Single Player Improv - Day 7

I have been writing poetry since I was in my teens. It is something I enjoy doing and worry the least about. It is not about winning a contest, or following someone's idea of what poetry should be. My poetry is for me.

That isn't to say that I don't thoroughly enjoy sharing my poetry and getting feedback. I love it when someone enjoys a poem I've written. That is why the strange ones present a puzzle. People don't get it and I have to find an explanation. Where do they come from? What are they about? 

I think I've finally found a metaphor that makes sense. A lot of my poetry is me playing improv with my subconscious.  I'll start with a line that comes from the top of my head, often with no idea of what the topic is or where I'm going with it. Then I come up with the next line, something that fits somehow with the first.

I go back and forth, pasting lines and an idea emerges. Sometimes I think a word fits, but it doesn't make much sense. I'll wrestle with it, sometimes it stays, sometimes it goes. Back and forth until it feels done. A title that gives a clue as to the meaning that has developed.

That is why I love getting your opinion about a poem's meaning.  I get new insights to their meanings all the time. I have poems that I still wonder what they are about. That is part of the fun and mystery for me.

In one of my favorite kinds of I've ever written, the words not actually mean anything. It is more like scat singing. They just sound good together. They sound like they almost say something, but not quite. Love those poems. 

My poems have a lot of ambiguity built in. There is room there for you to imagine. They are about a feeling, a sense you get in a time and place. I hope you enjoy them.