I'm continuing with my lessons from NaNoWriMo as I try to write a novel in one month. It's an intensive experience, trying to be creative and brilliant each day. A few weeks ago we talked about how it showed me the value of showing up and the discipline needed to do this work. On the other side of that is the pleasantry of being surprised. 

This week I talk about the necessity of play in your creativity, of not being so overly obsessed with the great meanings and legacy of your work that you forget you're supposed to have fun. More than that, once you're having fun, really wonderful things tend to pop up. There's immense potential to be surprised as the divine comes in after we've carved room for her. 

If you want to see more, you can go to selahpoetry.com or you can reach me at [email protected]

Walt reaches a crescendo in part 17 of "Song of Myself," reflecting on all that he's covered so far in the first 16 parts of the poem. He makes bold claims that not only are we all connected, but that his ideas themselves are all universal and not new. He says that this conundrum, of us all being divinely equal, is as ubiquitous as the grass. 

He then pushes on that claim in part 18, testing to see if we are all really connected in a divine ecosystem, or are we perhaps in competition with each other? 

We discuss his thoughts and my own in this episode. If you want to see more, go to selahpoetry.com or email me at [email protected]

As I've been working through NaNoWriMo this November, I've learned a few things simply by sitting down every morning at 5 AM and writing. I don't think everyone should do this, but I think the value of discipline is sometimes lost on aspiring artists. We hear it as a stressful word, an overly intense word, or perhaps a dirty and abusive word. I want to talk about using discipline to carve room in your life, making space for the Divine to show up and work with you and through you. That's the goal, isn't it? 

If you want to see more, go to selahpoetry.com or email me at [email protected]

Walt Whitman gives us another list poem in section 16 of "Song of Myself." The difference now is that we don't get specifics. We have a vague list of human traits and then a beautiful line: "I resist any thing better than my diversity." What does that mean? How does it relate to our connection and relation to other people? How are we all involved in the greater tapestry of the universe? 

If you want more, you can check out my website at selahpoetry.com or email me at [email protected]

Last week I got a kind and beautiful compliment about my writing. Instead of bristling and refusing it, instead of dismissing it and moving past it, I accepted it. I appreciated it. It moved me. And yet, I found myself struggling with this question: What does it do for me? How can I use this praise? Can I monetize it? Can I get a recommendation? Are there connections involved? 

As silly and vain as that little dance in my head was, it gave me insight into deeper meditation and revelation. There was something sadly wrong about how I saw the world, about how I interacted with it. I didn't always do that when someone was kind to me or complimented me. Where did I go wrong? And how can I go back? 

If you like what you're hearing, you can find more at selahpoetry.com or email me at [email protected]

In this episode we take a look at Part 15 of "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. This is another one of Whitman's list poems, but when we take a look at what he's listing, there is a lot to learn about who we are, what it means to be human, and how that is all inter-related. 

This is a bit of a longer episode because the poem is long, and yet I found a way to be long winded in my analysis of it as well. I apologize for my loquaciousness, but I really love what this poem has to say to us as humans, as a country, in these times, and in the height of social media. 

Full text for the poem can be found here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

You can follow me on twitter @roryhatchel (https://twitter.com/roryhatchel) on Youtube at Selah Poetry (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5KN3hAYr1gTOFoEDt3v7NA ) my website selahpoetry.com or email me at [email protected]

This week we read Psalm 39 and my version of it, "Handbreath." The psalm wrestles with how short and fleeting life is and whether it matters. Do we attach ourselves to the eternal or embrace nihilism? How can we construct meaning in such a bleak world crammed with suffering? 

I take that question and work on it in my version of the poem, thinking of each human life as a note in a song. 

You can find the text of the poem on my website, here: http://www.selahpoetry.com/2019/10/12/psalmist-project-psalm-39/

This week we take a look at the next section of "Song of Myself," Part 14. This continues with Whitman's interest in connectivity with all living things, but now Whitman is looking at the limitations of it and importance of it. 

The part I latch onto is the inter-connectivity within and between ourselves. As Whitman says, "What is commonest, cheapest, easiest, and nearest, is Me." What does this mean for the way we see ourselves? What does it mean for how we create?

I'm back after a long hiatus with a revisitation to "Audience of One." I'm more convinced that this is the artist's golden rule, and yet, it is the rule we struggle to live by. In fact, every part of our culture, every advancement in connectivity and technology pushes us away from us. We are seduced to make for the masses, for notoriety, for an income. We quickly lose ourselves in that. 

This episode is renewal of vows for me. I hope people listen to this. I hope they like it and get something from it. But more than anything, I want to enjoy making it. I want to be proud of it. I want to create. Let the world sort out the consumption bit.

In this episode, we discuss the difference between Art and Entertainment. I recorded this in May, and then my computer died, so the superhero movie I'm referencing is Avengers: Endgame. 

I think in today's world, we have to wrestle with the difference between Art and Entertainment. They are both acts of creation. They are both powerful and necessary and holy acts. In this episode, I break strip away those two labels and split creative acts between things that Convey and things that Say. Both have there place, and neither is better or worse than the other.