who cares?!

so, i'm slogging through my master's work. it feels like a bog that is drawing me under, and i need to just succumb. to sink and let the life be sucked out of me. maybe it's like the rabbit hole, and wonders await below. but maybe, it's just green muck and slime and i'm not completely inept.

i guess, what i'm struggling with most is, what does this all mean? there is no, this is how you write a poem. that can't be taught. there is very little instruction at all, mostly, i am analyzing books and poems, and my critique is critiqued.

i guess that is the point of learning, i think my difficulty is, the narrow confines of my scope. my last program, i was able to incorporate lifegiving aspects into the tedium that is study of poetic craft. horsemanship, belly dance (which was required of my school for my art credit--and i'm so glad they forced my hand on that one), shamanism.

but this, it is just poetry, just craft.

it makes the act of poetry, the art of poetry feel like something tasteless and bland in my mouth. something i'm stuffing down because i have to, not because i desire it or it has any nutritional value.

i'm told to listen to the prof, but nothing is really being said. other than, this isn't quite it (hear: jump higher). and so, i struggle to find my way up for air.

essentially, i'm debating on whether or not to continue in the program. if i'm not going to pass this semester, no point in continuing. maybe it's just not the right time for me to do this. (hear: i don't give a shit)

if i'm going to pass, i've made no secret of my struggle with the soulless element of this (or any) program, it's not just my program that i'm struggling to care about. it's the prostituing of art that has always stumped me.

my bachelor's didn't feel this way. it didn't demand of me art outside of life. it accomodated art as life. this, oddly enough, not so much. i can't explain it other than, i think the reading, the finding substance where none exists is the problem. so choose meatier books, you say. fine.

i am trying to go outside of poets i am inclined toward, but have no luck that way either.

perhaps direction is what i need. i thought a gentle hand would help me through this, and perhaps it was a wise choice, considering all that has changed since the beginning of the semester. but, a directing hand would help me more. someone who is strong on the rudder. i'm lost in this academic realm, not by choice, mind you, just because it is alien territory for me.

i can write critical papers. what i have to stop doing is looking to give a shit about what i say. stop caring.

i attach so much value to committedness, to connection. to simply giving a shit about what i spend my time on, that i am struggling to care about this.

which is odd. for me to embark on a study of poetry and essentially have to divorce my mind from the process is ludicrous. i think i've lost my way.

in fact, i know i have.