A Personal Poetics

The task for me in writing a poem is the search for context. Quite often poems start from something I’ve read, usually just a single word. It’s not so much the rhythm of a word that lures me; it’s as if that word suddenly becomes an enormous edifice of meanings and associations. I wander in, take a look. Sometimes this is a place full of tricks, strange passageways, doors, blind doors and windows with ledges and views that can entice me to leap. Often I risk a fall, or I may try to find my way out again, or work my way around using my voice like a compass to locate my position, or progress much as a blind person feels by touch. If I can’t get the voice clear and focused and sounding, I may be trapped for weeks searching for its echo. Mostly it’s like one of those pencil-mazes where you have to find the unobstructed route. I work a great deal by trial and error, though occasionally an innate sense comes into play and the poem unfolds along its inevitable path. The difficulty lies in trying to see what the structure is, moving from image to image with a sense of purpose and direction. Images must find a context that will connect them, much in the way that furniture takes on its meaning when you find out who owns the house. Finding that relationship, for me, is the real work in a poem.