Four poems and a statement of poetics are up at Terri Witek’s Poet of the Month site.

How do poems happen?  These are some of the thoughts from my statement:

My poems rarely end up as they began.  Once the idea is present, then my brain tries to push forward to the idea’s truth and form.  This is hard to describe; it’s like the real poem is about twenty feet in front of me and I’m straining to see it.  I love the feeling of being in revision, but it can be interrupted, even for years.  For example, I began writing a poem when I was in my thirties, imagining the freedom of being post-menopausal.  It was a very long poem.  Fifteen years later (and post-menopausal!), it became a sonnet titled “At Last.”

“At Last,” by the way, was published in this issue of Per Contra. I often perform it at readings because it has some sly puns that make the audience laugh.