Arden Hunter : part five

How does a poem begin?

I’m going to go with practicalities for my answer here – so many people tell me they wish they could write poetry, or they wish they could start a poem, or they wish they could get their ideas on paper. To all of them I say: there is nothing stopping you. A poem begins when you write a word: be it on paper, on your computer, or on a napkin. It starts when you get out of your own way, and you put that idea that’s been floating around inside your body and mind down in some format that other people can absorb. Start with one word, one phrase, one sentence, and go from there. Write it down, leave it alone, come back and write more. So, I guess my real answer to this is, a poem begins when you believe it can. 

Arden Hunter : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

I find it very difficult to re-draft or edit poems when they are rejected for publication. Sometimes I do because the feedback I get from kind editors makes sense to me, but often I don’t, I just send them as they are to someone else. Thankfully they usually get picked up on the third or fourth round, though I have a few that have been rejected 8 times or more. I still love them the way they are though. Aside from that it’s walking that line between showing enough that the reader can understand what I am trying to convey, but also leaving enough space for them to be able to connect with the words in their own ways. Sometimes I think I’ve said enough when I haven’t. Other times I say far too much, and then it becomes a passive experience for the reader. I’d rather it was an active one, a collaboration. 

Arden Hunter : part three

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Oh definitely! I used to follow way too many ‘rules’ that it turned out I was imposing on myself – they weren’t coming from anywhere else. I would get stuck in alliterative traps (and sometimes still do, though usually by choice), worry too much about meter and rhythm and rhyme… I have had some really amazing feedback from editors, often just from the kindness of their hearts, that has encouraged me to stop holding myself to these arbitrary standards and just write what I want to write. The other thing that has changed is how much poetry I am now getting to read since getting involved with the online poetry community. Every day there are these amazing outpourings of words and it is so inspiring to me to see how everyone approaches this art form. 

Arden Hunter : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

This is going to be different depending on who you ask, but what it really comes down to is I think it is finished when I’m happy with it. If I read it, whispering under my breath, and at the end find myself giving a little nod of satisfaction, then I’m finished. If something is still niggling at me, it’s not. I know that’s not very helpful, but poetry is so subjective and there is no wrong way to write it, so you can’t say, ‘oh when there are X amount of words,’ or ‘when there are X amount of metaphors.’ It’s a gut feeling, I think. Part of it is, ‘Does this say what I wanted to say?’ From a more pragmatic point of view, I do spend a lot of time over the endings. Those last lines are often the ones that linger in other people’s minds, so though of course I take care over the whole poem, once the last line is crafted to my satisfaction I’m usually done. 

Arden Hunter : part one

Arden Hunter is an aroace agender writer, artist and performer. With an eclectic range of interests from the horrific to the whimsical, the theme tying all of their work together is an inexplicable and unconditional love of the ridiculous beast that is called 'human'. Arden has words and art hosted by Farther from the Trees, The Bear Creek Gazette and Beir Bua, among other places. Find them on Twitter @hunterarden.

What are you working on?

I always have multiple projects on the go, but right now I’m writing a poem called, ‘Kitchen-scissor pixie’ about gender dysphoria, and another one called, ‘Sometimes I shake in the mornings,’ which looks at how our fears are embodied and entwined within us. I’m also cleaning up a few pieces that I wrote a couple weeks ago, as I tend to do the first draft then leave them alone for a while. I find it hard to edit them when they are just written as they feel a bit raw and I think I’ll mess them up with the pressure. Aside from poetry, I’m working on some speculative flash for various submission calls and an eventual collection, and the first draft of my novel; an exploration of how the objects we leave behind when we die continue to affect our loved ones.