Heart

You write the bad poem to get the good poem. I'm not sure that's common knowledge. In the past, if a poem was horrible, I'd just give up on it. And I understand why—who wants to write a bad poem? Doesn't that make you a bad poet? If you put a shit poem to the page, aren't you just welcoming more shit poems?

But that's not the way it works. Poems can simply be a conduit, a bridge, a way for you to find your way through the woods to find the light. Not every poem is good. A lot of them, you want to light on fire.

But isn't that the human experience? Ups and downs, ends of beginnings and beginnings of ends? Poems, no matter how much internal worth you assign to them, always have value. The point of the poem is to write it, and in writing it, to discover it. To discover what your heart has to say—about who you are or what you're struggling with—about the world, your pain, or even something funny.

I love funny poems. I just can't write them yet. Simic was funny.

I often wonder how many bad poems Simic wrote. Bob Hicok, another favorite poet of mine, writes every day. A habit I know he's kept up for over 20 years. I first heard about it from my college poetry professor, who had known him when they both lived in Michigan. And I read the story again, on OnlyPoems last year. The man has stacks on stacks of poems—and I would argue, the world has read very little of his work.

It's hard to imagine Bob writing a bad poem. I bet he has though. Right? Right?!

Today's Poem

The first draft I wrote this morning was unexpected. I didn't have anything to say when I sat down at the coffee shop. I read some Richard Jackson poems, and reading poems usually helps, but still—nothing.

I thought I'd finish and interview between Hanif Abdurraqib and Diane Seuss, but that didn't happen either. I opened the laptop instead. Let's just see what happens. I had an urge of some kind. Nothing to say, but a desire to see a blank screen.

I don't play with "You" in poems very much at all, but all of the sudden, a first line—out of the ether: You talk of the heart broken—like you know what the heart is.

Where the fuck did that question come from? Who is the "You"? Where is the poem going? All good questions, full of curiosity.

Dear Reader—I followed.