Sunstone Naked! An Interview of Underwhelming Proportions

[Me Myself]

It is already a trend, so I don`t wanna feel left out.

Sunstone, describe our relationship in a tenth of a word.

 

[Shuddhasattva]

I merely dabble in poetry but do not consider myself to be a remarkable poet, nor to be a competent critic of poetry (StephenW, by the way, strikes me as among the best readers of poetry I've ever met. He understands the stuff -- even my own stuff -- better than anyone else I've personally known).

Having given fair warning of lack of expertise, I will now attempt to address your kind question.

(1) A willingness to experiment with word is an essential ingredient in composing poetry. I think too many of us might set out to compose a poem, when we should set out to experiment with composing a poem.

When you try to merely compose a poem, you are likely to spend much time and effort second-guessing your choice of words. In turn, that impedes creativity and can even shut it down entirely, resulting in writer's block.

There is a time and place for second-guessing your words. When you edit your poem. But I find you should do only the lightest editing, if at all, when actually composing the poem.

However, by "light editing", I do not mean you should refrain from many changes. Light editing is not a matter of the number of changes you make. You can make a hundred or a thousand changes to you poem as you compose it, and you might still be only lightly editing it. For light editing is when you edit without putting much thought into "how do I come across". It is when you edit without a thought for your audience.

Heavy editing should be done later on, after you have composed your poem, and then only to make the meaning, emotions, and feelings accessible to your audience.

(2) Sing, chant, or simply speak your poem as you compose it. Sing, chant, or speak it aloud. Over and over as you compose it. I think too many of us these days write poems to be read, but we do not write them to be spoken. That is, we compose poetry as if we were composing prose. But we should be composing poetry as if we were composing music.

(3) Compose a poem as if you were ******* someone you loved. When you **** someone you love, you do not think, "This is wrong with her. That is wrong with her.". No, you explore her. You work to shape her emotions, her feelings. You play a symphony or a song upon her body. And in the same manner, you should play a symphony or a song upon word when you compose a poem. Rather that, than sit there criticizing what you are doing with word, or criticizing what word is, or criticizing yourself.

Those three things are the most important (to me at least) bits of advice I can think to give.

Thank you, two of those meant a great deal to me, and the third was understood as important. I'm an aspiring prose writer who dabbles, on a very minor level, in poetry, and writer's block has been an issue - I do good work, set a high bar based on it, and then next time I write, I'm busy comparing, and falling short of my expectations, and, as you said, this is the end of creativity and steady growth. This may express something deeper about the nature of spinning up or spinning down one's mental state in general by how gentle one is with oneself.

 

[Sunstone]

It is already a trend, so I don`t wanna feel left out.

Sunstone, describe our relationship in a tenth of a word.

From my standpoint, our relationship is still in that stage of just getting to know each other. We haven't really had a lot of interaction yet, especially outside of Chat. Time will tell how our relationship develops from here.

However, I have already come to feel deeply your misfortune in not having been born Sunstone. Of course, I deeply feel everyone's misfortune in that case, so there's no need to thank me for the profound depths of my empathy.

 

[Sunstone]

This may express something deeper about the nature of spinning up or spinning down one's mental state in general by how gentle one is with oneself.

I think you're onto something with that. Composing a poem does not have to be an exercise in spiritual discipline, but it can easily be turned into one by observing how our sense of self -- our self-identity, ego, "I", or whatever you wish to call it -- influences the compositional process. To compose a poem while ramping up my self-consciousness is impossible for me. Rather, I must in some measure put myself aside to do it. I have had some success with meditating before composing (but only when I have not set out to meditate in order to compose).

 

[Sunstone]

Announcement: Please, no more "describe our relationship" questions.

 

[Sunstone]

It seems obvious to me that you yourself are an illusion, and that I myself am all that really exists in this world.

I reason thus:

(1) Clearly, I am the most important thing that exists.

(2) Everything that exists is in some sense important to something else that exists.

(3) Since everything that exists is important, only important things exist.

(4) I am the only important thing to me.

QED: Since everything that exists is important, and since I am the only thing that is important, I am the only thing that exists.

 

[Iti oj]

It is already a trend, so I don`t wanna feel left out.

Sunstone, describe our relationship in a tenth of a word.

I started a trend

 

[Sunstone]

I started a trend

Congratulations. It's not your first trend, nor likely to be your last.

 

[Iti oj]

Congratulations. It's not your first trend, nor likely to be your last.

What can I say im a trail blazer

 

[Sunstone]

What can I say im a trail blazer

Arsonist!

 

[Me Myself]

It seems obvious to me that you yourself are an illusion

You yourself has always been an illusion. Me Myself has always been the ultimate reality after all

 

[Iti oj]

Tell me. Why/how are you so damn awesome

 

[Iti oj]

Arsonist!

And the only accusation I expected was "that's not all you blaze" lol

 

[Sunstone]

Tell me. Why/how are you so damn awesome

How perceptive of you to notice my awesomeness! Obviously, you have not been talking with my ex-wives.

I'm "so damn awesome" because every morning, after I wake up, I do twelve sets of awesomeness consisting of six reps each. Consequently, my awesomeness is ripped!

 

[Sunstone]

You yourself has always been an illusion. Me Myself has always been the ultimate reality after all

My whole world has just come crashing down around me like a house of cards. How could you!

 

[Me Myself]

My whole world has just come crashing down around me like a house of cards. How could you!

I just always been bad at card games :cover:

 

[Iti oj]

How perceptive of you to notice my awesomeness! Obviously, you have not been talking with my ex-wives.

I'm "so damn awesome" because every morning, after I wake up, I do twelve sets of awesomeness consisting of six reps each. Consequently, my awesomeness is ripped!

Ohh teach me great one and i do not talk to your xwifes but only sleep with them.

 

[Alceste]

[*] I paid my college room and board to study philosophy by working as a fire fighter.

That sentence is so many different kinds of sexy I don't know what to do with all this drool.

 

[Sunstone]

I just always been bad at card games :cover:

And bad at quite a few other things too, if the police are to be believed.

 

[Iti oj]

If you were to give me one compliment sandwhich what woul it be