12.11.20 – Conception Statement
I have an idea for a new poetry collection: The Special Snowflake Project
It’s kind of supposed to sound stupid. That’s the trickery of millennialism. How can you value anything the same when you’re about to die? Though so are we – we have not the same awareness of death nor the self-grasping. Although we’ll get there without help.
Really, I see this project as an illustration of dependent relationships. That’s why I’ll describe how the project came to be.
Nothing exists from it’s own side.
I’ll drop you in the middle then.
Language was created, and we desired communication. We desired written communication. Written word was developed. It evolved. We moved from letters to books. Oral tales no longer enough. Writers inspired authors. Authors inspired Marian Keyes. She was moved to write a specific book that caught my specific eye when I was browsing in Chapters (Coles?) at the Conestoga Mall, a little heart broken, healing, day-dreaming, therapy-shopping, and I purchased The Brightest Star in the Sky. This book sat on several different shelves over 10 years, as I moved from place to place. Finally I put it up for yard sale, and it was still left untouched.
So I decided to carve it into pieces. Festive 2020 decorations made of the books I’ll never read, I think. Yet, after I punch the pages into new shapes (snowflakes), a strange desire to read them does arise in me. I use a sharpie (which also has a long history tied to communication we won’t go into now…) to block out words I don’t need, and I recycle inspired work into inspired work. Creative writing dependent on a long chain of personal and worldly apparently material but in fact entirely mind-made events.
This project is designed specifically to engage an awakening audience.
Glad you could join me.
Final Note: There is nothing wrong with recognizing yourself as a special snowflake. What could be more true? In this form, you are completely individual (with your own karmic path), yet eventually you will melt and return once more to ethereal connectedness with all other water droplets. Your true nature. Separateness was always an illusion. But you’re special nonetheless.
The Halfwit Writer 