On Writing Poetry

A short explanation on how I often go about building a poem.

There must be as many ways to create a poem as there are poets. I use a few different methods that I have developed these past forty plus years. My poems are grammatical. They are made up of phrases and sentences and have the same punctuation. This may be of use to some young poets who are still developing their creative tools. Writing poetry is such a personal thing I wonder if this can be of any use at all. This is the spot on the Thames where there was some air. You can clearly see it out there, a bunch of it, floating over the water.

        Sometimes writing a poem is similar to following some tiny guiding thing.  It could feel like a faint light or something that's a bit warmer than its immediate area.  When I’m paying the proper kind of attention it’s like following a path of least resistance.  For me that means probing along several different lines of thought that stem from the place in the process where I am.  Right now I happen to be along the banks of the Thames River outside of London. 
       For instance, let’s say I have written down, as my opening thought, something like this : “The air above the river”, and that’s all I have to start.  This would be “the place in the process” I mentioned above and in this case, would usually mean I am right by a river, down pretty close to it and things are quiet enough to be thinking about the air above the river.  Something caused me to lock onto that phrase and that almost always means that there is something just behind it that wants to be found, wants to be talked about and heard.   There are times when the opening line leads me immediately onward but just as often it will cause me to wait until I can discover what should follow.   This is where I might probe “along several different lines of thought”,  mentioned above.
         I might ask what is it about the air that is important?  Is it moving strangely or does it look shimmery or smokey?  It might not be something literal.  Maybe the air above the river is about two very different elements being very close to each other.   Do they have some kind of relationship that I should think about, look into, explore.  When I have spent enough time patiently sitting in the listening zone, I might start to stick words into the next line based upon my senses to see if one of them knows where to go.  That would include touch, smell, sound etc.  Or I might begin tampering with time and imagine this scene long ago or at night or in a storm.  Maybe the river is covered with things like war ships or sailboats or rowboats with lovers or fishermen.  Pretty soon something sticks or it sticks a little bit better than others.  That gives me a clue as to what direction this is heading, because now I have a starting phrase and a second one.  Those two points create a line, a direction for me to follow. 
         To illustrate what that means I will choose a second phrase, “seems to move upstream”.  So now I know that this thing, at this point anyway, is about movement.   So I start to focus on movement and now comes, “or is it just sitting still/watching the water slip away?”  Now I’m off to try and catch this strange relationship between these two. 
        The air above the river
      seems to move upstream
             or is it sitting still,
    watching the water slip away?

                When we met
             we flowed as one.        (At this point could still be talking about water & air)
          We swayed together
        like reeds in the breeze.     (Now a departure point)
          But, too soon for me,
            the wind shifted.
 And, not soon enough for you,
  I watched the train pull away.
         You going your way
             and I here, still,
              at the station.          (here the reason for the opening lines)

         The above poem occurred just as I was writing this.  I used my technique of waiting, kind of passively, to see what should happen next.  When something did happen, I went in that direction, in this case movement as it affects relationships.  And like the water and air in the beginning, one is moving, one is not, and the word "still" is repeated, which means it's important.   I am not much for these kinds of poems (I prefer seeking joy and giving it a voice) but as a type of lesson/guide it might be useful because it’s simple. Here is its finished shape with some small changes.

                     The air above the river
                   seems to move upstream
                         or is it sitting still,
                watching the water slip away?
                           When we met
                        we flowed as one.
                     We vibrated together
                     like reeds thrumming 
                           in the current.
                 We swayed in the breeze.

                        But soon enough,
                         too soon for me,
                         the wind shifted.
                  Not soon enough for you,
                     the train pulled away.
                      You going your way
                          and I here, still,
                           at the station.                  😢