Okay, so I wasn't back. Life intervened. Perhaps this will be life now, which brings me to the subject of death and how to writer about it.

Sandy Hook, CT-- I've been there a couple of times, used to live not far from it. I was in Dr. Daar's dental chair when the news hit. The dentist, his assistant and I all froze when we saw the report jump from two dead to more than twenty. One of those events that we'll all remember where we were when. I'm sure it dampened the Christmas season for all of us nearby. It wasn't hard to find someone who knew someone who was there; certainly fewer than seven degrees of separation.

The question: How to write about it? Some asked, "Should we write about it?" Some said, "Don't write about it." Some said, "I have to write about it."

All the above are true. You should, you shouldn't, you can't, you must, you musn't.

I did...about eighteen poems so far. I think I'm done but I may not be. To answer the question about how to do it let me answer how to be objective about it and this will apply to any emotional low or high.

The answer comes in a pair of points. First, write a lot, a real lot. I mean get into the habit of writing a lot, every day. You must be able to forget today what you wrote yesterday and the only way is to write so much that you can't recall it all. Writing a lot has as many benefits to writing as walking to your health.

I like this quote from Oliver Sacks:

"Sometimes these forgettings extend to autoplagiarism, where I find myself reproducing entire phrases or sentences as if new, and this may be compounded, sometimes, by a genuine forgetfulness. Looking back through my old notebooks, I find that many of the thoughts sketched in them are forgotten for years, and then revived and reworked as new. I suspect that such forgettings occur for everyone, and they may be especially common in those who write or paint or compose, for creativity may require such forgettings, in order that one’s memories and ideas can be born again and seen in new contexts and perspectives."

The second point is more technical. Learn to write from a point of view other than your own-- scrap the first person. I have written in the voice of the shooter, a gun, an adviser to God, a denier, a new member of a gun club and I can't tell you right now how many others. Using another's voice is a good way to get objective, Use this technique a lot. Imagine how someone, something, not you thinks, feels. Imagine what another wants to say.
Also, resort to form. Write villanelles, sonnets, iambic tetrameter, pentameter. Make up a form. Even Spenserian stanzas will work. The point is to force your overwhelming feelings into a container. The creativity evoked will at times be astonishing. It will also be a relief, a genuine curative. As Oliver says above--- "one's memories and ideas can be born again and seen in new contexts and perspectives."

So, when the overwhelming calamities conspire to rob you of your art, you can still write if you want or must.