Tuesday

I have finally moved into my Spring/Summer schedule, promising myself at least ten hours of creative time a week. But what is creative time? Is it only sitting at a table with pens and paper or typing at a keyboard? Or can it include walking to the sea and eating an ice cream? Or going to the theatre and listening to poetry? What, in fact, is not a creative activity, except perhaps doing the washing up? And even then, that can be a moment for fermenting or composting what has gone before. Ten hours appears an achievable goal after all.

I have also bought Poetry as Method, reporting research through verse (Sandra Faulkner, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA). (I've just noticed, what an evocative place to locate a publisher!) I've only started to read the first chapter, but the book (as its blurb says) 'takes an interdisciplinary approach to using and creating poetry for conducting and reporting social research'.

Sacrilege surely, even the mere thought of using poetry. Are we not the instrument of such a divine art rather than the other way round? And to connect it to something as calculated as research, doesn't seem right.

Yet, as poets, we seek to delve into our own and others' humanity to root out some universal truths and communicate them on. With our words we attempt to create sense and meaning of our experiences, in order that others might do the same. Are these not good definitions of the work of a researcher?