Poems Have Two Subjects

[Todd]

I've noticed in my own writing that I will often free write 5-10 pages of a poem (different approaches, different angles, etc), and then I will find 4-5 lines that encapsulate what I'm trying to say--even though they were arrived at well after the triggering line. I find it helpful to remember that the topic that started you writing may not be the point of the poem, and you are not obligated to keep writing about it. Often I also find myself cutting the first couple of lines in a poem realizing that the real poem came later.

Oh, well hopefully his thoughts will be helpful to someone else (if that's been anyone else's experience).

Best,

Todd

i just fell off my chair...5 to 10 pages, and often, by free write, do you mean with pen and ink ? seriously...i admire you. i always use word or notepad, and write it as it comes. changing the first lines to fit the the rest and so on. for the large part i write as Hugo suggests. i think of a subject, start writing about it and five lines dow it all changes i then go back and alter the first 5 lines to suit or erase.
what's weird is this, the shorter the poem i'm writing, the more it changes from initial idea or thought. i may start out a haiku about a horse and it ends up about a fly. (laugh if you must but in 17 syls one word change alters the whole poem.) it's a god insite Todd, something i never really noticed before.

thinking about it, if i do a poem in word, i must do at the very least a couple of pages, it just seems that i write a lot less because i'm always removing things i've written.

Most of what I do is in word. If all I have is a pad of paper though I'll work on that. I type faster than I write so I prefer word. It also makes shifting things around easier. I start writing and go until I stop usually a page or two. Then I read what I wrote and look for lines or ideas that seem to want to come out (when I see myself repeating phrases or themes). I pull those lines to the bottom of the output and start from there and keep going (which can be another 5-10 pages on average) Those free writes sometimes have 2-3 poems in them sometimes none. I save the document under a work in progress type name and if I have opening lines move those to another document which usually turns into a poem. I've just learned like Hugo says that some of the lines that got me to the poem aren't the poem.