Charles Jensen | Writer

Have you ever confronted a project that was at once so limiting and yet looms large over your entire life? That’s where I’ve been living these past few months, occupying a small patch of rug in a large room I haven’t even explored. I have a series of poems that are not good enough yet. They aren’t trashable, but I know I’m missing something.

This weekend I showed some to a friend. She kindly and gently assured me they were still crap.

I described how I felt trapped and compelled to continue to write the same poem over and over again. This is about anger. Anger leads to blindness and when that happens there’s no way out of it. Something has been taken away and I am angry about it.

She said, Try love.

A revolution in two words. Before all else there was love, there was connection. I need to move back to that and be there. I need to forget about what happened to him, the violence, the abuse. The end. I need to go back to the beginning and write my way back into this.

I will try love.