After fours days in the chaos of teenaged life, two posts from Michael Wells and Gerard Van der Leun on the question of just how poems get made in the midst of all the other things we have to do seem particularly pertinent. I've never experienced the "Arrival" that Gerard Van der Leun writes about (though others have told me similar things), but this passage describes my method pretty succinctly:
To make poems, I've found that it is possible to put yourself into a 'composing' state just by going to the work on a daily basis for three to six weeks. It's a dogged way of kickstarting the process and you'll waste a lot of ink, paper and time along the way.
Actually, I've found that I can almost always write a poem worth revising once I stop cat-vacuuming (visit rec.arts.sf.composition, but follow Usenet etiquette there) as long as a TV isn't on where I can hear it. Which brings me back to teenaged chaos.
And here is the most bizarre search ever to lead to this site. Web research is silly if you don't already have a good sense of what you're looking for.
9:19:05 PM
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