Category archives: Poetics

Intro patter that is backstory not visible in the poem is one thing. Where you give away ending of the poem in the introduction thus undermining the effect is another. Here’s a third way prefaces to poems can harm the effectiveness of the reading: Some months ago a poet explained an lexicon of terms, not […]

I made an infographic map of haiku and related forms. Some influenced haiku or were influenced by, some derived from, some share a common ancestor of ancient Chinese court poetry. It’s a projection map where haiku is large and central because it is a map of haiku. If tanka were the centre or concrete poetry […]

If you never risk speaking in public, to a public, then you may feel safe in your practice, but you may also feel alone and anonymous and mute. You might also not have a critical voice. It’s like not voting. And if you don’t vote you’re a hypocrite to complain about the outcome. If you […]

I have been scrupulous since elementary school to note what draft number a poem is, giving hooks for cross-referencing with date started, how many drafts it takes to end. Most of the early poems are on paper aka largely lost/mislaid/likely to be foisted at me from one of mom’s sheds, but ones I have from […]

What is the unit of composition? The line? The phrase? The sentence? The argument? The image? Life-wide? Sound? Form? Metaphor? Rhythmical unit? When I look at how I think poetically, or generally, there’s a lot of constraint, but also a pattern of deconstructing and reconstructing strategies. I like to take words apart, dissect ideas. What […]