How does a poem begin?
A poem can begin so many ways: an overheard conversation on the street, a memory, good or bad, an obsession. A poem can begin with learning a new word. A poem can begin with seeing a painting, a piece of music, a dead bat on the street, a live seagull landing on a Manhattan sidewalk, the sound of a vireo at dusk in the forest, something your mother said to you fifty years ago, your father’s death, a newspaper article. A poem begins with summer noon silence in the Catskill mountains, someone’s eyes on a subway, someone’s tattoo, someone else’s poem. A poem begins with paying attention, being awake to the world around us and our lives. A poem begins with joy, with sadness, with outrage. A poem begins in our dreams, and in the space between sleeping and waking.
No comments:
Post a Comment