How does a poem begin?
So many things come to mind when I think of how poems begin. Sometimes for me it’s a story, something that happened to me, or to someone I know (after all I may not be much but I’m all I think about, ha ha). So I may begin with the details of a scene in that story. It could be a description of a place, a conversation, or an image in that scene. Perhaps an establishing shot of the scene. The memory expands from that initial spark, and drives me into the poem, writing down as much of that experience as I can remember, trying to recapture (and relive) the scene, then making some kind of narrative form out of it. I often write to the sound of my own voice, picturing myself reading the poem to someone, or to a group. Eventually I will do that, at a writers group I belong to, or to a fellow poet. Then there are times when a poem gets launched because I have the inspiration to write about a certain person. I’ve known some interesting folks in my life. They always seem to be waiting around to jump into a poem.
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