It was a year ago that I started writing poetry everyday at twitter. The obsessive-compulsive nature of writing something every couple of hours appealed to me greatly and as I’d been writing poetry for four months (ever since I got married for some reason) I figured this was the best platform for my project. For a couple of weeks I’d considered how to go about doing my new online experiment. I bandied about the thought of writing a poem every four hours, but waking up in the middle of the night to compose under darkness and yawns seemed excessive even for me, so I finally settled on three poems written through the day. So it began.
One of the best things about writing self-contained poems has been composing them from any whim, mood or state that I happen to be in. Yes, I’ve written while drunk, tired, inspired, wired, etc. If I feel like goofing around with words I can mish-mash something silly and lighthearted together, but in a more serious mood I can delve into something darker or more philosophical. Over time, I’ve been able to see patterns of what I’m writing and then arrange the individual poems into longer pieces, one of which has appeared online at ditchpoetry. I’ve also had some small measure of success with the individual poems, seeing them accepted in other publications both online and off.
Since November of this year, I’ve been focusing on the process of revision. One poem goes up in the morning and then is worked on through the day. A second version of it will appear later on and then finally at the end of the day the third draft goes up. Robert Lowell once said that “revision is inspiration” and in taking a poetry class at UBC with a group of amazing poets, I’ve been able to see the hard and beautiful truth of this axiom.
I’ve always felt that I’m a writer when I’m writing or I’m a poet whilst composing poetry. By devoting this past year to the daily practice of carefully putting words together, I’m hoping to get beyond that limited definition and break through to an ever-present poetics. One of the most important steps towards that goal has been taken by writing everyday for a community of wonderful people at twitter and also working in the offline world with the poets in the MFA program at UBC. It’s only under the assumption of your gaze and goodness that I’ve written out all these words.
Ye for a thinge it is to twittre in the wintre