Sarah A. Etlinger : part five

How does a poem begin?

For me, a poem begins with a phrase, image, or idea that won’t leave me alone. If I think of something and it’s still there in a few hours, I write it down and try to use it. Often when I am driving I get inspired by landscapes, so many poems begin there; sometimes poems begin when I am thinking about something I’ve read or encountered, and I want to explore it.

Many other times, poems begin in phrases or stories from other people. I’m fascinated by language in any form, so when I hear a phrase I think is interesting (even if it’s ordinary to the person) or particularly distinctive or rich, I often write it down so I can use it. One example that comes to mind recently is a conversation I had with my best friend where he said “faith is for the gaps”; that phrase is eloquent and interesting and provocative, so I included it a few weeks later in my poem “Transfer.” Another example comes from a conversation I had with a close girlfriend; we were chatting about various things that women tend to talk about, and after our conversation I turned that into “Girl Talk” where I tried to mimic our speech patterns and subject matter the best I could. I’ve also woven in stories or anecdotes from other people into poems; these become details or subjects or even entire poems, sometimes. For instance, the poem “Pieta Reimagined” (from Little Human Things) has as a central conceit a story my mother told me about her friend dying in high school, along with a part of a conversation we had a couple years later about how she wants to be buried. Without those stories, the poem just wouldn’t work.

And of course I would be lying if I didn’t credit other poets/poems I have read that I want to imitate. Kaveh Akhbar’s “River of Milk” was such an incredible poem that stuck with me; particularly, the image of crushing fireflies in his teeth haunted me for weeks. It turned into my poem “The Timekeeper” in which the subject is shaving time beads down to gain more or less time; the final image in that poem includes the speaker watching a time bead being crushed in between her lover’s teeth. A nod to Akhbar, there.

But whatever it is, poems begin for me in language, whether it’s a single word I want to use (recently, “erosion”; “duvet,” “date palm”), a story/ anecdote, or an image I want to explore in some way. The feeling has to be right and the muse has be ready, but poems always begin with words.