How does a poem begin?
A poem can come in many ways—from an image, an interesting phrase, the visitation of a memory, a sudden connection between two things, an exhilarating or traumatic experience, a glimpse of something beautiful, even from being pissed off about something—but literally, on the page, a poem begins with a phrase. I like to think of that opening phrase as the angle of entry into the poem, sending it on a particular trajectory that is both syntactical and emotional. Sometimes you have something you want to write a poem about, but without that phrase (which is often a very ordinary phrase), you don’t have a way into the poem, and the poem can’t happen. Sometimes the phrase will come out of nowhere when you’re taking a walk, triggering the poem, or in a phrase you happen to hear on the radio. If a poem isn’t working, sometimes you can find another angle of entry, a new way in that reorganizes everything that follows and perhaps leads to an entirely different place.
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