How does a poem begin?
I am almost entirely sound dominant (which is unusual in the general population but very common with radio producers). Poems always begin for me with a phrase, said aloud. Not an image. Not an idea. A phrase that I say out loud, that seems true. When I am trying to work something out, because I am sound dominant and because I am an extroverted thinker—I really do not know what I think until I say it. I will hear myself say something, and there will be a sort of psychic “ping” like tapping good crystal if the phrase is true, and opens up a train of thought. And then I start to chase it. One of my favorite examples of this is a poem that starts “fat girls love to swim.”
I said that out loud—and ping—I had the poem quite quickly after that.
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