A couple of days ago at a coffeehouse, my friend said "Your poem was very interesting. What was it about?"
Um. Well.
I tried telling him the plot, as it was a narrative poem, but he'd already heard that. I left it at that and thought about it for the rest of the show. The best answer I could come up with, after thinking for quite some time, was "I was trying to solve a mystery." The mystery in question was frivolous, but I realized that this is what all my poems are - not necessarily about something, but a process. A journey. Often I start with just a few words and see where they take me, stealing other words from previous, rough poems. Often - relatively often, recently - I decide I need to write a happy poem, and then inject a cruel twist and it joins my collection of not-so-happy poems. Today, I was determined to finally finish a poem with words that have been floating around for weeks:
i made you laugh
once.
During April - Camp NaNoWriMo and Poem a Day - I won't post entire poems, but I will post bits and pieces.
i don't know if now
we are talking about old house
insulation because we are
so desperate to hold onto
conversation, or because
we have run out of things to say.
Um. Well.
I tried telling him the plot, as it was a narrative poem, but he'd already heard that. I left it at that and thought about it for the rest of the show. The best answer I could come up with, after thinking for quite some time, was "I was trying to solve a mystery." The mystery in question was frivolous, but I realized that this is what all my poems are - not necessarily about something, but a process. A journey. Often I start with just a few words and see where they take me, stealing other words from previous, rough poems. Often - relatively often, recently - I decide I need to write a happy poem, and then inject a cruel twist and it joins my collection of not-so-happy poems. Today, I was determined to finally finish a poem with words that have been floating around for weeks:
i made you laugh
once.
During April - Camp NaNoWriMo and Poem a Day - I won't post entire poems, but I will post bits and pieces.
i don't know if now
we are talking about old house
insulation because we are
so desperate to hold onto
conversation, or because
we have run out of things to say.
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