“When I write poetry it’s usually pointless to start with an idea. I start with an image or a striking phrase and let it take me somewhere. For years I have thought of my poems as paintings: I want readers or hearers to be startled by colors, dazzled by the fall of light on some ordinary object or gesture. But they are not just visual; words are little buckets to scoop textures, fragrances, intriguing sounds, evocative flavors out of our teeming world. “A good rule for writing a poem: You have to earn the right to use an abstract word. Abstractions—love, truth, perspicuity—are vague by themselves. But if you have been immersed in some wet ocean of shifting blues, the word beautiful may surface like Venus, sudden, radiant and dripping.” — Ruth Goring Continue reading →