How does a poem begin?
Poetry almost always begins with my feet. I walk. A few words walk with me until they begin to string out into something/else. Sometimes I have a strong visual idea but no words, and sometimes I have words, but no structure. I almost always have a fieldbook with me, or turn to it when I get back from walking. I make notes, I draw, I listen, I question myself. I have been known to stuff leaves in my nose and flower petals down my shirt. I find it hard to not walk barefoot on the quartzite. A poem begins with my feet and a question. The language and practice of fieldbooks comes from my training in geography influenced/encouraged by the brilliant scholar, mentor and friend joni m palmer). The walks, the writing, the notations follow some sort of query (even if I don’t always know the question); sometimes I am looking for the question and always seeking a deep observation of the ecosystems to know it better, to see patterns, to listen. This process is almost always inseparable from my own thoughts and state of mind. I am curious about the edges, the boundaries of language and writing, self and ecology.
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