30 Poems in 30 Days: What is Your Writing Process?
September 16, 2007 by John Hewitt
This is Day 13 of 30 Poems in 30 Days
The Methods to our Madness
We have spent the past few days talking about form and meter. I could use a break from that, so today lets discuss approaches to the act of writing a poem. Some people just sit down and write. They don’t have a plan or even a topic in mind. They simply sit down and start to write. Sometimes it takes them a while to get started, because they don’t have a set idea or method in mind. At other times the muse strikes them right away and before they know it, they’ve created a poem. Today I want you to think about your process of creation. First off, do you have a process? Secondly, does that process seem to work for you? Here are some parts of the process I want you to think about, along with some typical answers.
Where do you write?
- At home
- At work
- At a coffee shop
- On the bus/train/drive to work
- Outdoors
- At a desk
- At a table
- On a comfy sofa
- In a hotel room
- In bed
What tools do you use?
- Pen
- Pencil
- Notebook
- Journal
- 3 x 5 Cards
- Typewriter
- Computer
- PDA
- Tape Recorder
- Dictionary
- Thesaurus
- Plenty of snacks
- Music
When do you write?
- Whenever the mood strikes
- First thing in the morning
- In the middle of the day
- At the end of the day
- Whenever the kids give me a quiet moment
- At work when the boss isn’t looking
- On my lunch break
How long are your sessions?
- I don’t have a set length
- I spend about a half hour a session
- I spend an hour or more per session
- I like to spend an entire day just writing poetry
- I concentrate on the number of poems, not on the time
How do you choose your subjects?
- I write about the events in my life
- I take items from the news or other mediums
- I try to imagine other characters and voices
- I write about the things I see
- I just make stuff up
How do you prepare?
- Just sit down and start
- Take a walk first
- Exercise first
- Meditate first
- Keep a list of possible topics
- Read the newspaper
- Read other people’s poetry
- Reread my previous session’s work
- Scream
What writing methods do you use?
- Just write the poem
- Write an outline
- Automatic writing
- Start in prose then convert to poem
- Convert entries from journal
How do you edit or revise?
- I don’t
- I correct spelling and grammar errors
- I revise as I go
- I reread the poem and look for errors or parts that could be better but I don’t spend too long on it
- I rework my poems extensively, often changing order, word choice and adding new parts
Today’s Poetry Assignment
Today is a two-part assignment. The first part is to think about your method of writing poetry. Please tells us about your work style in the comments, even if you aren’t posting your poetry in the comments.
The second part is to shake up your process. If you have a lot of structure, try loosening up. If you write very loosely, try adding some structure to the process. Find a new place to write or use a different tool. The change doesn’t have to be major, but if you post your poem, please tell us what you changed.
Today’s Recommended Poet
Eireann Lorsung is a poet and a dressmaker. It is an interesting combination and perhaps explains her love for enjambment. She most certainly has a taste for visual design. Her style is less bitter and confrontational than some of our recent poets. Lorsung writes with joy and the sort of appreciation for beauty you can expect from a dressmaker. Lorsung recently released her first book, Music for Landing Planes By
Poems on the web:
Thank you! Falling in love with Eireann Lorsung.
Thank you! Falling in love with Eireann Lorsung. “Being” is about as good as it gets.
Ah, see, the first one I posted, I got a “page not found” message. Never mind, since it enabled me to add more praise.
Where do I write?
To your list of suggested locations, I’d say “all of the above”. In other words, anywhere and everywhere. Mostly it’s at my desk, often it’s in bed first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Sometimes I go out on purpose, to a coffee shop or the beach or just my back yard, for a change of scene. I always have notebook and pen with me, so even when it’s not a planned writing expedition, I can jot things down any old where, whether notes or whole poems.
Tools:
• Usually a pen that I like the feel of, preferably a roller-ball. But really anything will do – whatever’s to hand.
• Usually a notebook, which can be any size that fits in my handbag. I even have some tiny little ones I can tuck in my wallet if that’s all I’m taking. I’ve pretty much given up calling them journals, because what works for me is to put everything in one notebook – shopping lists, new phone numbers … and bits of writing. Otherwise I have just too many to lug around, especially as I also like to have with me whatever I’m reading.
