tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post115941291381042486..comments2023-08-04T04:41:39.813-07:00Comments on Of Looking At A Blackbird: What It TakesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1160053547348544682006-10-05T06:05:00.000-07:002006-10-05T06:05:00.000-07:00I love the poems that come all at once, and are fi...I love the poems that come all at once, and are finished between the scrap I wrote them on and the computer during transcription. I love the ones I work and work on. I just finished a poem I'd had drafts of for, like, a decade. Ack. I only love it now that I fixed it, that I made it right--its best self, or the best I could do for it.<BR/><BR/>I do get sparked most by words. Sometimes poetry, somethimes prose. But the way other people are writing opens up some channel, conduit, something in my brain that tricks it into playing around, again, with words. <BR/><BR/>I'm also, unlike most poets I know, in love with doing exercises. I'll do anything someone suggests. Often poems happen that way. Its the sneaking up thing--a poem happens while your brain is tricked into paying attention elsewhere.Lesliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11163920808413285914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159677754054571592006-09-30T21:42:00.000-07:002006-09-30T21:42:00.000-07:00I'm not sure I get inspired by reading a poem dire...I'm not sure I get inspired by reading a poem directly. There are things that may intrigue me about a poem that I decide to try -- not necessarily right away, as in that time I read a poem by Sylvia Curbelo and decided to "borrow" her patterns of syntax.<BR/><BR/>Often there are just lines I write down because I admire them. I like to work off them as epigraphs. This may not be a good thing, may be a crutch.<BR/><BR/>But often in a poem I argue with fiction or nonfiction that I've read. Just messing.Diane K. Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03204316534769002428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159637544572361162006-09-30T10:32:00.000-07:002006-09-30T10:32:00.000-07:00Am I the only person in the world who does not get...Am I the <I>only</I> person in the world who does <I>not</I> get inspired to write by reading other poetry? Sure, on a long-term basis I am. I'm still inspired by that haiku by Buson I read when I was 15, or by reading <I>Lolita</I> 25 years ago. But much as I may love the latest poem I've read by, say, Robert Hass, it just doesn't make me want to write a poem. If I really love the poem it may make me want to read it over and over and over again, but not to write.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13471547669854013234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159578091106674602006-09-29T18:01:00.000-07:002006-09-29T18:01:00.000-07:00I'm a computer writer myself. Because of the ease...I'm a computer writer myself. Because of the ease of instant experimentation and revision which handwriting stifles. <BR/><BR/>Funny I didn't name reading other poets or fiction writers as that's actually the number one source of inspiration. I love letting another poet's voice get into my head, i.e., reading a book through until I've absorbed voice, diction, perspective, emotion, content, something, then seeing how it's transubtantiated (can I say that? makes it sound awfully religious) through my head into a different poem on my paper. Er, my computer.Beverlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18306598876971505623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159555481409879172006-09-29T11:44:00.000-07:002006-09-29T11:44:00.000-07:00I postpone going from pen to computer as long as p...I postpone going from pen to computer as long as possible. Pen in hand, I feel as if I'm drifting in imagination and dream, as opposed to being "at work" at the computer. For me the move to computer seems to cut off inspiration.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13471547669854013234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159504244822296532006-09-28T21:30:00.000-07:002006-09-28T21:30:00.000-07:00I love that I'm getting others' responses here. Pa...I love that I'm getting others' responses here. Pamela and Beverly, all those ways also work for me. <BR/><BR/>Beverly, you mentioned the computer. Wherever my poems start, it's when they hit the computer that they actually kick into gear. Something about the freedom to choose alternatives.<BR/><BR/>Also like to kick off from other things I've read, have conversations with it.Diane K. Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03204316534769002428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159503381010099872006-09-28T21:16:00.000-07:002006-09-28T21:16:00.000-07:00There is no way to describe my process of writing ...There is no way to describe my process of writing poetry. I swear it's different every time. <BR/><BR/>I've written prose passages that turned into poetry. (Someone told me that Yeats used to write his poems as prose first.) I've started with a dream, a word, a tree, a first line, a voice, a funny story, a horrible mood, an item in the paper. <BR/><BR/>I've had poems born pretty much straight from the head of Zeus and one's that took five years and 40,000 rewrites. <BR/><BR/>I've written a sentence in one of the small poetry notepads I stash in various places around my house and then two years later I come across it by accident and I transcribe it to the computer so I can throw that notepad away and then if I sit there long enough, it may become a poem.<BR/><BR/>I've had poems form by cannibalizing three or four different poems, just a few lines from each. The new poem comes as something between them. I've written poems from exercises and assignments. <BR/><BR/>I'm awed by those who do have a process that they use for most of their work. Can't imagine that. I just grab any way I can into a poem.Beverlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18306598876971505623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11779531.post-1159492908271103532006-09-28T18:21:00.000-07:002006-09-28T18:21:00.000-07:00I get an image in my head, and if it doesn't disap...I get an image in my head, and if it doesn't disappear, in a few days I'll have a draft ready for paper. <BR/><BR/>That's true for short stories, too. I'll think of a first sentences or a snippet of dialogue for months, till it has to be written down.Pamela Johnson Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06637447850820805268noreply@blogger.com