how does a poem begin?
a poem really can’t begin until there’s a sense that it needs to be something new, so it’s always the variation that’s dawning on me. there gets to be a number of occasions that always force the point. when my [ex-]wife was pregnant, i started writing sonnets and counting the weeks. the terror and delight of expecting meant that i was able to keep up a good pace that carried me for almost two years, until jackson’s first birthday. we were also just arrived in a new city, boston, and taking a lot of bus rides down to nyc to see my brother, visit the russian consulate, and cetera. and ten years later, i’m still writing china bus sonnets every time i take the ride. so the patterns of life, instead of becoming repetitive, always put me in a receptive and determined mood.
those are very different than the poems that strike, almost like panic attacks, at all hours, where the mind gets sucked into a sort of vortex. those only get resolved by coming to terms.
the poems hardly ever begin or end on the page, they get going with a phrase or puzzle or rhyme, and then i will work them over in my mind on long walks or trips or in wee hours. i usually know the poem is finished by the time i have it really by memory and when i stop tripping over certain lines. a little more might change after i put it to paper, but by that time, most of the leg work has already been put in.
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