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.
