Displacement

I've been doing a little poetry reading lately, online and in hand, and get the sense that most of mine is unfinished. Not in the sense of a first draft kind of unfinished but as an incomplete sketch of my idea. I provide a frame but don't flesh it out. Maybe it's just a minimalist style. Maybe it's an immaturity or dilettantism. My other observation has to with content: I'm painting sketches of the natural world. That's my default when the well is dry but an urge exists. It also mirrors my relationships. A lot of my poetry is relationship-based or driven. Not the same as confessional. Then again, most everything in my life is relationship-based. Perhaps this is one reason I'm so attracted to Mary Oliver: she reflects on the relationship existing among all things, human and otherwise. Really, I'm trying to get the engine going here. I'm not making any remarkable observations. Just hoping my brain will shift into a new gear, will be excited once again about poetry. I've lost that excitement. Writing about poetry isn't going to bring it back. But it brings me nearer to it. That has a voyeuristic tint to it. I'm displaced, experiencing the joy secondhand.