Live

Notes

This is the second part to end. I planned it to be a kind of trilogy, with these three themes I thought of, in which end. was the first part and this was the second. The idea started when I was writing poetry for a friend and I noticed how some of the poems I wrote resonate one voice. Rather than putting them in just one book, it was better to group them into these three themes. One theme was about the 'past', another one 'present' and the last one correspond to a 'future.'

If end. was about the many 'states' of my past, this collection talks about my many present lives. I usually don't explain my poetry much and I prefer it that way with this collection because I always feel inadequate whenever I try to explain things, especially poetry. To me it just feels that after I write down a poem, its meaning isn't the only meaning anymore because poems are fluid. It could be a sword to a warrior and a mirror to a masked man. And that's why I love writing them for I become a shapeshifter with every poem I work on.

I always say that there is no right or wrong in poetry. But Live, for me, is such a factual representation of what a millennial poet's work would be because it really is self-explanatory. I notice that this is how poet's write today--- writing direct to the point, writing with a fast pace because most of today's readers have short attention span and would become impatient reading longer poems. Today's literature seem to be mostly called pop literature because like pop music and other young cultures, it thrives on its ability to be consumed readily.

It took some time for me to write this way because I almost stopped from writing poems. Lately I had always felt lacking in terms of persona, and when this happens I always go back to the poems that made me love poetry. I read them over and over again thinking how can I not write like this or that, and because of this it seemed to me that I was not always ready for my next shapeshifting, and that I could never write what my mind had envisioned.

It's weird because in my mind, I had planned it all; I would write poems in this collection using the four classical elements as themes or parts for this book. Each theme has thirteen poems, and each poem would discuss a bit about the element in return. But as days and nights go by the plan looked futile. I was lost and could not write back. So I decided to postpone this until the time when writing this was just like breathing again.

Then I discovered what was hindering me. It turned out that I was dissatisfied with what I wrote because I was looking at a certain 'standard' which in no way I could duplicate. I thought, if I was writing for my 'present form' then I shouldn't base my work on previous standards I held.

I have to set a new one.

And so I tried. At least, with this collection. I went writing with new questions on my mind and I tried to answer them with what I have now. Transition was key. I needed to transition. One thing I learned lately is that this new generation of poetry could not be a photocopy of the last one. It means that we, the present generation need to discover who we are right now, and what our generation will define us. So that someday, the future generations will identify our age for something we did like how we look at the past generation.

I had to identify myself in this advent of pop literature, and I had to use it--- defend it, as well, to literary elitists who would think that this new tone of writing is a little bit degrading and immature. I had to become somewhat of a transition from one to another, so that I could be at peace between my dissatisfied self and my expecting self.

I think we are the transition period. We, today's writers, aspiring or professionals, are here for us to locate ourselves in this literary map. In this period we could no longer invade or colonize a literary territory, thus, it's so hard to be original in this time. What we can do is to defend what we had inherited from the people before us and then use it for our generation. Because what we write and read today will be a bookmark for the next generation. That is why we need to write in our own standard. Or in our own meaning.

Live is my footnote to my generation. An attempt to defend what I have and to use what I know, by writing what I had and acknowledging those who came before me. Every book of poetry is a celebration they say, and in this collection I intend to party.

Jepoy Lee
Manila, Philippines