Deborah Rosch Eifert : part two

How does a poem begin?

Sometimes with a random phrase that pops into my mind where there is a melody to the sound, almost song-like. Sometimes there is an image, either imaginary or something I see in the woods or at the shore, and I find I must describe it. Often some science article or video I have run across, like one about trees having heartbeats, may trigger a poem. If I am running dry, I try exercises – create as many non-cliché ways to describe a color as possible; describe an act or feeling but not by saying it in any direct manner, attempt something in form. I will write lists of other people’s lines I love, or just words that have an appealing or interesting sound and something may grow from that. Jericho Brown did an exercise in a workshop of taking a short poem and copying it down but using an opposite of every single word – that got me the line “Today’s glitter pours out tomorrow’s death.” Whoa! There is also an exercise of generating a word pool by going through an anthology or a long poetry collection, turning pages, writing down the last word on the page until you have 25 or so words, and then including them all in one poem. All those strategies or events are ways to lower my net into the river of unconscious words and images that flows bubbling along in my brain. Oh, and reading – reading is vital for priming the pump.