Reflections on the Teche

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve somewhat abandoned the idea of playing with poetry.  I’ve had my internal excuses, but in reality, I just don’t do well with a prescribed plan.  To me, it doesn’t make me more creative; it gets in the way.  I am still writing at least one poem a day. I’m just not using the tools in the playful kits.

Yesterday, I was reading Poets and Writers The Time is Now and became inspired by a feature called Writers Recommend.  Molly Dektar’s advice this week was unique. This got me thinking about how every expert writer has his or her own advice to writers.  I read writerly advice nearly every day.  And feeling like I was abandoning my own project of “Playing with Poetry,” I wrote this poem.

One writer recommends
a thousand words a day,
another says to sit in words
for 2 hours at dawn.

Try writing while you’re falling asleep.
Let the pen run over the paper
making foreign marks
you will interpret later.

Maybe you should drink
two glasses of wine before writing.
Slur words together in a string
and drink them with a straw.

Molly likes to go to Sephora
and spray on all the different perfumes.
She writes with a tiny perfume bottle
while all her senses are aroused.

It really doesn’t matter.

Words will come.
Words will go.
Writers know this.
Writers count on it.

 

—Margaret Simon, 2019