My Poems Capture the Now of Fleeting Moments
The Mexican Artists, Diego Rivera, said “I paint what I see.” In my poetry writing process, I write what I feel in the moment I am living, surrounded by history and my immediate environment. As a poet, I am the historian of my perceptions as they pass. My poems capture the now of fleeting moments, transforming motion into a permanent still life, born of inspiration.
I become a poet when I write them down. My poems are not unlike the thoughts that everyone experiences. It is the writing them down and reworking them over weeks, months and even years, that makes an insight, a thought, or a feeling into a finished poem ready to be shared.
For me, the sharing is part of the poetry writing process whether in a publication, public reading with an audience, in a small circle of sister poets or in a writing group. Reading my poem aloud to others allows me to hear and improve it, sometimes on the spot. At poetry readings I often read with others. The cumulative effect of our words inspires me to write poems.
My Poetry Writing Process
Before falling asleep, I review the events of the day. By morning the images, phrases, and insights dissolve with the rising sun of daily life. But at rare times, somethings stick and will not fade until they get written down. That is when I go to work as a poet, when I commit to writing and developing them, molding, shaping, and giving them life so they can fly away into the shared ambiance called art.
Sometimes I am asked to write a poem on a specific theme to raise awareness or funds for a social/ecological/justice cause. I examine my heart to hear what is there. It hums around in my mind as I go about daily life until a note sparks with something I am feeling, doing, reading or experiencing. With a deadline looming, I begin to write it down, and the poetic development process kicks in.
When I first began writing poems I was part of a male-dominated bilingual poetry group, with Roberto Vargas, Alejandro Murguia and Elias Hruska Cortez and others reading in the streets, bars, cafes and meeting halls to organize the barrio. We mixed English and Spanish, and like street fighters there were no holds barred when it came to wrestling with language. Our only guidelines were to keep our poems accessible to our audiences.
Then the late Daniel del Solar introduced me to the Frelimo Mozambique independence movement slogan which went something like, use simple words , that even the children will understand that will enter into the homes and the hearts of the people. I wish I could quote it exactly as we used to say it to all the time, but I could not find it on Google.
That is why all of my poems to this day register very high on the ease of readability scale. More recently my late friend Mary Rudge held me accountable for each word so that none would contradict or weaken the notion I was putting forward.
Through this all my goal has been to inspire others to hear their own thoughts and when these thoughts stick, to give expression to their inner truth and write poems. Poetry is inside everyone who gives it permission to fly and sing. Writing and speaking poetry is my way to get the word out, the glad tidings that we are one!
Send to Kindle
Reader Interactions