Note, the reply will not be "I write," an act that I have, after all, been performing since I was nine. Shirley Geok-lin Lim More Quotes by Shirley Geok-lin Lim More Quotes From Shirley Geok-lin Lim Crows appear in many of my new unpublished poems. In these walks, they take on a symbolic life apart from their irritating, undeniable, interruptive presence. I figure them differently. Shirley Geok-lin Lim crowirritatingfigures You've read some of the poems in this new unpublished book [Walker's Alphabet], e.g., the poem "C." I have a number of poems whose titles are letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F. Shirley Geok-lin Lim titlesnumbersbook I was walking every morning, and I'd take my iPod and paper and pen. As I walked, I wrote a poem, and then I'd come home - and sometimes it's legible, sometimes not - I typed the poem up. So I have a new, yet to be published, collection of poems now. It's called Walker's Alphabet, and among other things, it is about walking. My most recent collection of poems in 2010, incidentally, was titled WALKING backwards. Shirley Geok-lin Lim ipodshomemorning Quite a while ago, I made a conscious choice to place my teaching first, so it was very ego-invested. That decision wasn't a good thing in some ways. Shirley Geok-lin Lim choicesdecisionteaching One should be able to teach adequately and feel good about it. Shirley Geok-lin Lim ablefeel-goodshould I really felt neurotic - it was a neurotic reason - but I had to teach very, very well. That sucked up a lot of oxygen from my time and my creative thinking. Shirley Geok-lin Lim oxygencreativethinking I had to do the academic writing. At a top research university, publishing of a certain kind is very important. So your friend is right. You can't do three things well. Shirley Geok-lin Lim threeimportantwriting It's why muse is so impatient with me. I don't ever go to her until after the teaching or whatever is over. Shirley Geok-lin Lim impatientmuseteaching In that way, I don't understand myself. It might have to do with my own conflicts, where to place my body as a child, which I have carried over to now. In this way I'm constantly dislocated. Shirley Geok-lin Lim bodymightchildren I don't know where to place my body. Everyone notices that about me. I'm very restless. Shirley Geok-lin Lim restlessbodyknows I'm nomadic. Even when I'm a visiting professor here at the City University of Hong Kong, in this campus flat, I'm constantly getting up, sitting down, picking this or that up. You can't do that and be a writer. You need to be able to sit still. Shirley Geok-lin Lim sitting-downcitiesneeds You need to be distracted. Shirley Geok-lin Lim distractedneeds In short, for me - I'm kind of projecting onto you - distraction has become a modus vivendi, a way of life. Rather than complaining, I am recognizing that I couldn't do what I wanted to do because I'm distracted. Shirley Geok-lin Lim kindcomplainingway One arrives at a recognition that one needs to be distracted. Shirley Geok-lin Lim distractedrecognitionneeds This distraction is what one wants, which is very, very bad for the muse, because the muse hates not being in the line of sight. It's no longer an external conflict, like, oh, I have all these demands and I don't like them. The split is in the self. This may explain why, when I was in Santa Barbara before I went to Singapore and then now to Hong Kong, there was a writing moment when I was writing a poem a day. I had never done that before. Shirley Geok-lin Lim hatesightwriting In the poem "C," the crows are associated with cancer, because I had suffered a cancer scare. Shirley Geok-lin Lim crowcancerscare
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