Let’s get this out of the way first.
I’ve been writing poems since 2015. I’ve written over 800, but I cannot call myself a poet. I’d sooner eat a bad meal on stage than do so. Poets are published. One poem chosen by an online magazine in 11, almost 12 years, is not a record for being published. Just so, I write essays and poems, but I’m not a writer. Same reasoning. If I wore a beret or recited my work in a high, affected tone or called myself something I’m not, I’d become permanently hunched over with the cringe. I’d wear a cowl and stick to the shadows.
The most I’ll say is that I write. I will admit to the act. Actually, I cannot not write. I write every day and have done so for years and years. I will admit to being persistent.
I write to figure out what I think and feel about animals, family, kids I’ve taught, strangers who wander into my life, friends, ideas, mountains, Maine, the sea, the cities, birds, writers, history, light, loss, grace when I can recognize it, injustice, religion, nature, the past ….
My process is simple and mechanical. I write 200 poems which I revise obsessively. Two hundred poems takes me roughly 30 months to write. Then comes the choosing, the cutting, the slashing, the pounding, the killing, the rewriting, the beheading, the cursing, the questioning, the sharpening … the letting go.
I’ve written enough poems that I’ve figured out how I make them and what is most important to me in their form – imagery, compression of language, load bearing verbs, flow, beauty, drama, vividness. Of these, the singular image is most important. It is the picture that works like the clapper in a bell, swinging, resounding, carrying out one striking meaning to the reader to begin but upon listening to the deep tones go on, shades of meaning suggest themselves to him or her.
A poem will not work if it is false. When I think I’ve completed a last revision for a poem I believe is good enough to share with others, I ask my final question, “Have I told the truth here?’
Finally, my desire comes into play. I want a reader to finish one of my poems and say, “That’s true,” or That’s beautiful,” or “That made me feel something real.”
Yesterday, I sent out copies of my eighth book of poems to friends and family. It is so much easier for me to mail them then hand it to them and look at their reactions when they open the package. Beginning September 1, I’ll begin publishing my delivery of those poems. I thought it would be a good time to sit down and make sense of what I try to do when I write one. Thank you for your patience. Do not send me berets.
