collection of poems I'm writing as one complete set which will be related to this newest story either directly or indirectly. To date it consists of 4-6 pages contained in 4 sections and may grow by a couple more pages into another narrative homily that I wish to relate since my childhood stood so vastly different from many my age.

Apart from personal narratives I have tried to write descriptively in various styles and, have another 30 or so poems roughed out in various stages of completion. Either as legends or tales, allegories or interpretive parables, sonnets or songs, etc. When these are completed I should like to try my hand at more irregular lyrical poetry and break away from the symmetry I've produced in the first year of my experience. Which, by the way, had begun in the month of October of last year... so this then is my first anniversary of writing. I've come a long way but have so much more to write about and hope to have the chance to complete what I've started and intend to finish.

Anyway, unlike my first set of 100 poems, I think I'll need to read some poets in order to be able to copy their styles since their styles are so foreign from my mindset. I may be a year away from actually beginning this task since I am not finished with my current set of tasks.

But afterwards when I am done I should then like to try something remarkably different and foreign to my mind and ear. I think Dylan Thomas may be a good example to me however I do not like his rambling verse which seems to lose its meaning over the distance of time. So, should I chose to go this route, I'll try not to ramble and try as best I can to keep it relevant despite the movement of culture, era and language away from my era. This will be hard to do I think but good poets can keep their relevancy for the most part. Since I do not expect readers to be historical anthropologists and culturally literate I will try to write about our common condition and not so specifically as to lose its translation. At least that is my hope.

I can tell that I have been rambling because I am so tired but I thought to put these several lists together to remind myself of my journey and possible future goals.  Forgive me and apologies and good night.

RE Slater

October 6, 2009

End Note (June 25, 2021). I have no idea what I was talking about when mentioning Dylan Thomas years ago! I love his poetry. Love it! - re slater 

My Writing Progress Thus Far

I would like to say at the onset that I reserve the right to ramble in these blogs and not have to think about how I'm going to say something. More simply, my blogs are not how I write but a form of personal communication about what I am doing. Thanks for allowing me this unstructured pleasure.

As earlier mentioned last month, I have been working through both recent and older poems I've written and am glad I have. Many were in serious need of editing after reviewing them. Maybe because I'm becoming less rusty at writing or because I can better critique my past writings. Whatever it is, I find that this has become a necessary task once a poem has been produced and has laid in the closet for awhile simmering and aging.

For example, the Celtic poem I had written changed again when I added 4 end-verses to it. It took a cool allegory and gave it wings so that it tied all previous verses back to itself and to each other. Thus giving to the poem more flexibility and freedom.

As another example, the poem "Looking Glass" was six months old and in great need of repair and updating. After which it seemed to be able to fairly "sing" on its own. If I had not looked at it then its flaws would not have been seen.

Thus, by allowing several months or more to go by I can better re-visualize what I was trying to say originally and can more immediately see the errors within that piece. That, and the fact that my writing skills are slowly improving so that I have more ideas that I can add with a larger vocabulary and greater personal familiarity with stylistic differences.

Overall my word-pictures seem to be getting better and I am becoming more comfortable mixing my metaphors and themes in new integrated ways that provide quicker apprehension and sensual binding of the reader to the main themes.

I'm also discovering that language is very fluid because of its symbolic nature and cultural context and that to say something simply may be impossible yet the most practical and important task to work on. Succinctness and conveyance have been my greatest struggles and best rewards.

And then there is the element of meter; I had one poem I had written several months ago set in the standard 4-line meter form. But however much I tried to make it work (upon re-edit) I found it simply wasn't working. And so I changed it around to 9-line meter which is irregular and offbeat in rhythm. That changed made the entire poem so much better I couldn't believe it! Who would've thought?! By allowing it to speak to me on its own terms instead of on my own terms, and by learning to listening to it rather than forcing it into something it was not for, made all the difference. Thus, I'm learning that each poem is unique and requires me to better listen to what it is trying to say.

RE Slater
September 16, 2009

Still writing

Today I wrote a poem of 8 lines in 10 stanzas and kept it as sparse as I could. Played around with the elements, tones and colors on this one.

A couple days ago I finished a Gaelic poem started 4 weeks ago. This was my first attempt at an allegory. I wanted it to feel like a Charlotte Bronte read on the moors. Coincidentally, it ended up thematically paralleling 2 interpretive parables written a couple months ago which are still being finalized. So I think I will group them together in their own section.

