Melissa Studdard : part one

Melissa Studdard is the author of five books, including the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the poetry chapbook Like a Bird with a Thousand Wings. Her work has been featured by PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, and has also appeared in periodicals such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, New Ohio Review, Harvard Review, Missouri Review, and New England Review. Her Awards include The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the Tom Howard Prize from Winning Writers, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and more. www.melissastuddard.com.

How does a poem begin?

A poem begins in the roof of the mouth or the lower lining of the heart, like a monarch clinging to the underside of a marigold leaf. It spins itself into new being; it demands attention with the coloration of flight. We all have it, the poem. Every human, I mean it, has poems in them, can do this. You just have to open yourself, pay attention, hone your craft.

Here are some of the many ways you can recognize that a poem wants to do its thing in you—

• You hear a phrase that ignites you due to its dexterity of language or unusual syntax or colloquial vibrancy, and you want to write it down.
• You notice something happening, like a caterpillar eating a parsley stem, or a bohemian-looking woman holding the hand of a woman in a business suit, and you want to write it down.
• You feel something, like a sunset or a break up so deeply that you must lay it on the page to relieve yourself of it enough to go about your daily life.
• You read another poem that blows your mind, and holy hell, you HAVE TO WRITE one too.
• You find a great prompt or book of prompts or someone gives you a prompt.
• You feel the frame or structure of it, and you know you want to fill it in.
• You feel the rhythms and sounds, and you find the content to ignite them.
• You encounter something going on in the world that deserves poetic attention, and you decide you must do it.
• You suddenly hear a phrase or see an image in your head.
• You come across an interesting question, and it can only be answered with a poem.