A Postcard from the Montana Artist's Refuge

I am settling into a month of writing in Basin, Montana. Although it has been twenty degrees zero, the Refuge lives up to its name; I have a warm and comfortable studio, perfect for contemplation. Hermited in the snow-covered mountains on the continental divide, I have begun turning inwards to the poetry and getting into the flow of the work ahead.

I've been thinking about Brenda Hillman's use of trance in her book, "Practical Water." While attending a congressional hearing, she focuses on a glass of water and enters a "trance" as a way to observe. Here, in this tiny writing studio, as I pace up and down the stairs and circle the kitchen trying to tease out a fragment of a poem, I can sense it in a new way by slipping into a less rigid state of consciousness and following the hum of the line. Perhaps these days we disregard such metaphysical, intuition-based approaches to writing, and are too inclined to intellectualize?