A Poet-in-Progress
Tags: About Me, Prose, Interview With A Poet, Poiesis News, Thinking About Poetry

I doubt anyone will memorialize me as a dead poet. I won’t be read or studied or quoted. And, that’s perfectly okay.

I don’t write to be famous or to be remembered.

I write to remember.

Writing, especially poetry, is how I access memories and the emotions tangled in those memories. They need to be sorted, unknotted, filed in an appropriate box of yesterday, or discarded like useless garbage. I feel lighter after writing a poem.

Poetry came to me at the age of nine. I wrote my first ten poems in one afternoon and read them to my older sister, who claimed I stole them from a published poet. At nine, I could write poetry but didn’t know how to plagiarize.

I continued writing poetry into my 20s. Then, stopped to live a life I didn’t want to live.

The one good thing about the 2016 election was that I quit Facebook and found Medium and began a new love affair with poetry, although I didn’t start off writing poetry here. It was a gradual reintroduction. I thought I may be too old and jaded to be a poet. I was wrong. Or, maybe, being old and jaded helped me write poetry!

My love of poetry doesn’t center around any particular poets of years past — the ones we studied in school — or any particular style. My favorites of both are varied, although I’ll mention Langston Hughes and Margaret Walker as great inspirations. I also have a fondness for Asian poetry and poets.

Here on Medium, my poetry tastes are just as varied. There are too many good poets here to list so I won’t try. Instead, I’ll describe what I like to discover in a poem.

In a poem, I want to unearth an image that incites emotion. Paint me a picture with the words you use.

I crave words that make me swoon, especially those that beg me to explore them further. Online dictionaries are such noble assistants. One word will lead me down a path to another and another. Contrary to many authors who write about writing, I like unfamiliar words, unusual and wonky ones — words that sound melodious or strident, that make me smile or cringe. Give me words that scream and whisper, that leave me interested and engaged. I want to be introduced to new words as if the poem is a meet-and-greet cocktail hour. Let me shake hands and get to know them over an Old Fashioned.

I like poems that tell me your story.

If a poem isn’t personal, what is it?

I have no habits or schedules for writing. That feels too much like work, and I am fortunate to not depend on my writing to pay the bills, allowing me a freedom that professional writers don’t have.

As a photographer, I’m often inspired by a photo I took or sometimes, a poem I write inspires me to take a photo to be its partner.

I like to write for prompts. Prompts take me to places I may never have visited otherwise. Writers get in ruts, creating different versions of the same poem or story over and over. A prompt jolts your brainwaves, sends them twirling in new directions.

My past is also a regular inspiration for my poetry. Such poems are a form of exorcism — needed, difficult, revealing, and releasing. J.D. Harms has a special knack for giving prompts that serve as extreme therapy for me.

The only advice I can give new poets is to pay attention. Life is so full of busyness that we miss the little things. Poems tend to grow from those tiny moments— a shadow across the kitchen table, steam rising from a cup of coffee, a tiny mushroom nestled in leaves, the rhythmic breath of a sleeping baby, the sound of nothing at the end of the day. If you are too busy to notice these moments, you will never be a poet.

To keep my focus on the tiny things, I often go out with my camera searching for what isn’t easily noticeable. Photography is an excellent form of meditation that keeps my mind attentive to what is often overlooked.

But, we all have our methods. Find yours.

If you can be slow and easy, a poem will catch up to you.

© Dennett 2020