The Progress of my Poetry

I don't usually sit down to write a poem; I develop it over time. I can write a rough draft during a class and return to it every few hours, days, or weeks. I've even returned to poems written in high school and revised them because my knowledge of poetry and style of writing changes constantly.

When I get an idea for a poem, I plan it in four stages: brainstorming, outlining, writing the rough draft, and revising it into a “final” draft. No poem is ever "final" though, and I agree with my Nonfiction Workshop professor Ethel Morgan Smith when she says, "writing is rewriting." I revise essays, poems, and stories months or even years after I supposedly finish them.

Brainstorming is scribbling words, phrases, or ideas. I'll use one poem as an example. The brainstorming started out with the following scribbles:

"Firestarter, Rainbird?, watching when life dies from eyes, follow back to start, Frankenstein, kill to save."

It reads like garbled shorthand but I understand the gist of it. Next, I elaborate this brainstorming with a paragraph:

"Murderer, narrator, strangle, watch eyes, (describe irises, pupils, gleam, motion), want to see where life goes (like water/drain, follow, black hole?), follow to root/source (discovery), like finding heart of death and run it in reverse, kill to save; consciousness fades with oxygen but death occurs below the surface out of sight."

With brainstorming over, I begin forming my outline in either a journal or the Notepad program on my laptop. I use the typical essay format to develop an outline that looks like this:

"I. Description
A. Strangled (eyes - emphasis)
1. Fingers (iron wires, press hard until arms shake)
2. Neck (flushes red/hot, then purple)
3. Face (Swells, lips purple, nose bleeds, eyes bulge)
4. Blue irises bright like crystals, quiver, darken to indigo hemorrhaging)
5. Pupils dilate like pools, want to plunge deep into their darkness, to the bottom out of sight.

II. Theory
A. Life (flares up in front)
1. When life drains, I want to follow it
i. through channels (crimson) that echo a pulse (feel in self, echoes own life force, parallel/repetition)
ii. to source/root and discover the "fountaining" heart of death, which lies in life.
2. I want to take that flow and run it in reverse.
i. Kill to save.

III. Death (contrast hot/active/life with cold/still/death)
A. Man (dies)
1. But consciousness fades with oxygen while death seizes beneath the surface.
2. Bloodstream frozen on whiskers, eyes fixed and glazed.
3. Don't get to see last drop of life drip down the drain inside
i. My stomach sinks. I missed it."

After I finish this general outline, I have an idea of how to start my poem. I write my rough draft by following this outline without any revision, just writing while I am on a roll:

"My fingers like iron wires
press against the man's neck
hard enough to shake my arms.

I focus on his eyes, even though
his neck flushes red and fever-fleshed,
then turns a bruised, throbbing purple.
Tighter, and his round face swells further.
A red ribbon of blood runs from his nose
and eyes like eggs bulge from their sockets.

Crystal blue irises quiver and darken to indigo
and his pupils open into pools with no end in sight.
I want to plunge into them when his life drains,
follow it through crimson channels
that echo the pulse in my veins,
follow the life flow to its source.
The heart of Death lies in life.
I want to take that flow and run it in reverse.

But consciousness fades with oxygen
while death seizes beneath the surface.
The ruby stream freezes on his whiskered lips
and his twitching eyes grow fixed and glazed.
I don't get to see the last drop down the drain.
My stomach sinks with the cold corpse in my hands.

I missed it."

Not the best rough draft but I consider that the hardest part: Finding the motivation and time to put an idea into words. The only thing left to do is revise and name this poem.

I choose titles based on their meaning and sound. This one should have to do with the source of life/death for the purpose of reversing it. Maybe intentions that are opposite of an action like killing to save lives in the end – an idea that came from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Stephen King's Firestarter. The scientist in Frankenstein searches for the source of life in order to achieve immortality, and Firestarter features a character named Rainbird who looks into people's eyes when he murders them.

At first I consider a few titles for my poem, such as "Kill to Save," "From Frankenstein to Rainbird," and "Finding the Fountain." The title "Kill to Save" sounds cliché and "From Frankenstein to Rainbird" too cluttered, even though the latter references my two inspirations. Over the weekend, I revise my poem several times and get this "final" version:

"My fingers wrap like iron wires
around the man's neck
and press hard enough
to shake my arms.

I focus on his eyes, even though
his neck flushes like a fever, red and hot,
then turns a bruised, throbbing purple.
I hear crackling and feel vessels pop inside.

Tighter, and his round face swells.
I focus on his eyes while
a red ribbon of blood runs from his nose
and eyes like eggs bulge from their sockets.

I focus on his eyes:
Crystal blue irises quiver and darken to indigo.
His pupils dilate to the size of quarters,
opening into deep black pools
that seem to sink forever.

I want to plunge into those pools as his life drains,
follow the flow through their crimson channels
and feel them echo the pulse in my own veins.

I want to follow the flow to its source
because Death drains
from the fountain of life,
and I want to take that flow
and run it in reverse.

But his consciousness fades with oxygen
while death seizes beneath the surface.
The ruby stream freezes on his whiskers
and his twitching eyes grow fixed and glazed.

I don't get to see
the last drop
go down the drain.

My stomach sinks
with the cold corpse
in my hands.

I missed it."

I think "Finding the Fountain" is the most meaningful, aesthetically pleasing title. I'll continue revising this poem for weeks, months, and maybe years. I might enter it in a writing contest or a magazine because it never hurts to try.

This process - brainstorming, outlining, making a rough draft, and revising - takes me from an idea in my head to a creation on paper. The best part about writing poetry is bringing something to life, like painting a picture or giving birth. You create something with a life of its own.

I hope this helps anyone who finds writing poetry difficult.

--Jessica Murphy