For months I’ve considered embarking on my third book of poems. And for months I have not.
I finally know why: the emptiness that “one feels when one has finished a piece of work that was important to one.”
This is not a small emptiness; it is a big one. Sure, one can decide to promote the hell out of the book and keep it alive. But book parties and book planning are not the same as book writing. They are the opposite, rather, the antithesis.
What I enjoy is the book writing. But book writing is a self-eliminating process. The more you write a book, the closer you are to finishing it. And once there are no more words to sculpt, the book is gone.
At first the emptiness was bigger. What Herman Hesse writes in his book, “Narcissus and Goldmund” is true. The emptiness passes, is passing. Perhaps it is time for another bellyful of book.