Poetry is play with words.
A poet raises language by paying close attention to
– rhythm –
– sound –
– evocation –
of all the words in the piece.
Poetry slows you down . . .
nothing ruins poesy like lazy thinking:
buzzwords, talking points, trite observations – bah!
How start?
You might start by free associating,
or by doing a body self scan,
or by studying some facet of nature or culture,
whatever.
Open inner ears –
Receive words from the worldmind.
Get them down.
Pluck them from fire and mark them on a leaf.
These words are your seed.
A seed contains a thought and just enough fuel
to get it going. It penetrates Earth
and grows and grows in its own patch of world.
Then you go over and over
this Efflorescence,
and the Landscape it inhabits,
hiking, word by word,
hill by rut & rill by root:
syllables, cadence, rhythm,
harmony of vowels,
consonantal dance,
echoes of poems,
of human moments.
Langue fraîche!