Where Poems Begin
On attention, image gathering, and the small habits that start a poem
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” — Mary Oliver
#Practice Notes
From time to time in my Frame & Phrase posts, I’d like to shift our attention from craft to practice, from how poems are built to the small habits that help them begin. These brief Practice Notes will explore simple ways of entering the poem: noticing more closely, gathering images, and returning to the page with curiosity. Today’s post does that, and I am hopeful that sharing it with you will act as an aid in making your writing practice flow from inspired sources.
One of the quiet truths of writing poems is that we rarely begin from nothing. More often, poems grow from attention, from the small details we notice and carry with us throughout the day. Impressions, I like to call them.
A line of light across a table.
The color of a flower at the edge of a path.
A fragment of language overheard and remembered.
Over time these moments accumulate. What once seemed ordinary becomes the beginning of a poem. And, truth is, you don’t always understand where the impression will lead, you just know there was resonance and you want to capture it if only briefly.
Inside this Frame & Phrase post:
The Practice of Creating an Image Bank
A Small Daily Practice
Harvesting from Notebooks
Bookshelf of Recommended Books
#Frame & Phrase Prompt
