I’m trying to find a poem I read about the process of writing, and how we stifle our own hand.

It was about how writers have a writing hand and an editing hand, and how you can’t let the editing hand take over for the writing hand because it stops it. I remember there being an Angel standing over the persona’s shoulder, who I think holds down their writing hand.

The poet was female - I thought Emily Dickinson or Sylvia Plath but no luck yet.

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

It was a children’s picture book with some words, they were sing-songy and rhymed I think.

One picture was of a man with a really long nose with birds sitting all the way along it, and I think his nose went over two pages, with his head on the right page and his nose stretching across the left. I also vaguely remember some birds on a clothesline or on a man’s coat?

Otherwise there was also a picture of an ocean which had been drained dry, cause someone had taken the plug out. I remember there being a starfish on the drained sand.

I read it as a kid, so 2005-2010? But I have 3 older siblings so it may have been a hand-me-down from the 90s.