How does a poem begin?
Usually, a poem begins with trying to pin a single image. I don’t know why, but I think of this as a stump, even though it functions more like a seed or a sapling. From there, I build: more images, more layers. I follow those tendrils to find out what the poem is really about. Quite often, though, in the editing stages, I end up cutting that stump entirely. It’s like a rocket booster that falls away after launch; the poem has taken off and doesn’t need it anymore.
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