On my short list to do, I would like to work through and finalize 10 recent poems and 1 short story I've roughed out. Each unit is more-or-less completed but I like to go back and edit them after letting some time go by. They read differently to me when I do this as opposed to when I am actually writing them. For me, it helps to give an "outsider's perspective" to gauge whether they're interesting, readable, clumsy, awkward, and so on.

Several of these poems are lengthy and will be more demanding in their review. I have one that is especially long - about 12 pages; but it's a good narrative broken into 4 sections and will be fun to ramble through while thinking over the content I'm presenting.

Lastly, the past two months I've reworked several of my "finished" poems. Each of these were at least 6 months old and in need of updating. Why? It seems that the more I write, the more words and styles I have in my head which then helps me to better edit my past completed works. And since I'm so new to writing, it seems that for now I'll have to allow this habit. But over time I hope to limit myself from this type of "introspective" labor and simple let the poem pass or fail on its own merit once they are submitted to the "done" side of the ledger.

RE Slater

August 27, 2009

The Poetry Poems of R.E. RE Slater

A Few Personal Thoughts

by R.E. Slater

April 22, 2009

This page was entered to help facilitate a Google or Blogger Internet search for any published writings I might submit at some future date when I decide to produce them to the public. Before I do I must consult with a publisher to determine the best course of action for my hard-earned efforts. At present I am focused on writing new pieces, re-editing some I've completed, working through rough outlines and jotting down odd bits of stray thoughts.

In lieu of mine own handiwork I will place other poems or articles on this blog site that may mark my progress or my poetic burdens in one fashion or another. For instance, some of my poems deal with the concept of "time" and when discovering that TS Eliot had worked on this in similar fashion I listed a couple of his poems that felt similar to my own thoughts. And like some of mine own, Daisy Turner's poem had a  touch of sadness and truth in it, and so, I thought to put that up on my blog as well.

Some poems I just like and have no correlation whatsoever to my own writings other than as bright goals reminding me just how good a poet can be with his or her words, phrases, concise thoughts, insights, and such like. Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath and Wilfred Owen can fall into these camps as forgotten poets of old that need remembering, in my estimation, by us, their poetic readers.

Initially I wanted to mark my writing progress and tell of the background and development of select pieces I am producing - to give them a kind of "literary history" that would make them more personal when later discovered and read. And so, from time-to-time, I will do this but without the poem itself these will only be incomplete histories and I apologize beforehand that I can do no better.

Summer now approaches and I find myself worn down a bit or too easily distracted from my daily routine of poem development; causing me to slow down or quit altogether these past several months. It seems that my little writer's room has closed in on me and I've lost the inspiration - or the motivation - that has driven me to produce so many thoughts and words these past several years. There seems to be the never-ending minutia of personal responsibilities requiring my attention so that I must simply stop awhile and address them. 

As such, these sallow, callous demands placed on my creative time and thinking have caused my soul to feel "stretched and thinned," to wander, having stayed my hand too long from its pen making me wish for a writer's retreat. A place where I might systematically re-dedicate myself to my hopes and ambitions, to the written word and page, to the inter-weaving of thoughts and expressions. And yet, however I might wish it, I question whether it were so easy to leave one's now tangled life for a simpler one and for so selfish a purpose. Thus I suspect that I must attain this re-invention in a steadier, more purposeful evacuation of the old life to a one requiring an enforced bohemian existence of writing and "seeming" personal irresponsibility. For however hastily I may wish it, while continuing to question whether it is the most proper, the most wise course of action, it is perhaps my only course of action, and the one that tirelessly fights against my personal dreads and reluctance to publish.

For neither time nor opportunity are endless, each must be used efficiently to accomplish, to read and understand, to express and enjoin, all that I would. Nor can there be found the natural literary outlets or social bonds that my new interests now demand as I suffer alone in my private world to create story lines in an other-worldly existence foreign to those friendships around me. And yet the goal is to finish what I have started in the short years ahead and someday share with you my poems and stories, delights and wonders, wanderings and journeys in that strange and marvelous land of words and ideas.

RE Slater
April 22, 2009

Learning to Write

In October 2008 I decided to finally start writing. It is a task I had wanted to try all my lifetime and had consistently put off for one reason or another, mostly because, I believe, that I misjudged myself to the task I thought I couldn't do, so that when the day came that I should begin and stop making excuses, it was like a godsend long overdue. And so, I started. Which seems remarkably silly in a fashion, but after waiting a lifetime to write, the concept of "now" being this exact moment to begin, seemed quite surreal to me.