• I used to use a typewriter but have embraced computers (hasn’t everyone?). In the early days of personal computers I subscribed to the myth that you couldn’t compose poetry on a computer. Then I began living with my present husband, Andrew, who had one. I discovered computers are WONDERFUL for writing poetry. Cut and paste is so much easier than the laborious typing and retyping - and wot-the-heck, the universities probably won’t want my myriad drafts anyway. Until recently I always composed my first drafts with pen and paper, subscribing to the theory some writers postulate of a mystical connection between heart and hand. But nowadays if I happen to be sitting at my desk I’ll compose straight on to a Word document. It doesn’t seem to mess up any mystical connections that might be happening. As with the place, it’s really a matter of what’s convenient. If a typewriter was all I had, I’d use that; if a paper serviette was all I had … and so on. What matters is to write.
• I always like to have dictionary and thesaurus handy but I don’t cart them around with me when I go out; some decisions can wait. When I’m working on the computer it’s even easier to consult online versions than to drag out the actual books from the shelf by my desk. I should probably move the books now, to live beside my bed instead. (I have a desktop computer, not a laptop, so it doesn’t move around the house.)
• I don’t like transcribing from tape recorders so I don’t use them; my husband sometimes does, but that’s for writing prose; he’s not a poet. My second husband (Bill of the recent poems) always wrote to music, but he was a prose writer too. I think I’d find music distracting.
• Snacks? Depends. Not usually. I lose track of hunger and mealtimes. But if there are chocolates or something around, I might nibble as I work – in the sort of furious, impatient way I would once have smoked a cigarette in the same circumstances, as a sort of aid to concentration. Once upon a time I used to say that I wrote with a pen dipped in wine, but I seldom drink alcohol any more at any time. It was a bit tricky anyway – you had to imbibe enough to lift the lid off the subconscious, but not so much that next morning the poetry turned out to be incoherent drivel!
When do I write?
All of the above – though the work and kids options no longer apply. When they did, I trained myself to hold lines and if necessary whole verses in my head until I could get to write them down. I’m a night owl, so a lot of my writing has been “exercised in the still night / When only the moon rages”, as Dylan Thomas put it. But “whenever the mood strikes and I’m not involved in something I can’t interrupt” is more accurate now.
Sessions
No set length. However long it takes and/or however long is available.
Subjects
All of the above.
Preparation
Mostly I just sit down and start. If I’m blocked I might use prompts; often I’ll start playing with form and that does it – usually not traditional forms but “rules” I make up for myself on the spot. When I’m not blocked, I mostly write free verse, though I like to make some sort of pattern of the number of lines per verse.
Writing methods
I never write outlines nor start in prose. Poems begin for me with a line or two in my mind, complete with their own mood, tone, rhythm, cadence, everything. Sometimes these lines turn out to be at the end of the poem or in the middle rather than the beginning, and sometimes they are the lines that get dropped from the finished piece. If I’m blocked, I’ll sometimes use automatic writing or journal entries as a starting point.
Editing and revision
• All of the above, depending….
• Some poems are “wholly given” and don’t need revising; they are rare.
• I’m good at grammar and gifted with the ability to spell – but I’m a rotten typist, so there are always errors to correct.
• Sometimes an obvious improvement occurs to me as I’m writing, so I make the change then and there.
• More often, I look through it afterwards to see what needs tweaking. If at all possible, I try and fix it on the spot.
• Revision never stops. Come back to a piece after a few years, and ways to make it better will leap out and hit you in the eye. This applies to things that seemed to be working perfectly and also all those others that don’t work in the first place. Put them away a while, and when you pull them out it’ll be easy to see what they need. Sometimes, what they need is to be tossed in the nearest bin. At other times I “rework … extensively, often changing order, word choice and adding new parts”.
I’m glad I picked someone you like!
How Do I Write Thee
In answer to the question “how do I write,” I have one response: how do I not write. I have been writing since childhood. And it is my nature to write poetry. Poetry is for me, the first response to my universe. Poetry responds to the essential questions: who, what, where, when, why and how.
Poetry is not so much about who I am as what I am. POetry comes to me everywhere I am. If I take a walk, the voice is in my head commenting on my world as I observe nature. Poetry goes with me to the grocery store and it also accompanies me driving down the highway. One of the greatest places I used to listen to the muse was in the sauna after an aerobics class. Poetry slips into my dreams — my first “prize winning” poem was a dream poem. There have been several since.
