Parallel poem processing

Since I caught the slam poetry bug, about two years ago now, I can safely say I always have at least one poem kicking around under construction in my head, if not two or three (or four or five).  I leave them to fight it out to see which theme will really take root. I feed them occasionally, adding to them little by little. Many will wither away and be forgotten. Usually one takes precedence; it will push to the top as the ideas start to accelerate, more couplets and images sprout as they occur to me. If there are gaps remaining, holes in concepts or lines awaiting rhymes, I’ve learned not to fret.  They will come to me when the time is right, if I let them.

As the poem gains momentum I really start focusing in, chiseling away at it during down-time – on public transport for example, or when I finally switch off the light at night and should really be trying to let my brain sleep. If it really takes off I may end up trying to sneak off into quiet corners to write it down, switching on the laptop when I should be cooking dinner, or hurrying into the office to quickly type up the creative products of the morning commute before getting on with the day job. In this way, poetry can be my pleasant mental retreat, my buffer against the mundanity of routine: but just occasionally it takes over and won’t leave me along until it’s spilled out onto the paper or into the screen.

So when is the poem finished? When there are no more gaps? When I feel that the meaning is sorted and the message is clear? When it is typed up and saved? I’ll admit I feel a kind of lightness, a satisfaction, a sense of achievement. This feeling can last… ooh, two or three days maybe. Then, little by little, my brain starts getting the mental equivalent of itchy feet: it would quite like to be working on something else please, to be chiseling away at a few more ideas.