When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next. • Dolly Parton
I often feel uninspired, empty, unable, unmotivated, even disinterested when it’s time to write whatever it is that I ought to write or have to write or even want to write. It doesn’t matter how urgent the task is, there are times when I need to put words together and I can’t prime the pump. Not only do the words refuse to flow, I can’t even squeeze out a sentence or two. I’m reminded of this as I listen to my students grapple with finishing final projects this quarter. They don’t have any words left—everything has been wrung out of them and flung onto a page somewhere. They are dry.
Because my own writing isn’t done at the end of a quarter, finding inspiration is a daily challenge; experience has taught me I need to jump on it when it arrives. This jumping can be jarring to someone who’s talking with me—and I’m often inspired by things that other people say. I try to capture them immediately because I know if I don’t, these ideaseeds will disappear. I am aware that this habit of writing things down while someone is talking could be considered distracting and rude, so I always try to explain. That’s why I was delighted recently when a friend pulled out her journal and began writing after I started jotting down what she was saying. “Take your time,” she told me as I started to apologize, “I want to write a poem ‘cause you inspired me too.” As she wrote, I began this as-yet-untitled poem (I am loathe to disturb another poet at work):
Working title:
Untitled Due to Avoidance of the Obviousness of the Repetitive Line and Subsequent Titular Disinspiration
W-OZ, May 2011
Inspiration is hard to find.
It’s sneaking away,
hiding out, hoping you’ll
quit looking, pretty sure you’ll
give up the search. It
might be stashed in
the garage, up in the
rafters with the unicycle that
broke Uncle Charlie’s arm. Or
maybe it’s under the
stairs in a blue cardboard hatbox
filled with family photos from
that long-ago outing to the
Grand Ole Opry where cousin Sugar
danced in the aisles while
Dolly Parton sang.
Inspiration is hard to find.
It’s eluding the search,
and it could be
lying low, disguised,
hunkered down
in the basement behind
those dusty boxes of old Mason jars
grandpa was going to use
to brew beer till
grandma found out and put
the kibosh on his plans. Perhaps it’s
at the pool hall where he
went for consolation and you
tap danced on the bar.
Inspiration is hard to find.
It’s camouflaged as banality,
dressed up as the prosaic,
costumed in the ordinary,
masquerading as the
dull. It’s pretending to be
boring, up in the attic tucked
away beneath the eaves in mama’s
maple dresser, under the mothballs
and ballet slippers and dried
carnations tied with
pink ribbon from the night she
met your dad.
Inspiration is hard to find.
So when you do,
you need to grab it,
pin it down,
tie it to the bedpost,
lock it in the closet,
handcuff it to the banister,
set it in the rocking chair and
tell it to stay there—or else.
Inspiration is hard to find.
You need to drag it from its
hiding place, sweet talk it out to
the back porch, charm it,
cajole it, coax it onto the swing or
sit with it on the steps or
lie beside it on the soft summer grass,
staring at the stars and the moon
together until it can’t
resist you.
Because.
I’m sure you can ferret out the meaning in this poem, although while I was writing it, I was not thinking of any particular point I wanted to make. It is only in retrospect, after finishing multiple iterations, that I see the relationship between the poem and much of my work as an artist and poet and teacher.
What is your advice for the uninspired?
I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning. • Peter DeVries
* Come up with a good title—and not the obvious one that I am avoiding—and I will include your title with your name (title provided by. . . . .) whenever I use this poem.
zinnfull 