Consequently, I write whereever I am. On paper plates, on napkins, on scraps of paper, in notebooks, on the fly pages of books, if I see paper and pen, my first impulse is to pick it up and start writing. Just like a book sitting on a coffee tabel, paper and pen require attention. But the most dynamic method of writing for me, is the dialogue that I carry on in the cyber world.
Throughout the day I am never far away from my computer. I receive hundreds of e-mails and very often, my responses are in poetry. For me it is the most efficient and logical way to address the issues we face today, both personally and socially. Directness, inuendos, symballic clues, and truth lend themselves to the form or lack thereof, with deliberate ambiguity or startling clarity. The dialogue poem weaves a thread that bonds a community in thoughtful meditation or critical consideration.
Early on in my days, I practiced writing in every form. Parady was for me the norm. Imitation was my right arm. And still. these practices are fun and charming and useful. The art of writing is perpetuated by the art of writing. The writer is because he/she writes. It is not a thing I take time to do; it is what I do all the time. Writing is my life style.
My delima is then, not when do I write, but when do I not write. If we write, we must write, it is our spiritual calling, social responsibility and moral obligation.
Shalom ! ! !
Well yeah, Connie, that’s what I just said! Lol. We truly are sisters under the skin.
Found Poem:
Overheard on the Phone
Why do you think he’s dead
Why did you take him out of the cage
Tell me why you think he’s dead
I just heard him
He’s not dead I just heard him
I want you to bend down
Pick him up under his chest
Put him back in his cage
Put the phone down and do that and come back
Don’t hang up the phone
Did you put him in his cage
Pick him up with your fingers
Put him very carefully back in his cage
Is he in the cage
Where is he
Is he safe
John: terrific, love it.
So you don’t usually do found poems, then? Please may we read about YOUR process?
I’m happy to share my process Rosemary:
Where do I write?
In general order of productivity: I write in hotel rooms, at home, at work, coffee shops, and while I sit with my mother.
What tools do I use?
I alternate between pencil in journal and various computers. I almost never use a dictionary or thesaurus out of the belief that if I don’t know a word, my audience won’t know it. I only occasionally look words up to see if I used them properly.
When do I write?
Because of my extensive traveling, I have to grab time when I can. Back when life was more settled, mostly late at night.
How long are my sessions?
Usually a minimum of an hour. Rarely for more than two or three hours.
How do I choose my subjects?
My life is my primary inspiration, which can be troubling when it gets too repetitive. I sometimes write about things I read and occasionally I completely make something up.
How do I prepare?
When I can, I like to take a walk before I write. I will sometimes read other people’s poetry or my own poetry.
If I know what I want to write about, I just start writing. If nothing is coming, I usually start with some automatic writing. Occasionally that will yield a poem, but mostly I use it to unblock my imagination and get my fingers moving. I have tried to keep an idea journal, but mostly my journal is finished or rough poems.
How do you edit or revise?
If working in free verse, I usually revise at the end. Mostly grammar and spelling with the occasional deletion or movement of a line. I occasionally rewrite, but not often. Usually, if a poem needs extensive rewrites to work, I would rather just write nother poem.
If I am working in a form, I almost always edit as I go and make changes along the way. Unless I discover that I screwed up a part of the form, these poems are usually finished by the last line, although I will take the time to read them over and make any corrections I need to.
There’s not a lot I haven’t tried in the past, except making the first draft in prose. Having now tried that, I find I can’t – if I know it’s going to end as a poem, it will insist on forming itself that way at the outset. Then I tried reworking some of my prose pieces already written, but no, they stayed stubbornly prose. So I have taken a story by someone else and turned it into a poem. (I found it in a book for writers, “Fast Fiction” by Roberta Allen.) It’s the same story, but I’ve reworded it so it’s not plagiarism nor yet a “found” piece. This involved re-imagining it for myself.
ON THE ROOFTOP
Re-imagined from the short short story Space, by Mark Strand
She stands on the edge
poised against the sky like a question-mark,
her slim back indented,
her dark hair flying loose.
The wind billows her skirt
then flattens it to her legs.
