process: interviewing poems

I love reading writer's blogs. I do. I love reading blogs that have some substance. This includes Palestinian blogs, though I haven't read them in a while, but I will return to them as I am about to return to my project of telling that story through poems. But back to my original thought: I've decided to utilize this blog more about process, to start a dialogue about process and what's going on in this mind of mine, and hopefully yours.

There's this thing that I've begun to do with poems as I am starting them. First, I have to have an idea. Once I have the idea down, but not much else, I sit down with the poem and interview it. I write out the five W's and an H. Who, what, where, when, why, and how (sometimes not applicable)...and because the majority of my poetry is narrative, this framework works, because it establishes the story I wish to tell. It helps me get a better view on placement, on characters, on why this event is happening, what sparked this event, etc. It sets up the world for me, this world I will be attempting to describe a little more poetically later. Generally, this is my second-stop approach. If I can't decide how the poem is going to start, then I ask it questions, demand it offer some information if it's not going to give me a first line, and generally from there -- most times a half a journal page or a whole journal page of notes -- I can find an opening to the poem I was wanting to write.

Now, this process only comes when I am wanting to write a poem but can't find a way in. This, I find, is happening more and more as I am working on this novel, but I started this before I started writing my novel. Really, I got it from the summer I worked at a newspaper. I spent my days asking people questions in order to get quotes and ideas with which to find an angle into a story that should be written from the answers provided. How writers find a way out of no way, yes? Who would have thought I could use that summer, now. I thought that was 8 weeks wasted, save for the clips that I have saved, but have not found a job with which to use it yet. Who knows.

Anyways, I always suggest this too, with my writer friends who find themselves stuck. I ask them if they've interviewed their character, or their poem. Have you?