Feature: Dianne Borsenik Day 5

HardDrive/SoftWear

sit you down on my
laptop
baby
make love
to my motherboard
fondle my
mouse
with your slim fingers
make my internet
cry "oh lord!"
plug me
into your USB hub
juice me up
with your
anti-spy
come, applicate me
Facebook and make me
scream! when
the cybersparks fly
link to me
with your hard
drive baby
fill my
inbox
with spurts of
spam
IM me, befriend me
CD-rom, ram
and send me
with kicks from your
naughty webcam
then download
into my
iPod
baby
lick and remix me
make my
pixel count
climb
you know you
excite me when you
megabyte me
so... Google me
any time!

© Dianne Borsenik

(this poem first appeared in HardDrive/SoftWear, 2009, published by Crisis Chronicles Press)



HardDrive/SoftWear Collage by Jen Pezzo/Kerowyn Rose

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Questions for the Author:

Where do you get your inspiration? Where does a poem that you write come from? Do you have a process you go through when writing? - AND - What do you do when writer's block hits?

Dianne:

I'm going to combine these interview questions, so that I don't sound too redundant day after day! Basically, anything can inspire me to write a poem-- I've caught ideas from single interesting words (sometimes I'll stop, repeat the word, feel it in my mouth, roll it around on my tongue, let it sink into my brain and then start to write), from incidents that have happened to me (I tend to turn my anger and frustration into "revenge" poems-- I really let it all out, really get nasty in the poem, and then forget about it. Great tension reliever!), from feelings I have. Anything-- anything at all-- can set it off.

There's no real process I go through. Sometimes the poem pours out of me in one sitting, and needs very little revising. Sometimes I'll write a line or two down, and then not develop the poem for weeks, months, years. Sometimes, I'll think of something I want to write, some form or style or concept, and will sit and work on it for hours, or days, carrying a "worksheet" around with me, pulling it out every chance I get. It does seem to get easier, if I try to write at least a little every day; it seems to keep the "doors of perception" open.

Which leads me to writer's block. I don't often get it, and usually not for more that a few days. At that time, it's no use; the words dissipate, the thoughts congeal and clot, and nothing flows through to the pen. I don't try to force it; that doesn't work for me. I just go on to other things and wait it out. Then the block lifts, as if by magic, usually due to my hearing an unexpected word or odd phrase.

I do have to say that when the writer's block persists, I miss writing-- I feel like I'm incomplete, like part of me is missing, like I'm poorly defined. I identify myself as a poet, as a writer-- that's who, and what, I am.