[Robert J. Clawson]

A previous thread on this topic got sidetracked by considerable discussion over my "A Negotiation." I ended my opening post on that thread with, "I'd love to hear how the subjects of your poems develop." I still would.

Bob

[inkwellpoetess]

Hi Bob,

I wrote a poem not too long ago, that started out as a love poem. I posted it for critique and many of the readers had a strong reaction to the "sinister" undercurrent to it. I thought since it provoked such reaction that I would bring that undercurrent to the surface and it became a chilling portrayel of an S&M type relationship where the victim seemed to not mind the abuse and this is what stuck out in people's minds I believe. I was attempting to use the whole narrative as a metaphor to say that parents should be careful about how they teach their daughters to be "good girls" which, if you think about when parents are saying that to their girls they are telling them to acquiese, to not fight back, to be quiet, etc etc. I had one male reader tell me that this poem was going to make him think twice about telling his two daughters to be "good girls"
and this was the best compliment I could have gotten.
I find it pretty amazing how poems can start out one way and then completely go in the opposite direction as you write it and revise it, a thoroughly fascinating process!

------------------
Regards,
Terri

[Susan McLean]

Most times I am writing about my own experience or a poem based on myth or fairy tale, so I start out with some idea of what I want to say about it. I may come up with related ideas as I go along. But sometimes a line comes to me very strongly all by itself and I may wind up heading in a different direction than I originally thought it would lead. I was quite upset once to hear that a neighbor was divorcing his sweet and rather helpless wife for a younger woman. As I thought about it, I came up with the line, "The prince is a frog. He doesn't want to change." But as I thought about it more, I realized that no one wants to change. And as I developed the idea of the frog prince, I wound up writing more and more about the man I live with and not about the neighbor at all, ending up with the line "The frog is a prince."

Susan

[MEHope]

Hi Bob,

They come out of nowhere and everywhere don't they? The poem I posted at FV2 Who owns blue started as a study in various simple colors. Then through the images I found a vehicle for a poem about my daughter growing away from me. I switched the gears ever so slightly through that trigger and came up with the mood (I was blue) if not the true incident(s) of that "realization". And I got to play with color too.

~~Mary

[Renate]

Sometimes they come from a phrase or sentence that just appears, from where I have no idea, I wonder if I'm plagerising.

Some seem to have a life of their own, I think I'm writing about one thing and discover it has developed into something else. I enjoy the surprise.
Some come from experience or an amalgam of experiences.

Like you said Mary "out of nowhere and everywhere", btw you suggested reading Dorianne Laux not long ago, when I looked up her work I realised I had read her, not the poem you named though, thanks for reacquainting me with her work, I like it very much.

Renate

[Robert J. Clawson]

The short story writer, and sometimes poet, Grace Paley, once said to me, "In writing, we discover that we know what we didn't think we knew." Whatever the hell that means.

Bob

[graywyvern]

it feels good to have hit your mark, but very often
the crazy misses turn out more interesting.