Dana Crum - Poet and Writer
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The Anxiety of Life’s Intrusive Influence

3/2/2011

4 Comments

 
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When Romantic poet John Keats wrote the below sonnet, he captured something virtually every poet and writer has felt at some point, especially during times when life is particularly intrusive and leaves one with little or no time to write. As little writing time as I have these days, I know exactly how Keats felt when he penned these lines:

When I have fears that I may cease to be    
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,    
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,    
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;    
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,            
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,    
And think that I may never live to trace    
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;    
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!    
That I shall never look upon thee more,            
Never have relish in the faery power    
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore    
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think    
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

4 Comments
Nicknice
3/8/2011 11:53:09 am

It's the mundane bullshit of life! ... When we have time to create, that's LIFE too, @ it's best. OK back to the drawing board.

Reply
Marc Anthony Richardson
3/9/2011 08:33:10 am

sweet, poem, the opposite would be to have plenty of time to write and no money; the writing may be more feverish and loopy, but you definitely have a clearer sense a deadline. send more.

Reply
Kendra Bailey Morris
3/9/2011 08:35:35 am

Nice post. I feel you (and Keats) on this one. So tough to make time to write, especially with the necessities of life following you around.

Reply
Dana Crum
3/9/2011 08:53:55 am

Nicky, you're right. Life is not just the tangle of things that interfere. Life is also when an artist has time to create. Creative time is indeed, as you say, life "at its best." I couldn't put it any better if I tried.

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