poem for you
Poem For You
Written between Halloween 2020 & Easter 2021, Poem For You began in a small lined legal pad as a way to process my experience of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic by writing short, spontaneous poems dedicated to various people / moments / objects / locations / feelings / situations etc. The project has since grown beyond the initial notebook & like much of my work is entering the world in many different ways. One day I hope to put a physical document of it into the world in the form of a bound book, but for now, I offer this page.
THE CONTEXT
In March of 2020 my first book, In Still Rooms, was published by The Operating System & the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. At that time, celebrating my work felt pointless & writing felt empty, self-indulgent, aimless. I needed a reason to keep writing, or maybe more specifically, I needed to understand why I wanted to write in the first place. It wasn't until Halloween of 2020 when I scurried up to Vermont in a rental car with some friends to go visit a mutual friend of ours. I hadn't written a stitch all year but nevertheless packed with me a small lined notepad I had gotten from my pharmacy. On Halloween, while my friends were inside continuing our marathon of b-horror films, I slipped out onto the screened-in balcony with a cigarette & my notepad. It was cold. I could see the mountains in the distance even in the fading light. There was a can of Raid & a slew of dead wasps on the windowsill. The smell of Yellow American Spirits stuck to my fingers. I noticed all of this--really let myself just sit there & take it in. Inexplicably, I opened that notebook & wrote the following:
Poem for Halloween
I really wanted to go
as hope this year
oh well
I wrote a few more little observances like this using the same format--Poem for a Can of Raid, Poem for a Wisp of Smoke--before finally writing the phrase Poem for You on the cover of that notebook. Between Halloween of 2020 & Easter of 2021, I filled that notebook with similarly constructed poems & realized I had built for myself something more important than a collection; I had built a practice--one that helped me to process my most immediate reactions to the world I was part of. My favorite poem from this period is the one I think actually sums up the practice best:
Poem for Looking at Things
oh no
now it's special
THE PROMPT
The prompt is simple:
Set a timer. The shorter the better. Try 5 minutes.
Be there. With whatever physical or emotional sensations you've got. Notice.
Start off every poem with the construction "Poem For ____"
Write. By hand, very quickly, without thinking too hard. Try not to edit.
Keep each poem between 5-10 lines.
Try to write 5-10 poems in 5 minutes.
Do this as often as possible.
What I came to realize was that this practice helped to reground me, even let me get a little silly. It decentralized my own "I" as the poem's fountainhead, allowing me to think of no other audience but myself & whatever the thing I was writing the poem for. It made the question of publication irrelevant & therefore removed any pressure to write something """good""". I've been less regular about this practice, but it is still something I do to this day whenever I find myself staring off into the middle distance on the long commute home, or scrolling my phone for too long in an uncomfortable position etc. I hope this will be useful to you.
