The Muse as Frustration

Part of what I want to do here is not only record and archive some of my work but to also make notes and observations about my process. Something interesting happened recently and I just wanted to record the chain of events. I'd been feeling restless and blocked. I'm not even sure that at the time I would have been able to tell anyone I was feeling blocked. I just felt a general overall feeling of frustration and agitation. Then I talked to my sis one day and she mentioned that Nikki Giovanni had been to her campus to speak. That in turn led me to check a collection of Nikki Giovanni's poems out of the library because it had been a long time since I had read any of them and I imagined I would have a new perspective on them. Reading them excited me right away. I read and re-read them. Laughing, getting angry, nodding in agreement and having conversations in my head with the poet. Still there was this restlessness within me as if something wanted to break through - but I couldn't name what it was. Then suddenly, one day in the shower, the poem to Nikki Giovanni arrived fully formed and 911 followed shortly thereafter. That day and for several days following I felt joyful, buoyant and full of inspiration. Recently, however, that nameless restlessness has returned.