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Roberto Delgado
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Born and raised most of my childhood in the Mexican border town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Have been writing poetry most of my life for some still-undiscovered reason. 

A Dozen Down

Blog Posted by Roberto Delgado: 3/16/2023 9:20:00 PM

This has been helpful.  Revisiting the poems, I have slowly come to a realization. I have been lying when I say they are based on the I Ching. They are not BASED on the I Ching, but, rather they use the I Ching as a jumping-off point. In order to combat writer's block, I would read and reflect on the meaning of the hexagram at hand, then, really, use that meditation as a mere PROMPT. The finished product had no responsibility toward the hexagram itself. If we think in terms of painting, it would be as if a painter blindly reached his hand into a bucket filled with paint tubes, pulled one out, and then set out creating a painting which used that one color, however much or however little inspiration would allow. A second function of using the I Ching was to hijack my natural impulse to collect (complete) in order to motivate myself to finish 64 poems. Really, there was no way I would not finish them. 

But, something happened along the way to Albuquerque. The focus on the process overtook the works themselves. They are, each, poems. No more, no less. Just poems, connected by virtue of being authored by the same person. As it should be. This forced period of reflection has revealed a weakness in me, a fear, a lack of courage. That, and also what I read today about zebras. See, zebras do not camuflage themselves with their surrounding environment, obviously: They camuflage themselves with EACH OTHER, so that predators can't distinguish any single zebra when they pack close together, impeding the attack.  Likewise, my insistence in grouping all these particular poems together forestalls, in my subconcious mind, criticism of any single poem; As if to say "If you didn't like this one, no matter, there is this next one, and beside, notice how it fit neatly with the others. Judge it by the whole and not the each." 

I am at a crossroad.  I don't imagine breaking them up and 100% individualizing them.  There IS value to the thread that binds them, and fun to explore.  Something must be done though, before the final presentation is set. I don't know, yet, what.  Good thing I don't plan on dying soon. There's time (man, if that isn't tempting destiny...).



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Previous Blogs

 
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