04-17-2025, 10:01 PM
Everything we say is a stream of consciousness.
You can keep all your poems like this. Keep this as it is and other ones in one folder, and have another folder where you take this and mold it into a poem or poems in a 'traditional' sense.
Say your mind is an Ocean, and these poems flow into a Pool, and you label all these poems Pool, and you use the Pool as the material for separate poems.
I don't know if you want to write concretely personal poetry or poems that don't let on to any clear personal subject matter. Maybe you don't either.
Either way you could focus on one episode or image, as though it were a center, and have a spiralling in and out, riffing outwards based on the episode or image while simultaneously centering in. That way, you have all the momentum and free association, but as a pulsing, honing kaleidoscope rather than an eight mile slip and slide.
You could even format in your mind or in a book the poems as they come out, and have subpoems taken from them that are more "crafted and polished".
These suggestions are all tricks to convince you. You can do whatever you like, of course. These are some suggestions on how to frame and tune your poetry-producing mechanism.
You can keep all your poems like this. Keep this as it is and other ones in one folder, and have another folder where you take this and mold it into a poem or poems in a 'traditional' sense.
Say your mind is an Ocean, and these poems flow into a Pool, and you label all these poems Pool, and you use the Pool as the material for separate poems.
I don't know if you want to write concretely personal poetry or poems that don't let on to any clear personal subject matter. Maybe you don't either.
Either way you could focus on one episode or image, as though it were a center, and have a spiralling in and out, riffing outwards based on the episode or image while simultaneously centering in. That way, you have all the momentum and free association, but as a pulsing, honing kaleidoscope rather than an eight mile slip and slide.
You could even format in your mind or in a book the poems as they come out, and have subpoems taken from them that are more "crafted and polished".
These suggestions are all tricks to convince you. You can do whatever you like, of course. These are some suggestions on how to frame and tune your poetry-producing mechanism.