Notes on my poem, Venus Unearthed, or what John calls poet’s work

Since I am working back in time I write backwards in my notebook. Perverse, I know but I wound up gathering much more information than I had pages left in one section of my journal—which later caused confusion when I tried to revisit it later. I thought the Venus notes would take a couple of pages, and then I could save the rest for poetry. Alas I filled the entire section with notes. What started out as a simple OED hunt became a day-long adventure. In other words, instead of writing a poem, I lost an entire day in a dictionary. I didn’t know I’d find so much information, I found the entire Greek pantheon. And one thing led to another. I followed every lead. After spending six hours looking up this information, who begat who and who murdered who, how they’re all related to each other, that they all had ulterior motives to do each other in. I guess the best revenge in this case, is not just living well, but outliving your enemies and their progeny, and so on. adds a whole new meaning to the term, the sins of the father, or mother.

All this legwork and I don’t have the energy to finish the poem. But, as John said, it’s all poets work. Like the time I spent the day memorizing the poem Innisfree by Yeats because I was missing my grandmother.