Walking Off the Path

A lot of people over the years have asked me about my writing process. It's something that I didn't really think about for a long time. I think as a beginning poet I was in awe of the process in the way that the Ancient Greeks were--as though the Muses had whispered their words onto my page. I'm not saying that there's no romance in writing, but my process as well as my take on it have changed a lot since then.

Before I talk about me, I want to talk about the Muses...as in the ones of Greek mythology. Originally there were three. Really--I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Interestingly, their names were as follows (with translation in parentheses): Aoide (song, or voice), Melete (practice, or occasion), and Mneme (memory). These three ladies were worshiped as the three necessary conditions for creating poetic art, also known as music. The Greeks considered poetry to be music, and it included metered prose that was read aloud. Times have changed, of course, but I think that poets draw power from these elements of song, practice, and memory.

Travel through time to today. Two of my favorite contemporary essays on the writing process are Mark Doty's "Souls on Ice" and Richard Hugo's mini-book, The Triggering Town, in particular the section called "Writing Off the Subject." Yep, you can read them both online.

Not only do they enlighten my own process, but I also come back to them to remember what I love about creation. Mark Doty (a super duper poet, btw) says in his essay, "Our metaphors go on ahead of us, they know before we do." I love that line because it implicates poetry as a way of being rather than simply an art. Sometimes you experience or witness something that you know contains a nugget of poetic truth but you don't know what it is until you start writing the poem.

This goes with what Hugo means by "writing off the subject." I used to begin a poem with an idea of what I wanted to write about, as though I were writing an essay while the thesis statement constantly hovered in my mind. I've learned that this is a bad way to write. I want to learn from my poems, not tell them what to do or say. If a certain word triggers a new idea that doesn't jive with what I thought I wanted to say, I pick up the new thread.

I'm not trying to make this sound magical, on the contrary. Perhaps it's the intuition of the subconscious that draws us in toward the truth nugget of the metaphor. Luckily words are fluid. We can delete, restart, reposition. This ain't the Rosetta Stone, so keeping an open mind about what you're trying to say usually creates something surprising and honest.

I think the best letters and emails that people have written begin with a spirit of "I'm not sure where this is going"? But you keep at it; you allow yourself to digress and meander and indulge little things you didn't even know you'd mention. Aren't those the best? On second thought, don't answer.