When I write poetry, I try not to have a set conclusion in mind. I may start with some words or have an idea for an ending, but I don’t want to be tied to them. The words are a starting point. They may appear in a final draft, but they may not.
Poetry
National Poem in Your Pocket Day
A tweet is an incredibly appropriate size for a poem. – Not Dead Yet: How Technology is Saving Poetry
Poets seem almost inevitably drawn toward Twitter. The challenge of communicating something, anything, within 140 characters is irresistible. It’s a space that requires sparseness of language and clarity of thought. It is, in some ways, akin to the traditionally known haiku with its five-seven-five syllable scheme. It is a place with a strict form – how to manipulate the content to fit within it?
Thoughts on Poetry for Poetry at Work Day
…a poem freshens the world. – Ted Kooser
The first story I wrote was about my grandmother who had fallen into a lake. My first poem, fittingly or disturbingly, used the same experience. The incident, something I knew and with which I was familiar, propelled me into the unknown. At first, it was the world of unknown letters and words – I wrote my first story when I was six or seven. The second was an unfamiliar world, but it turned out to be the world I needed.
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National Poetry Month: Silence
I have a longstanding obsession with silence. Perhaps it’s not that longstanding. I became aware of silence in graduate school. I began to focus on how a poet’s lines interacted with the white space and the silence. It became – and still is – a point of consideration in my own work.
National Poetry Month: Sound and Rhythm
I don’t much toy with rhyme schemes or meter, but I love rhythm. I think it might be my background in music or simply that I love the way words sound. I like to hear them and to think about how they roll around in the mouth or off the tongue. Strange? Perhaps, but I’m not alone in my love of sound and rhythm.
National Poetry Month: Objects
My own poetry often has few details. I think the shift occurred when I became tired of narrative poetry. I started to focus on other things, one of them being the objects themselves. The physical things – a hand or an elephant – became more important than a plot. The story still existed, but it became an undercurrent. Things were kept beneath the surface, not to be malicious or indirect but because the objects were growing in power. They had their own stories to tell if I’d let them.