Sticking My Neck Out

Why do you write?

I can't speak for everyone on this. Often I can't even speak for myself. But it might be fun to take a stab at it.

I've heard some good reasons from some good poets: poetry is a miracle among the mundane, a means to make sense of the illogical, finding significance  in your life despite your complete and utter insignificance when measured against the universe.

I'm also quite partial to, "Because I can," or, "Because I have to." I wish both of those were more true, that it was a natural reaction to living as organic as your autonomic system controlling blinking and breathing. It seems to take much more effort for me and if you've ever tried to focus your attention on blinking and breathing for an extended period you know how exhausting that gets.

Then there's always the brass ring, the bright shiny prize that literature geeks secretly hold in their heart - immortality. Write something that will last forever. I think at this point everybody realizes you can't be Shakespeare or Chaucer, cornerstones of the English language. Most writers of verse would settle for being a minor name in an anthology, Edwin Arlington Robinson or Charles Williams, dwarfed by colleagues both more renowned and more talented.

I won't deny the appeal of that, cheating death with words on a page. I can't say that I would turn that down if offered to me. But those are really side concerns and not the real answer to the question.

I think I write because it's the only way I can actually think. Only rarely do I enter a conversation with an opinion at the ready and wade into the thick of it to put forth my view. Instead I usually form my opinion as I'm talking, making connections and creating hypotheses on the fly. It's why really good conversation is so invigorating and stimulating for me - I didn't know what I thought until we started talking.

And poetry takes it a step further - by sitting down, looking at the blank page or screen and getting into that conversation, I'm finding out what and how I think. The real kicker is that at the highest level, how I think is poetically - rhyme, meter, imagery aren't fancy dresses to put on or disguises to cover the real truth. Poetic tools are the fabric of what makes up solid, satisfying thought.


I don't know why, but those things seem to be the indicator of real truth - the tone, the repetition, the phrase that gets in your head and you have to wrestle with.

So with that I'll stop and just let a poem speak it for itself.


NOTE: My poem "No Other Way" used to be here. Now it's not. What gives? 

I'm preparing to submit poems for publication and almost every literary journal demands "right of first publication." Unfortunately — and laughably — this small corner of the Interwebs counts as prior publication, so they gots ta come down. Sadface.