She has taken off her high-heeled shoes
and placed them neatly.
She sees him appear at the window.
Startled, she steps back.
He observes that her teeth are clenched,
her fingers bare of rings.
“Let me take you to dinner,” he calls,
“Please! I’ll marry you!
We can go to Italy.”
On the skyline, some clouds drift.
He closes his eyes to think.
What else can he say to move her?
When he opens them, there is a space
between her feet and the ledge.
That is how he’ll always see her now,
lovelier than light, in flight
in that long moment.
Then she is gone from view.
Rosemary, I absolutely love your poem! Excellent! I’m going to print it out so I can read it again at a cafe somehwere with a cup of tea….
Method to My Madness:
In a letter I wrote to my sister (yes, I still prefer sending actual letters as opposed to e-mails) I told her I write because I breathe and I breathe because I write. Ever since I can remember I have loved to write; even as a child I was fascinated with the concept of being able to put your thoughts onto paper and make them something tangible. With wide-eyed enthrallment, I would watch my older siblings as they wrote notes, lists, checks, you name it. In secret I would scribble incomprehensible gibberish and imagine it to be the story going on in my head. I couldn’t wait for the day when I knew how to write. Finally, the day came and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world… like breathing. Now, I am seldom seen without a pen and paper in my hand.
Over the years my pen became my sword and my paper became my shield; always protecting me from people who have the tendency to be very cruel; helping me step across many of life’s troubled waters and bridging the gap between beautiful and frightening.
I carry a notebook and pen with me everywhere I go; I tried a laptop for a while but couldn’t stand it for more than a few months (I lost way too many first paragraphs and chapters this way). Once I was at a concert watching my favorite band and scribbling furiously and to my amusement, they thought I was a reporter for MTV who happened to be there filming them. On those rare occasions when I am found without paper I’ll reach for anything that stays still long enough (napkins, receipts, the palm of my hand, etc.) and I write wherever I can.
Everything can bring about some form of inspiration for me; my muses are not fickle when it comes to subjects and I have found myself writing about lands that do not exist to the sticky coffee ring at the café table where I sit.
There are so many moments I wish I could record but know I never will, and that may be the only drawback to this art that I cherish so.
Aw shucks! *Blushes, squirms with delight.* Thanks, Sandra.
Aha, yet another like Connie and me.
I didn’t say before, but I’ve been doing it since childhood too. Couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else when I grew up - not only as natural as breathing but also, to my young mind, the highest calling: bringing beauty to the world. It was a shock to find out I wouldn’t be able to earn a living at it, and that most Aussies preferred football!
In this poem I will address a social problem from an entirely different perspective than I usually take. I have chosen a subject that is merciless in it’s cold blooded telling. It doesn’t appeal to me at all, but here it is, because it is happening now to my step-daughter and it just wants to be told.
Homeless
When you cry defiantly about the homeless
Does this mean you will let me in
Let me in to rummage your cupboard
Sleep in your bed
Lock you out while you are away at work
And if unthinking you should choose to help me
I will bring all I have and should you object
I will claim Due Process
Once in the door I am yours
You can’t shake me off
If you throw me a bone I will turn my nose up
Because it is not a New York strip
I have more rights than you
Even when the time you said is up and I should be gone
I will one by one lay it out for you, for I aM
Terminally ill with HIV and mental problems
You can’t put me out,place my belongings on the lawn and bid me go
I am God’s victim, and I will call protective services
Who will accuse you of elder abuse
The law is on my side, and then the police
Will arrest you and charge you with assault
The Big Guy wasn’t kidding when he gave Noah forty days
That’s how long it takes to get me out
Day one, and holding
Like peace, I am impossible
Ugh! Reminds me of the boarder from hell we had a few years ago. He too was homeless before - and after - that. I can’t bring myself to care, just so long as he stays away from here. We finally got rid of him only because he kinda outsmarted himself … long story.
Horrible subject, yes, but very well told. And needs to be told for sure. Great ending!
Most of my “methods” have all been covered: notepad and paper everywhere I go; use whatever is to hand; write whenever, wherever, because I have to write. Mostly a night owl, at home I would ritually make myself a carafe of coffee and top it up with brandy. More for the atmosphere than the alcohol. Usually I would drink it hours later when it was cold because I had lost track of time. If I got blocked, or my thoughts were rushing too fast, I would play some music, usually one song over and over, and pace about until I could sit again.
