Pat's package

Been reading Pat's reading package, where I think he wanted us to think about the role of constructing the

'writer's voice' as opposed to their 'human voice'. He gave us some stuff all with mention of a Hawk which he thought of as a metaphor for writers, swooping, scavenging, waiting (?) at distance from the 'real' world.

In a lot of the things he provided I got something else though, except for the memoir by Janet Frame, which definitely talked about her family and early life as piquing her interest in poetry, but it wasn't until the locksmith came along (Frank Sargeson?) that the 'writer' was truly unleashed. She also used a hawk metaphor. Is this the one that got Pat onto this topic?

Magaret Atwood and Lisel Mueller also talked quite clearly about those that are considered writers and those that consider themselves writers. I don't particularly thing is a clear distinction there though. It is, like most things, a continuum. Most good writers are never complete. Who was it who said he/she was only trying to write one poem, implying that everything else they had written was a delightful failure and perfection can never be achieved.

I wrote something interesting this morning. I tried to concentrate more on music and less on idea or story. I think I've been leaning that way lately at the expense of the music which I consider to be absolutley crucial to a good poem. Without that it might as well be prose. So yeah, it's a strange story of twins that came out of nowhere (the aural connection between words themselves?) and ended up as something with some merit, although I can tell the ending isn't right.

Also, for a digression journal, I've been doing little of that.

How about the rain? I dug the last trench yesterday. There was 30cm of water in the bottom, the clay bank behind running down like a lahar. I hope to fuck the wall lasts a few years. I'd feel really guilty if the whole things comes down.

P.S. Found a great photo of Pat on internet. Sorry Pat!