How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?
The way my poetry first enters the world keeps changing and evolving. At the moment, I’m in two peer-to-peer writers’ groups, one has been going for six years. There are three of us, all in separate locations, all graduates of the same MFA program, and every month we send the other participants three poems, sometimes new work, and sometimes revisions, and then each poet sends a letter commenting on the work of the other two, again to everyone. It’s based on the model of study we learned in grad school. We send our poems religiously on the first of the month and respond a couple of days later. It’s been a wonderful source of discipline and support.
In addition, I’ve recently joined a second peer-to-peer group where four of us meet on Zoom one evening a month for two hours. We send in one poem a day the day before, and the others give feedback. Each poem is the focus of the discussion for thirty minutes. It’s gratifying to give and receive this live feedback.
Finally, I participate in a biweekly three-hour Saturday workshop where we generate poems (also on Zoom). That has been a source of new material and helped me think about my work in a fresh way, revisit my obsessions with new metaphors, and from fresh angles.
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