Sometimes, I am asked "Where do your poems come from?
How do you do that?"
It can be difficult to explain and often I simply shrug
my shoulders and reply "I dunno. Just happens."
The process can be different each time but, one constant
is that I keep a notebook and pen with me, always.
I never know when the urge to write will appear. Often,
it may only be a word or phrase that catches my attention.
I never know when they might come together in one piece.
It isn't uncommon for something noted days or even
months ago turns out to be a needed title, last line or the
inspiration seed that grows into a complete idea.
For example, the poem I'm posting here...
the title was written as two lines, out of the blue, several
days ago. Last night I was flipping through my notebook,
saw those lines, and started thinking thoughts with words
in them. They were insistent, demanding to be written.
This is what the muse was dictating :
You remind me of someone else...
too much time feeling
bound to do, be, say
aroused rebellion
resulting in not much good
for another batch
of too much time.
lost then found
now is when
not then.
savor self
and spend self
being true
to you.
love always honest
and much
now.
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7 comments:
In all that is
Tense
In all that follows
Discovery
Through experience we know
For with experience we learn and verify
And in doing so we are closer
We suffer the knowledge
That we are one with divinity
All I got....
wow.
If I had read that twenty years ago,....
well. No.
I thought I knew it all, then.
But, I reckon it's the doing that's
more important than when.
Nice piece, gal.
I carry no notebook
or worry if when
I will put down ink from a pen because it is only the now
that I makes any sense
now not an ill defined then.
As you know, I am poetically challenged. A real dork when it comes to poetry. I can rhyme. I get iambic pentameter etc. I pnce even wrote a sonnet (it sucked BTW).
What I do not get is the "it" that makes your stuff real poetry. How do you know where to divide the words and sentences that makes the poem, well poetic? I guess that is why you are an artiste, eh?
Nice words Jean, I've tried to write poetry dozens of times, just doesn't happen. Thanks for sharing yours.
What you got is pretty good, Mark.
Thank you, dear.
Mark, everyone works their way, which is very cool.
Michael, I'm glad you're here to read mine.
HB, I write as the words come to me.
There is a feel, a rhythm, that is already in the words when I hear them. I will re-read them several times to make sure they make sense to me. That is when I may move a word to another line, add a comma, change a word, cross out a word or phrase. Then I read it again.
The flow/rhythm can change the poem to nothing but confusion/chaos if I don't use the right word or set the phrasing correctly.
I make no effort to follow a particular form or style (except for Sparrow's haiku contests). I guess my style is free-form, most of the time. I see a poem as (often) a conversation and there is no set form to a conversation.
The voice and inflection is what expresses the meaning (besides the word choice), so that the person on the other side of the conversation can understand what the writer is trying to say.
Still, every piece is always open to each reader's interpretation.
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