I wrote this in response to a poem called “There’s No Stage Here” by Julie Barton for my Fierce Writing practice.

When I sit down to write, I just need to remember, I am just here to pay attention. There is no one to impress, no one to please, no need to perform or appease, just to put words on the page, see and listen to how they work together, and whether what I’m writing is true, that is, true to what I am trying to capture, not necessarily factually accurate. That’s why it’s called creative license, freedom to embellish or state something completely false factually, unless you’re writing a memoir. Then it gets a little more tricky. Also, the point is to enjoy myself, to play with ideas. As I’ve told students many times, the first draft is not the final draft. There doesn’t even need to be a final draft–unless you have a deadline. Even then, you can make changes afterwards, as I’ve often thought of after a poem is published. We and our words are continually evolving from a biological standpoint and a psychic one. We are not the same today as we were yesterday. New cells are forming and rearranging. Every experience we have shapes us, so why should our writing ever be in its final form? Trusting intuition is extremely important. I need to listen to mine more, especially when writing poetry. Yes, I can read books about how to break lines, what to look for when revising, and experiment with different forms, but ultimately I need to listen to where my mind is telling me my poem should go based on what I already know about how to write a poem. That’s why I do it anyway. I live recalling an experience and trying to recreate it on the page in a way that resonates sonically and that I think will make the reader recall his/her own similar experience. Those are my goals–not to publish so many books by a certain year, win a prize, or get published in a prestigious journal. I wouldn’t know how to write a poem to meet those goals. I suppose some people study to see what wins and what gets published, then write poems like that, but that would be drudgery and pointless to me. Poetry doesn’t even pay unless you get to legendary stature. Even then you could make much more money doing something else, if that’s what you want, so you might as well have fun. That should be my mantra, especially when I envy those whom I consider more successful than I am when it comes to poetry. More and more now, I am happy for them as I know what it takes to devote yourself to poetry, and I have been somewhat of a dilettante.