Mark Harris : part three

How does a poem begin? 

The source of the impulse itself is a mystery, isn’t it? And everyone is different. I might be motivated by a desire to convey a notion difficult to express through conventional means, one that resists linear narrative. I’ll start with a few words I enjoy the sound of, or an observation, because why not start where attention is currently trained. Some people get things going by using divining systems like the I Ching. There are many approaches to staying open to possibility. I’m interested in what happens after the beginning, how we, author and reader, construct a world. The poem will end up going where it goes. I think it helps to remember a text is composed of words that have their own heft before and after the meanings we individually ascribe them.