What’s your process for writing poetry?

• Clear my head
• No, really clear my head
• Have a vague idea of what the argument is that I’m going to write
• Have a concrete idea of what the form is that I’m going to write in
• Start thinking up phrases in iambic pentameter
• Keep thinking up phrases in iambic pentameter
• Wait till my heart beats in iambic pentameter
• Optional: have access to a rhyming dictionary, to use as emergency backup
• Start writing, keeping in mind the vague idea of what the argument is
• Scrub lines if they’re not going in the right direction
• The first quatrain is the hardest. Once that falls into place, the form does too.

2 Comments

• John Cowan says:

  October 14, 2017 at 2:48 pm

  Your heart always beats in iambs: lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB.

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  • opoudjis says:

    October 15, 2017 at 11:26 pm

    Indeed: my metaphor was neither accidental, nor a metaphor. 😛

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