diVERSES reKINDLED: In Conversation With Poet JG

A burning passion is clichè; worse, it is wrong.

If passion were part of a candle, it would not be the wax, but the wick.

I was doing random research tonight and stumbled on the mechanics of candles. I, mistakenly, had assumed the wick burned.

It doesn’t. Instead, the wick gives the wax a surface to burn on, the way a straw gives you a way to drink. Up until 200 years ago, candle wicks had to be cut because instead of burning off, they sagged or became fire hazards. A wick does not burn.

A passion doesn’t burn either. Instead, a wick and a passion are vehicles for action.

Action can be fire. Action can be typing away at a computer when you should be sleeping. Action can be adding the fifth layer of paint with joy. Action can be getting through one more chapter.

One of the reasons I think people say to find a job you are passionate about is because the passion allows you to push where others who aren’t passionate stop.

However, just as it’s possible to not have enough wax for a wick, it is possible to feel passion but not have fuel to move.

It can come from competing responsibilities. It can come from not receiving enough support. It can come from doubt.

When poet JG came through to discuss his poetry album project, he perfectly captured these nuances. Here was a poet with an actual Emmy to put on the table as we recorded, who hadn’t put together an actual album of his work for years. The problem isn’t the time; the problem is the weight of the time.

So when I asked him what changed—why was now the moment to go back to the album as a medium—he told me, now, he remembered.

If a passion can burn, then a passion can burn out. This is one of the reasons I dislike the metaphor of a burning passion.

I find it more empowering to consider passion a wick. Even when the wax is gone, a wick remains a wick. I long for the page I do not read or write. I imagine my hand strumming the guitar I see at a friend’s house. I notice the shading on the cartoon.

All I need is more wax for my own fire to burn.

Full conversation with poet Geoff Anderson and poet JG: https://youtu.be/X6wMftJEpOA