Friday 5 September 2008

Seeking, Finding and Improvisation (and another poem)

Wondering about Astrid's poem yesterday... "I am a finder" reminds me of Picasso's famous comment about his creativity: "I do not seek, I find". The mark on the paper, the act, comes first. What we find in it then is where things go from there. That's improvisation, and it's very different from 'planning' things. The closest thing to it is sex... which would be ridiculous if each sexual gesture was 'planned': it's a continual (mutual) process of finding. Each line here is a finding process...
"Wake up, wake up.
It is not sleep that I seek.
A luscious phrase for the inside of my kneecaps.
A pithy word for each vertebra of my spine.
A trendril murmur for the tip of my elbow.
I will not keep them, but their colour and hue
will have changed, by the time they are back with you."
Is there a relationship between the finding process and an intention? My intention with yesterday's improvisation was different to how it turned out.. Astrid's intention (she says) was different to how her poem turned out.. But maybe 'finding' is the intention...

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