JANUARY POETRY

This is a sentence.

Lindsay O’Connell

your compliments arrive at a well-considered welcome moment and, though not decidedly deserved, are appreciated by me because writing, as you no doubt know and have tried to convince me so far, takes lots and lots and lots of practice, and so I encourage the unfortunate stroke to break rules and elide convention which you make (if only in your own mind) through humour, as well as the other means at your disposal: sincerity, save-face, pity, pouring drinks etc., along with your appeal to me here; but the vastness of this appreciation, my appreciation for your writing that is, which is ever-widening I assure you, reminds me that I, and almost certainly any other person who aims to practice (like breathing), never set down rules and only aim to suggest (often through example) the best way to approach cuneiform which will always be concerned with the picture, or the problem, or the person, or the task it traces; however, these reasons, while admittedly strong in counter-point, do not change the outcome of today’s meeting – an event that seemed to me to be more about the relaying or rules and stylistic necessity of texting than encouragement to keep on writing – move your pen, move your pen, shift-up, shift-up, it’s a call to write write write…