When I revived my penchant for poetry two years ago, I never thought I would complete enough work to one day collect together as one. In that return to the page, I discovered my voice as a poet. Along the way, more poems took shape, finding their place in my debut micro-collection of poetry, These Are the Women We Write About. But even with the publication of that first book of poetry, I never stopped writing. And now all this time later, I finally have a full-length collection filled with words read to revive my belief in being a poet.
So how did I complete this collection?
1.) Line By Line
Most of the poems written were done so line by line. And many of those lines existed only in the Notes app on my iPhone before finding a forever home. I’m not sure what it is about certain lines of writing that demand to be made into poems instead of short stories or chapters in a novel. After too many years spent obsessed with the beauty and wreckage created by poetry, all I know is that sometimes a line demands the concise freedom to exist in a poem and nowhere else. With this knowledge, it’s easy to continue on to the next line, the next stanza, the next poem, etc.
2.) Oblige Obsessions
While I didn’t set out with a theme or an overall concept when I began writing these poems, somehow they made sense. Unlike writing novels or short stories, there was no precise destination in the poetry. Instead I followed my obsessions: bones and lies and leaving, whales and sirens and seas, memories and maps and mothers. These words and images appeared again and again, and I never resisted them. I couldn’t. Instead I obliged them, allowing these obsessions of my mind to persist all the way through 42 poems.
3.) Purge the Poetry
As is an unavoidable side effect of writing, most especially in writing without looking back or knowing the end, I found myself with a plethora of poems. Many pieces were written from three words, sent by the best friends to be incorporated into stream-of-consciousness writing. I tried to complete one SOC each day in April for National Poetry Month. While I didn’t quite succeed, I did have 23 pieces in need of elongation to make them into full poems. Following the completion of those edits, I was left with some much loved poetry, but not everything felt like it belonged with the growing connections made between preexisting poems. And thus, the great purge occurred. Perhaps those discarded works will find a way into another collection someday.
4.) Trace the Threads
Though this next part of the process seemed rather simple from the onset, the organization of this collection was anything but. After determining which poems didn’t fit well enough with the rest of the work, the threads within the project tightened. However, even knowing the general feeling wasn’t enough of a guide for assembling the project. There were too many stories and arcs and possibilities. The cohesion of the collection made sense in the back of my mind, but never in trying to organize these poems, many of which felt too surreal and ethereal to fit with the other more realistic poems about grapefruits, overgrown manicures, mint juleps, cow lungs; mundane moments turned to magic on the page. This is what I’ve always loved about poetry. But in the end, these were the exact threads I traced throughout the poems in order to find some small perfection in the final organization.
5.) Read. Read. Read.
After nailing down the structure, I still found myself needing to read the work out loud. This is not unusual, but rather, an absolute necessity for all my written work. It becomes an incantation, those words read to revive love and belief in a project. This time, the best friend insisted I read the collection over the phone in its entirety. It was a much needed addition to my usual practice. Hearing feedback in real time and feeling the flow for the collection as a whole was crucial in helping me realize there was no work left to be done.
6.) Letting Go
Leading up to the finalization of this project, I researched and implemented all I’d learned on my submission spreadsheet. And yet, after so many years spent working to collect these poems, the biggest difficulty might be letting go. But alas, now is the time for taking chances. Now is the time for belief and perseverance, for deep breaths and pride is such an accomplishment. Now is the time for letting go.
