How does a poem begin?
In the best circumstances, the first line that springs up like a bone I build the rest of the project on, whether that's piecing collected fragments together or just seeing where one line to another takes me. Since I do tend to write in series, once I am a couple pieces in, I can usually find my way out or follow it to it's natural conclusion. Where that bone or first line comes can be anywhere. Something I read. Something I see. A phrase that just comes to me as I'm in the shower or drifting off to sleep and not poeting at all. A memory that seems unusually vivid somehow. Many of my projects wind up being heavy with research or "inspirational reading." Of the last few series I worked on, the inspo came from different places. I was watching The Shining with my boyfriend and was sort of high and noticed things I hadn't quite seen before (Overlook). I was scrolling though social media and spotted a funny Weekly World News with a great headline ("Babies Living On Board the Titanic"). I was listless during lockdown and mourning the spring flowers along my route to work (bloom) I think once I'm mid-project, it sort of continues on its own momentum.
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