I love writing at cafes, then altering things more consciously at home on my computer. I read back through what I have done often, tweak it, move things around until so I still have a sense of my rhythm, still have the edge of my trance-like state. More recently, working late hours and finishing work at 3 or 4 in the morning, too wired to come home, I would write in bars and late night lounges. It’s an odd way to meet interesting people too, because they become fascinated with that girl happily alone in the corner.
Of course, with a baby now, I have no method anymore I’m trying to figure that out. I wish I had the facility for remembering the passages I write in my head when I cannot write them down.
But as I am writing this, I am thinking about prose, even though it applies to everything. I wrote whatever came to mind whether it was fiction, or nonfition, poetry or lyrics. I don’t think of myself as a poet so it is hard to separate it from the rest. I don’t mean I can’t write poetry or that I don’t like writing poetry. It is something I always used to do, even from a young age.
I remember as a young girl I used to put each of my poems in a brown paper lunch bag and store them under my bed. I have no idea why. But I recall very distinctly the day my mother cleaned out my room, 14 years old, standing there hands on hips and yelling shrilly at my her, “You have just destroyed my life’s work!”
I cannot remember when or why I stopped writing poetry. It was only recently I wondered whether I still could. I can. Prose is my great love and I think poetry is a tool I use rather than an end in itself. It opens my mind, or closes my mind to surface thought, or both. I don’t have a method for writing poetry. Poetry is my method for writing. Poetry is for me, not for what I have to say to the world.
John, I have some old stream of consciousness prose that has been begging to become a poem for years and I have not done it. I thought I would try to work with that for this assignment but I’m not sure if I should post it here because it’s fairly graphic and has some..er… not very nice words in it.
CONNIE: Your poem is a tour de force. It is ugly and brutal and still beautiful and feeling, even in it’s harshness.
ROSEMARY: So delicately handled, it made my stomach turn. If that makes sense. The contrast between the subject matter and the descriptive style you have used is powerful, more shocking than something more confrontational would have been.
JOHN: I’m trying to think of something more detailed to say, but I just liked it. It was urgent.
SANDRA: I related to everything you’ve said. My own “flaming sword” often gets a mention in my writing.
Ha - I have a sword poem.
PS
Dear cerebralmum, please note, “I TRAINED myself to hold lines and if necessary whole verses in my head until I could get to write them down.” It can be done. However, I admit that this was when my kids were past infancy. The other thing to remember is that everything’s stored in the subconscious anyway, so anything you think you’ve lost will emerge in some form when the time’s right. You can sit down and recapture the experience or whatever else the inspiration was, and go from there.
Connie,
My wife works with the mentally ill population and knows first hand how a sense of entitlement can creep over many of their clients. She has a motto, “never work harder than the patient.”
I like much of your poem, but this section:
Even when the time you said is up and I should be gone
I will one by one lay it out for you, for I aM
Terminally ill with HIV and mental problems
You can’t put me out,place my belongings on the lawn and bid me go
I am God’s victim, and I will call protective services
Is a little too prose-like compared to the rest of the poem. You might want to make another pass at it.
I really loved the line, “I am God’s victim, and I will call protective services” - it so captures that mixture of grandiloquent “entitlement” and the petulant child going, “So there!”
John: I agree — here’s a possible fix.
Times up you say?
Here, let Me lay it out for you
One by one, just so you understand
HIV, Mental Health
Terminal
Death impending
Just not today or by your hand
You can’t put me out
You can’t touch my stuff
You can’t bid me go or
Place my belonging’s on the lawn
You will wonder then what you have spawned for . . .
I’ll leave god’s victim in, I like that part. It needs some work.
[...] 30 Poems in 30 Days: What is Your Writing Process? [...]
Much better Connie
[...] 30 Poems in 30 Days: What is Your Writing Process? [...]
Texas Sky
There is so much I’ll never be tonight!
The dark extends and extends
and in the breeze
the tree overhead blooms
into branches, and then leaves,
the fractal patterns repeating,
ever smaller but always purple
interrupting and dissecting black.
Saul Nadatas last blog post..Texas Sky