To help me along the way was a Michigan economy that was slowing down so that I found myself, as a self-employed trades worker, fast becoming under-employed (and I must admit, losing interest after 25 years). Added to this was the gradual preoccupation of raising a family, now grown, and becoming more independent from my industry in their lives. Such that, I could begin collecting old notes and earlier poems, created years earlier, and dedicate the fall of 2008 to writing exhaustively every day, from dawn to dusk. I found it to be an intensively creative period in my life, and as I worked, began recapturing moments of lucidity unbelieved. By Christmas Eve, three months later, I had produced 35 poems, with 15-20 more in production, and had also completed a long, reflective, narrative - my pride and joy - of some 20+ pages in final draft and ready to be read by relatives and friends.

And because I had no idea what my writing style would be like - or should be like - I attempted as many different styles in as many different pieces as I could entertain, to discover what felt most comfortable to me, or seemed most mine own. My only thought was that perhaps a collected portfolio of completed works would help me determine my literary voice (of this truth I later would find unhelpful for I rather enjoyed varying my style and forcing my pen to try new adaptations). And yet, the one thing I didn't wish to do, was to copy another poet's style until I first learned mine own. And developed it to be mine own. Then, and then only, would I dare read past literary authors and see if I could learn a little more from the master poets of centuries past.

Consequently, three months later, on Christmas Eve, I had to stop and rest until January's end of the next year, having become completely worn from writing (or thinking) of so many words and phrases swimming around in my head or dancing from my breast. And when I began again I did so at a much reduced pace from the previous months - or so I thought. But my mid-February had created even more original pieces and needed now to stop to take the time to edit earlier productions. By early July I had completed, and re-edited, about 50 poems to date. To this I had added another 40 pieces that were in various stages of arrangement, requiring roughing-out, completion, or finalization, making me happy with my progress thus far, but as burdened within myself at the same time. For there seemed no end. And when reading my finalized pieces (or so I thought) several months later I discovered flaws that I wished to excise out of them. Flaws that interrupted rhythm and flow; that left the main topic and wandered off; that didn't stick to the style I had chosen; or became unworkable in that style and required a completely new style. Flaws (whether true or imagined) that I suppose is to be expected being new to the literary discipline of writing communiques at once personal and intended later for public benefit and engagement.

Curiously, the more I wrote the more I found that I have something to say, which I didn't think was possible to imagine. Literally hundreds of subjects have come to my consciousness making me wish that I had applied my pen and mind more diligently to this task of enlivenment years earlier. Through this time I practiced using a number of different forms and styles, writing both in prose and in lyrical poems; trying various verse and meters; attempting my hand at narrative tales, legends, ballads, homilies and even haiku; and then to short story creation by-and-by. It was my hope that by the following Christmas a hundred pieces could be etched out and reviewed by several friends whom I trusted to independently review these samplings with me. But whether I found a later readership or not, my more humble goal was to continue writing about things that interested me; that I might understand a little of; or could offer a glimpse of insight, profundity, or humor to. And to some small degree I believe I have and have, in the offering, provided some moving poems and stories from out of the emotions of my being and the questions that have stayed long upon my heart and mind.

In many ways I'm an old soul caught out-of-time, living in a new world, who is trying to express long forgotten journeys and neglected thoughts of a lost world past time-and-remembrance. And from these imaginative recitations have been fashioning a postmodern world which is as similarly out-of-sync with today's present society-and-culture as were mine own ancient past comparatively. Thus, making the old new, and the new old, and all things in-between as out-of-step and off-balanced. A very curious development indeed! For myself, I fear my poems may be too belatedly written from the wells of my soul to attempt complete examination in the light of these present days and nights that I have left to me. Moreover, I seem to most enjoying writing of the simple wonders of life around us - no large thoughts per se, or at least no larger than what most people have thought or felt - but insights that could be written about in a way that may produce enlightenment and reflection on the simple things of life that live about us every day and in every way. My initial reviews  seem to indicate a modicum of hope for all the hard work I've poured into these tasks while I hope that this undertaking may be as useful to others as it has been to myself. As a novice, with no formal training, and with even less literary application, my desire to write and to share my words, is an avocation I wished I had started years earlier. But I will have to be content with that period of life I am now in, and with the shortness of life I left to me, in my attempts to convey my impressions and knowledge of a world that has perplexed and intrigued me since as a youth. A youth full of curiosities and examinations. One that I hope to someday share with you through spellbound drafts and essays.

R.E. Slater

February 9, 2009