How does a poem begin?
For me, poems come from a moment when I go a little bit askew—I can literally feel a vibration in my body that resembles how you feel after the sound of a low, resonant gong. Anything can prompt it—a phrase, sometimes a single word that just sounds different to me than it has before, the emotion I pick up from others, my own ridiculous abyss. I always have a notebook or my phone with me, and rush to write a line when it comes to me. Later, if I see the line and the feeling is still there, I know it’s worth pursuing. I rarely start a poem by sitting down and saying “Now I will write a poem.” My writing time is about finding those fragments and seeing what they become. The origin stories of my poems are moments when life breaks through and tells me to listen.
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