Poetics 1

The selection of my object was quite simple. On Saturday night, I was lying in my hammock thinking to myself, "I need to get started on my object poem". I was hesitant to write about such a large object because it was suggested to write about something no bigger than a face. However, what I attempted to do to counter that issue was to write a fairly small and simple poem about a larger object. Lying in my hammock is a simple pleasure, it brings a sense of calm. While I am in it, life is easy. My stress does not follow me there. Cradled and swaying in my hammock watching a thunderstorm that night compelled me to write my poem about it. I felt that lying in my hammock was, in and of itself, poetic.

Interestingly enough, I got out of the hammock to write the poem. It simply came to me as soon as I sat down with the paper in front of me. I have never written a poem by typing it; I always sketch out my intentions by hand, usually in ink which makes for a messy starting page. I have a tendency to avoid writing poetry because I think too much about it. I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger, before, I believe, college forced me to look so deeply into everything in front of me, including my own work. For the first time in years, I was able to write a poem that simply came to me. The revisions came after the basic skeleton was formed on the page, and it began to really take shape. I don't think it's a coincidence that I was in "hammock mode" -- calm, open, easy -- when I was finally able to write a poem in this organic way again.