Poetry is a strange thing. When Columbia crashed in 2003, I sketched a poem almost immediately, and refined it over the next five months until it was perfect in my mind and I couldn't change a word. Even now, if I'm having a tough day, I just open up that file, read the poem, and feel better about the world.
Two poems from that same time (more or less) are still in flux - the feeling I get when I walk across the Washington Avenue Bridge, knowing that John Berryman jumped there in January 1971; and the longing for connection that I am trying to express in a villanelle (blasted devilish form!) about speech and writing. I work on these once in a while, in the "perfectionist" mode you read about sometimes - add a comma, then think for twenty minutes, and remove it.
Tonight I made some pretty big changes to the Berryman poem. Once I can get a fix on the last several lines, it will be finished. I despair about the villanelle. But what is driving my poetic imagination these days? - I need to pay more attention to the moments that crystallize language.
Posted by otto0114 at March 2, 2007 11:10 PM