A constant irritant, like a finger tapping, tapping, tapping on the forehead, which continues underneath all other daily activities. For months on end. Going to the supermarket? tap tap tap. Chopping chard? tap tap tap. Driving to school? tap tap tap. Perpetual and insistent, until the words click into place and the tapping stops. For that poem. The ones in progress keep tapping.
Or,
A strand of orange pulp stuck between the teeth, that the tongue keeps worrying throughout the day, whether the mind is conscious of it or not. The tongue can't stop worrying it. One pulp-strand per poem. Sometimes a whole mouth full of them.
Portrait of Clara (as a chemist)
3 weeks ago
5 comments:
Sure glad that I only write limericks . . .
Like orange pulp! Yes. That is exactly what it is.
word.
I'm shocked to find this because this morning I drafted but did not yet finish a post on what writing lit crit feels like...your genre is much more lovely and interesting!
Do you ever have the BLAST kind of poetic tap, where one line just appears out of the ether and you have to go try to write the rest? That's how my poems tend to start. Takes forever to finish them, though.
I have been meaning to ask you for awhile what you thought of the Inauguration poem.
Post a Comment