Friday, April 1, 2011

Audio: How to Classify an Experience as Holy

It's interesting how blogging offers us a clear delineation of when and what we've been writing. Blogs are chronological and time-stamped. We can access analytics, which quantify and track the writer/reader relationship. When I log in to create a post, I can instantly see how many posts I've made.

My blog has been helpful to me in that it is a recording device. I can look back through the last 700 posts (yesterday was officially my 700th!), and see when I was writing, and what my obsessions were at that time. It has helped me gain some distance from my work--I do see quite a difference between my earlier poems and more recent ones.

For Multimedia Friday, I thought I'd revisit a poem from last April (obsessions of April 2010: the concept of rooms/houses, endings/beginnings, the way experience and time overlaps). I chose "How to Classify an Experience as Holy," a poem I had forgotten about a little (I just love that artwork, WHEW!). I wanted to experiment with reading a list poem (it's actually tricky, poets---how do you handle intonation when reading these types of poems?).

Have a listen here.
I wonder about your own experiences with tracking your writing over the years--do you ever feel detached from certain writing? Do you use your blog (or the blogs of others) as a historical document? As always, I welcome all your comments and questions--though I don't comment back here, I read all of the comments, and appreciate them so much. Thank you for visiting and listening today.

10 comments

  1. Actually I purge a lot of posts. About one a year I ramble around deleting things that seem trivial or out of date.

    Congrats on 700!

    Shall go have (and enjoy, no doubt!) a listen.

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  2. Glad I clicked over to see the art inspiration.

    Congrats on the milestone.

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  3. Congratulations on 700 posts Hannah!

    I love that artwork.

    Your poem, beautifully read, reminded me of the experience of death, at least as I imagine it. Dreamlike.

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  4. I must have missed this one the first time around, because I am sure I would have remembered it. As far as the evolution of one's writing, my only contributions have been my columns at my work newsletter. I have made a conscious effort to contract my thoughts. What I think happens, if you are really engaged in the process, is you try to say more with less, as you get more experience. Great songwriters try to do this--Dylan, Springsteen and Paul Simon come to mind. If people keep following you, and they don't see as many words, they'll still know what you mean.

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  5. "Bliss whistling through the heart." YES. LOVE THIS POEM. And in your voice!! I definitely use my blog as a virtual scrapbook. And I also feel detached from my "old" writing. When I go back to something, it's like revisiting an old friend, someone I used to know and maybe had some experiences with, but it's all sort of fuzzy. Distance is good, I think. It's how we grow.

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  6. I get all my news from your blog (ok and a few others). For history I go to my own.

    Congrats on 700 - a majick number with two eyes. Your discipline is inspiring.

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  7. Oh my goodness!!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS on your 700th post! What an achievement. So many beautiful lines in the universe and you responsible for them.

    Thank goodness for Hannahs.

    thea.
    xx

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  8. Very enlightening and beneficial to someone whose been out of the circuit for a long time.

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