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Mind

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The act of writing a poem is very much one of mind. The act of experiencing a poem is a mixture of both which varies by individual reader and writer.

Writing a poem first requires inspiration, the sudden experiencing of the very basic need to write. What happens - at least with me (and I'm trying to hold this from becoming about how I do this or how I do that) - is that I suddenly get a hold of some approximation of an idea I want to write about. Sometimes I'll just be sitting here writing just to hear what words sound like together and then I'll strike what I think is an interesting phrase. But even in such an idle act the mind is thinking "does this sound good" "do these ideas connect" "what if I changed this to that." Then sometimes something fires up. And I'll admit that sometimes these initial inspirations have an element of mystery to them. I don't know exactly why or what "music" it is that makes certain words sound compelling when put together. I simply "know" what does, what doesn't, what probably will. I'm sure most great writers have some innate sense after long practice of what they can put together to create and make "real" that first heartfelt burst of inspiration.

So what about everything else the poem is after those first two lines and the closing line? And not just the final version but all the red pens and deletions, carat notations, ?s in the margins? What of that "recollection in tranquility" Wordsworth famously spoke of? "Re-collection". To collect again. Well if it had to be collected again, where was it scattered? A collection of...anything...is a loosely or tightly organized assortment of similar objects. It is the mind which collects, which recollects all those similar ideas, phrases that it sees out there scattered in the ether. It sees a shape, organizes it even if it does so along lines and patterns that it cannot define except from some innate knowing.

Even this "innate knowing" is experiential. The poet's ear comes from infinite hours of simple listening, thousands of hours of reading and not just reading but hearing the rhythms of the words. It helps to have super-literate and discerning pairs of xx and xy chromosomes as well. What it reads could be the most passionate poem of a breakup/love lost/love gained - the most sweeping Leo+Kate thing ever written. And yes the passion is there and it's definitely putting a stamp on the ole cerebrum, but the mind and the ear are also tuned in to something even further and deeper

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