The Details Matter, but So Does Time

Musings on Weeks 1-9 of The Visceral Self

Much of my previous writing has focused on bodily sensations and anatomy. I find the things I've written for The Visceral Self writing intensive with Jeannine Ouellette have been focused more on external details— outer landscapes as opposed to inner ones. I have a very rich inner world, so focusing on external details has been quite challenging for me. In an odd way, finding external details feels less em­bodied than my more inner-focused work but it probably makes my writing more relatable to others. The little bit of editing of older work I've done in this time has shifted too. Finding and refining the external details in older poems is starting to feel necessary.

My internal experiences are very rich and layered, but my outer world is necessarily small due to being mostly house­bound because of ME/CFS¹. My house and yard are a very tiny place to explore compared to my internal sensory experience. It feels like this is opposite to most people's experience and is maybe partially why I've found this work so challenging. It will be interesting to go back to the pieces I've written for The Visceral Self and compare them to previous work. 

I've found this writing process slower and a bit more challenging but in the editing things start to flow a bit more easily. Usually writing just flows out of me but that hasn't happened for most of these exercises. I find myself closing my eyes and feeling/remembering things with all my senses and slowly translating that into words. Right now it feels unwieldy and stilted and I'm curious if that will shift over time.

This intensive has been my main writing practice these past nine weeks. Because I'm finding the exercises so challenging I'm writing and editing much slower so haven't had time for of my own writing. But looking back at what I've written here, I see that the techniques of specificity have made my writing brighter on some level. The joining of experience with precise external details continues to surprise me. It really does strengthen the emotional hit of my writing. I need to work at combining internal and external experience because I've seen how well it pays off in the strength of the work. I've also noticed how much more selective I am about my words even when I'm writing in my journal. I've edited a couple older poems and found myself making different editorial choices because of this work. I'm curious to see what my own writing practice will be like after the intensive.

I don't feel different in my body from the work we've been doing but I do feel dif­ferent in how I engage with the world around me. This aligns nicely with the polyvagal theory work I've been doing as embroidery research. In Deb Dana's approach to polyvagal theory she recommends finding 'glimmers'—small, precise moments of beauty—as a way to encourage ventral vagal (calm and grounded) states. The writing I've done here has forced me to become more aware of external glimmers in my day and to notice how they shift my internal state. It makes me think that reading precisely detailed writing can also shift our internal states and there is great power in that if I can harness that skill.

Heart detail from my vagus nerve WIP (2024)

Regarding the close reading we've been doing: When I absolutely love a poem it stays with me for a day or two. If the poem evokes sounds, I notice sounds more, if scents, more scents. This is typical of the way I usually read, especially poetry, but I rarely write about my close readings so that's been a new and interesting practice. I've been paying more attention to line breaks since we started, especially opportunities to create a line break that creates two possible readings of the lines around it. The poems Jeannine has shared have mostly been ones I'm unfamiliar with in styles that aren't my usual poetry reading so it's been a very interesting process to delve into these less imagistic and less experimental poems and notice the craft in them. Both the poems and the writing exercise prompts have been more based in the day-to-day world than what I usually write about. I think it will be interesting to see how this affects my future writing as I haven't done much writing aside from this intensive and my personal journaling practices.

This intensive has made me realize that I really need to do things at my own speed. I started off participating fully but had trouble keeping up with the extra reading, and then par­ticipating in the comment section fell by the wayside, then I had an infection that meant writing and reading weren't possible at all for a couple weeks so I had to accept that just doing the Wednesday main exercises on my own time is all I can manage. I do feel that I'm missing out by posting things late and not really participating in the comments, but my disability means I have to choose what works for me both physically and cognitively.

I do think even just doing the exercises alone is very worthwhile and it feels good to work on my writing craft again. I suspect I'll continue to see changes in my work for a few months after I complete the intensive, and I'll have to rely on minimal feedback because the intensive wasn't set up for someone living in crip time².

I think after this I need to take a break from courses for a while. And then perhaps look into Esmé Weijun Wang's courses which are likely designed for crip time. I knew this intensive might be too intense for me but I don't regret attempting it. Craft is important to me in all the art forms I work in so deepening my craft through such courses is something I want to do occasionally, always keeping in mind that maintaining my health is the most important thing.

1. Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, a multi-system neuroimmune disease characterized by extreme fatigue and symptoms worsening after any sort of energy expenditure.

2. Crip time is shorthand for the fact that everything takes longer when living in a disabled body so we experience time very differently than abled people. With ME/CFS crip time is necessary because of both cognitive and physical fatigue. We must rest between each stint of activity in order to not worsen our many symptoms.