How does a poem begin?
Some of my poems begin with images I get from dreams. I often wake up in the middle of the night and write some lines on my phone. When I wake up, I try to follow through on the dream logic and develop them more. Other poems start in classes I am teaching. I often ask my students to write in response to published poems. These in-class exercises involve various constraints. A lot of my work comes out of doing these exercises with my students or by trying out ideas/poetic strategies that I plan on teaching. Usually, I will get one or two lines from the exercise and then develop the fragments into finished poems later.
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