[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

As an aside, what about the days - of which there have been far too many recently, for me, (though unavoidable) - when you're not working on ANY poems at all?

Yes. Those days. Sigh.

I don't much care for the word "inspiration," so I'll just say I haven't been bothered to write a poem in a good long while. It's not for lack of ideas, but just for a general ennui when thinking about sitting down for a couple of hours to just write a poem. I've written a lot of essays and non-fiction material in the interim...it's just that for some strange reason, I have an aversion to writing poetry lately.

By the way, I'm not sure what the aversion is to a thread that asks a question. There may be nothing worth learning from the responses, but those responses may still be interesting and entertaining regardless. Personally, I find little personal details fascinating. I've always been amazed to read about poets who go on about what a struggle it is to write -- how much work and emotional turmoil it requires to coax out a poem. It's so foreign to me, and won't change the way I write, but I find it interesting. On an even more trivial level, I'd love to know what brand of tea Percy Shelley used to drink, for no other reason than learning a bit of trivia.