Little Explosions / Poetry

Returning from an intensive three day conference in the Berkshires, I am looking at my work anew. Never one to adhere to "poetry trends", I need to reconcile what I know about the current publishing climate with my own aesthetic. Having so many astute readers of my manuscript was a privilege. It was also wonderful to hear the great work of fellow poets. That said, I remind myself of why I do this--and it isn't for money or fame. Ellen Dore Watson (one of the faculty at this conference) asked what we would do if we knew we would never get published. That's easy, I thought. I would write anyway. It's a process--a way in which I interact with the world and myself. I pursue publishing because I do believe that literature should be in the world, not in a drawer (or on one's personal computer). It's exhausting to face the months of revision but exciting to reinvent poems I thought were finished. Re-imagining is what we do as writers---turn it sideways, upside down; view it through the window or from the air. Poems can be improved to evoke feeling, communicate senses. I remember hearing Galway Kinnell read once at the Geraldine Dodge Festival and he was changing words as he walked to the podium. A poem is never finished, only abandoned, said French critic and poet Paul Valery. I am back on the journey to find the perfect pairing of words to make the little explosion that is a finished poem.