5 July 2004. Today, my entry consists of answers I gave to a questionnaire on poets' work habits that Betsy Franco asked me to fill out. I don't feel I did it justice, but I may have said one or two helpful things, who knows? Here's the questionnaire, with my answers:

1. How do you get the idea for a poem?

I would split this question in two and ask (1) How do I get an idea for a poem without trying, and (2) How do I get an idea for a poem by trying. The first step in both cases is to be patient and confident--that is, not worry about how long the process may be taking (I've gone over a year without having a good idea for a poem). A second step is to be accepting--go with any idea, no matter how dopey, because maybe my first thoughts about it are wrong, or maybe my idea is dopey but I'll see a way to make it undopey.

Quite a few of my ideas just come to me--that is, I get them without trying. One way I help this happen, I believe, is simply to read a lot of poetry. That way, I fill up with ideas of what poetry is, and be able to recognize poetic subjects or phrasing or ideas that I come across while driving or marketing or whatever. The following haiku of mine (from my 41 of the seventies) is a good example (although maybe not the world's greatest poem):

                         in the evening rain
                         under a black umbrella
                         plucking camellias
   
                                 from Dragonfly, October 1979

I also get ideas from the poems I read. Many of my best poems are reactions to others' poems. For instance, my Friend Karl Kempton wrote a series of poems consisting of broken-up words such as "g u i dance" (which, for me, expresses the pleasure of a guide and the one guided when everything goes right--with a "Gee!" in front of the result). That lead to my "wind owl edge" poem.

2. How do you get started writing?

With poetry I mostly wait till the mood strikes me, then sit down and write. But if I feel I have gone too long without composing a poem, I force myself to sit down and play with words and thoughts--and, because I'm a visual poet--shapes and colors I use a computer program to make that I throw words at. I try to make odd combinations of words, or of words and weird shapes, then try to find a connection that might lead to a poem.. Exercises can help--like finding a failed poem and trying to rework it, or even a good poem to use as the basis for a variation. Or someone else's poem to make a variation on. The main thing is to keep at it until something clicks.

3. What is your first draft like? Do you wait until you have a fairly well formed poem to write it down or do you start very roughly, or somewhere in between?

It varies. Sometimes I'll be taking a walk or riding my bicycle and have an idea for a poem, and work it almost completely out in my head before I get home. Mostly I'll have just a phrase or the equivalent, or a situation I'm sure I can write a poem about. In the latter case, I may write prose about it. I'll write as much as I can, but try to use slightly wrong words in hopes, again, that something poetic will occur. Then I'll change the prose to verse.

4. Do you write many drafts? What sorts of things do you think about when you're revising? How do you revise?

I write lots of drafts, usually. When revising, I look for fairly obvious things that can be fixed, like superfluous words. I try to make sure that my poem peaks in the right place, usually at the end. I look for words I use too much and try to change them; I also keep an eye out for cliches and try to change them. Just today I revised a haiku I wrote years ago from "just left of the falls--/ a dragonfly's disturbance/ of a small dark pool" to "just left of the falls/ a dragonfly briefly disturbs/ a little dark water." Did I improve it? I'm not sure, but I prefer a poem that says something oddly to one that says it standardly, and "a little dark water" is odder phrasing that "a small dark pool."

5. What kinds of "voices" speak to you while you're writing, positive and negative? What do you do with the "little judge" who might be making comments about what you're writing?

I'm not sure about voices, but I do have different interior people who take charge of me. Every once in a while, one of them wiii congratulate me on doing something really great. I try not to let him make me over-confident. More commonly, one of them--maybe the same guy, in fact--will snort at how bad something I've written is. Sometimes, I'll listen to him, sometimes just keep going, anyway. I feel you can always take out bad stuff, but if you stop because you're not doing well, you may not get to something good you might otherwise have produced.

6. How do you get beyond any fears, barriers, frustrations you might have?

I'm neurotic about starting any kind of writing, even a simple letter to a friend, I'm not sure why. I think partly I fear that somehow I'll flub it, although I never really do. Sometimes my way around this is to decide to write something of no consequence, something I'll throw out when I'm done like a string of nonsence words, or a crazy leder wiv mispellllgz about some brillo owl with nothing in the grammar of the moon that rides plankton. What happens sometimes is that I have fun, forget my worries, keep going-- and the nonsense eventually turns serious. Once under way, I usually have no trouble.

7. Where do you write?

I think up poems mainly while walking, jogging or bicycling--or lying in bed before going to sleep at night; I write down notes for them everywhere but actually work on them mainly in my study. If not there, usually at a desk somewhere.