Writing has always been my strong suit; my most prevalent forte, and the thing I've enjoyed doing more than anything else. I think we all have a right to one thing like that. I write to find out more about myself. I don't write to impress anyone else, that's hardly important to me. I never write anything using my conscious mind, and if I do, it is never any good. I write using my passionate subconscious. Half the time, I just start rambling about surrealist shit that doesn't even seem to make any sense. Usually people will call that pretentious or meaningless. I prefer to call it Egg Salad:
Egg salad and black coffee in the sunset
Plastic lawn chairs breaking in the mist and
Lying dogs eating chess pieces in the dark
This is my poem. This is how I like to compose my poetry.
Q: What does it mean?
A: I have no fucking idea what it means.
Q: Well shouldn't poetry mean something?
A: I didn't say it means nothing, I just said I don't know what it means. It has to mean something doesn't it?
All poetry means something, at the very least, it must mean something to the poet, even if the poet doesn't know what exactly that is. To me there is little point in writing what you know. You'll never learn anything about yourself that way. I write things like this, as I said, not initially knowing what it is I am writing about. Then, I go back and find meaning. Because there must be some in there that compelled you to write those words down. I like writing "Egg Salad" poems and I like reading them by other people. You find your own meaning in poetry, it doesn't have to mean a damn thing to anyone else. If my poetry seems meaningless to you, then I've succeeded. I don't write my poetry for you, I write it for me. The most you'll probably get out of a lot of my poems is a nice sounding flow of words. Sometimes, that's all I get out of it too. But it's fun to write. It's very rewarding to exercise the mind and see what lies within it that you didn't even realize was there.
- Peabody, Massachusetts
- JoinedJune 29, 2012
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Stories by Ryan Basatharius Le Clair
- 13 Published Stories