You Can Write Poetry - Jeff Mock [45]
You can start a number of ways. You can brainstorm. Make the blank page an idea page. Write down your first idea—a general subject, a statement, an image, a question, whatever. One idea generates a second. The second generates a third. Don't worry about being neat and tidy. Don't worry about being correct and proper. Don't worry about complete sentences. Mess up the page with ideas, one followed by another. Generate as many as you can as quickly as you can—speed is important—and see where your concerns instinctively lead you.
You can engage in freewriting. Give yourself ten minutes and write without pause. It doesn't matter how you start. Write whatever comes into your head, anything at all, everything. Your concerns will manifest themselves because we can't help but write about our concerns. Again, don't worry about complete sentences. Don't worry about logic and making sense. Don't worry about organizing your thoughts. In fact, don't think. Write, write, write. Once you get going, the writing itself will lead you.
You can free-associate, an activity similar to brainstorming, but with the express purpose of jumping from one idea to the next without the benefit of exact logic. Begin with an abstraction, say, justice. Close your eyes and what do you see? The image of a blindfolded woman holding a scale? A judge and jury? Henry Fonda in the film Twelve Angry Men? A personal memory of justice served or, perhaps, not served? Let one image lead you to another. Write them down, and continue.
You can take a quiet moment, clear your mind and allow an image to come unbidden to you. Hold the image. Concentrate on it and see it clearly. Note the details. Move deeper into the image. Walk through it. What are you approaching? Look from side to side. Turn and walk in another direction. How has the scene changed? Who is there with you? Take a mental picture of the scene. Take an entire roll of film, then develop the pictures on the page. Write down all the details you can, with as much precision as you can.
These are ways to begin, to discover the subjects you'll inevitably write about. One other prewriting activity is to read immediately before writing. I read poems before I begin—not poems I know and love, but new poems in literary magazines. By reading, I put myself in the mood to write and at the same time set my sights. Chances are, I won't like all the poems I read. I may like half of them, but those poems I don't like spur me on to write better poems. By reading, I generate ideas. I respond to poems, whether I like them or not. They start me thinking. I argue with them, and the argument sparks the first draft of a poem.
If you already know what you want to say, you probably don't need to say it. The reader probably doesn't need to read it. A poem that doesn't surprise you won't surprise the reader. It's dull, predictable, the last thing we want for our poems. "A writer," William Stafford said, "isn't so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them?" Try these prewriting activities. Look back at your journal and see what you've accumulated. Read poems. Admire them and argue with them. When you discover your concerns, when you make sounds that please your ear, when you find intriguing words, begin there, the first draft of a new poem.
PRACTICE SESSION
1. On one day, take ten minutes each in the morning, afternoon and evening to brainstorm. Begin each session with a blank page and a new subject.
2. Freewrite for ten minutes per day for five consecutive days. Don't plan ahead. Once you begin writing, do not pause. After the five days, consider which sessions contain the seeds of poems.
3. Free-associate for ten minutes. Begin with one of the following words: home, pleasure, fast, winter, foul, hollow, river, hectic. Let each response lead you to the next