See I write poetry, often, especially the stuff that goes up on this site, in one sitting. Sat and wrote and whatever I am feeling spills out. I’ve explained that before. Recently though my poetry has been touching on other people and not just in a Muse-type way. Mostly I know that people are ok with what I write, or I have some idea that they are but sometimes I just write out what I think/feel and then afterwards I reread the poem that has been up for days and I think ‘Did I really write that? Was that something she/he/they told me in private? Is it too too obvious what I’m talking about, does it count as passing on gossip? Are they going to be hurt by what I thought/felt? ‘
Mostly I ask people to tell me what they think of the writing but I do get relieved to find out that um… subjects?… people I’ve written about like the piece. I wrote one a while ago about four people who strike me as being in some senses quite similar… well the situations are similar in a very particular way and the ladies in question definately have some similarities of character. It was easy enough to find out what three of them thought but I barely see one of them (some people work far too hard) and so it came as something of a relief to find out she’d liked the poem.
I wonder sometimes at how lucky I am in the friends that I have, in the way that people allow me to look at them, to find out about them and that they don’t sometimes turn around and knife me.