I’m not a natural poetry writer. I don’t refer to myself as a poet. I enjoy writing poetry, but I often read other writers who seem to come so naturally to imagery, who filter feeling into concrete words with such care, and I know that I have a long way to go with this craft.
That said, I do have a process. Usually my brain latches on to a small turn of phrase (the latest in my phone are ‘there’s a rhythm to forgetting’, ‘toy soldier in the roomba’, & ‘aposematism’), usually I am somewhere completely unsuited to engaging in poetic navel-gazing, so I type it into my phone notes quickly (along with ‘6 bell peppers’, ‘make vet appointment for thyroid labs’ and ‘bank- quarters’) and proceed to whatever playdate/errand/dinner plans I had going on.
Then I poke at them some more whenever I have time, like when I should be sleeping or when my son should not be napping.
I fall in love with the first version I write. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I drink tea very smugly. I rush to whatever I’m late to, but with the confidence that I have created something that is worthy of my pride.
This is where I stop. I hide the file. I edit those poems that just aren’t working, and will probably never work, because writing from the perspective of a kitchen table to explore the law of entropy is both dull and pretentious. I plod away at the midpoint of a second draft of a YA novel because I’ve come this far, but there’s so much fucked pacing that it gives me a migraine fixing.
Alternatively, I send out my genius poems and they all come back rejected, and I read them and go “Ohhhhh, right” and fix them up enough that they might publish somewhere, someday. Or, worse, a publication actually takes them, and I watch it post and wish I could replace it with the better version in my head.
Can you tell I just wrote seven poems? Two of them actually good? See me only sending them to one publication before reminding myself that first (and second) drafts always suck?
Here’s another resolution for me going into 2020 — no more sending out first drafts! I should probably apply that to this blog, but then I’d never get anything posted 🙂