Hello again, readers! I’ve been thinking a lot about poetry. Though my poetry has been published in various journals over the past six years, I still find it difficult to understand what poetry is and how to place myself in the mindset to write it well.

Howard Nemerov in the Encyclopedia Britannica describes poetry as “literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.”

Chosen and arranged. Normally, when I sit down to write a poem, I think about a cool-sounding sentence. I start with that and keep going, formulating the story around that first spark of inspiration. I never start with an outline or even a specific topic. 

But I sometimes wonder if it’s this idea that poems must be chosen and arranged that gets me so nervous. What if my choice lacks depth? What if the arrangement ends up reading like a stale bouquet of carnations on granny’s coffee table?

I got to thinking: how could I create a poem that didn’t require so much attendance? How could I free-verse it in a way that was both freeing and interesting to read?

The answer? MAD-LIBS.

I decided to create a mad-lib style poem structure with missing words in specific places, and then come back and fill in those spots while under the influence of wine, musical inspiration, or just plain lack of sleep. Then, truly, I could say I created a poem that wasn’t conventionally chosen and arranged. But did my strange experiment prove fruitful? Was it something sustainable for normal poets?

First, let’s take a look at the said mad-lib structure:

She always _____(verb-ed)
Like _____(adj.) _____(pl. noun)
The spine of her hand ______(verb-ing)
Too far, the industrial flavor of her bread
_____(verb-ing) into the back of people’s mouths.

I never complained. Never ____(verb-ed),
Since the day I was born, I promised never
To speak. ______(adj.) edges are better,
More _____(adj.), than no edges at all,
And hers ______(verb-ed) against things
Scratched and marked things,
Like bears to a tree. She was ____(adj.).

At least I, her last existing dream,
Could now wear her shoes. They felt like
___(adj.) _____(pl. noun). They _____(verb-ed) when
I walked, motor-fluid leaking from the soles.
If I could go back and shake her into bloom,
I wouldn’t. A woman with dreams, however
Plain and proper, won’t bow to a
____(adj.) movie girl singing at dusk
to every love-torn man on Earth.  

So this is a rather vague poem about a rough woman with presence like a gas-guzzling diesel pick-up. She’s stitched together, a bit of an old rag, but that still makes her more meaningful than some film-star hoopskirt Lucy-Loo because she had true aspirations. 

I went back after a few days and asked my partner to prompt me for parts of speech.

“Give me a verb ending in ed,” he’d said.

“Supped?” I replied, writing it down. “No, no. Wait. Supped sounds too biblical. Let’s do ‘clashed’.”

And thus, the following poem was born:

She always clashed
Like callous buds
The spine of her hand knitting
Too far, the industrial flavor of her bread
mooring into the back of people’s mouths.

I never complained. Never sawed,
Since the day I was born, I promised never
To speak. Damp edges are better,
More rueful, than no edges at all,
And hers stained against things
Scratched and marked things,
Like bears to a tree. She was pale.

At least I, her last existing dream,
Could now wear her shoes. They felt like
wise wilderness. They hooked when
I walked, motor-fluid leaking from the soles.
If I could go back and shake her into bloom,
I wouldn’t. A woman with dreams, however
Plain and proper, won’t bow to a
majestic movie girl singing at dusk
to every love-torn man on Earth.  

It didn’t turn out perfectly. I’m not sure what kind of story it’s telling now. But I can say that somehow, some of the words work. “The spine of her hand knitting / too far” is relatively usable, as well as “Damp edges are better”.

But “Never sawed”? “They felt like wise wilderness”? Not so much.

Still, I feel like I’ve cracked open a shell here. The egg’s not hatched, my poetic imagination is still underdeveloped, but it’s there, poking around.

I’m curious as to how others start writing a poem. Do you have a character? A theme? Or do you let your mind drift while you free write, and then de-clutter it afterwards?