Meta tags:
description=the poetry of joseph harker;

Headings (most frequently used words):

essay, the, of, naming, constellations, ten, years, in, making, emotional, arpeggios, birdwatching, at, night, carving, wood, poaching, eggs, some, kind, comeback, post, navigation, poetry, joseph, harker,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (377), and (194), you (161), that (119), for (68), but (57), your (52), this (50), about (50), are (49), with (48), what (47), can (43), all (42), one (40), when (36), writing (35), they (34), how (31), #poetry (31), have (30), out (30), poem (29), from (28), more (27), like (27), don (27), there (26), not (26), them (26), some (25), which (25), will (24), just (23), into (23), know (22), was (21), way (21), things (20), write (19), time (19), get (19), try (19), than (18), these (17), their (16), language (16), think (16), really (15), process (15), should (15), then (15), every (14), poems (14), because (14), down (14), world (13), been (13), most (13), experiences (13), any (13), words (13), who (13), experience (13), often (13), other (12), life (12), only (12), least (12), two (12), those (12), moment (12), even (12), where (12), our (12), own (11), trying (11), want (11), essay (11), poets (11), must (11), make (11), feel (11), moments (11), love (11), might (10), much (10), thing (10), people (10), work (10), while (10), may (10), keep (9), back (9), last (9), going (9), another (9), let (9), its (9), through (9), yourself (9), day (9), same (9), first (9), between (9), without (9), understand (9), truth (9), now (8), say (8), well (8), enough (8), started (8), others (8), haiku (8), something (8), take (8), raw (8), whole (8), sense (8), poet (8), little (8), reader (7), blog (7), long (7), also (7), still (7), kind (7), line (7), use (7), joseph (7), harker (7), why (7), point (7), read (7), her (7), come (7), each (7), around (7), years (7), together (7), actual (7), word (7), new (7), notes (7), before (7), certain (7), emotions (7), chord (7), posted (6), possible (6), place (6), turn (6), pieces (6), being (6), again (6), find (6), talk (6), has (6), good (6), many (6), having (6), essays (6), head (6), best (6), mean (6), ready (6), tell (6), would (6), used (6), over (6), several (6), lines (6), too (6), part (6), start (6), half (6), less (6), sometimes (6), after (6), days (5), across (5), self (5), practice (5), space (5), remember (5), had (5), break (5), didn (5), leave (5), uncarved (5), block (5), matter (5), individual (5), else (5), right (5), makes (5), single (5), using (5), form (5), immediately (5), wood (5), whatever (5), feeling (5), course (5), note (5), opinion (5), relation (5), chords (5), emotion (5), rather (5), mostly (5), apart (5), basic (5), guitar (5), name (4), comment (4), naming (4), constellations (4), already (4), post (4), hard (4), editor (4), getting (4), given (4), doesn (4), could (4), kinds (4), later (4), full (4), yes (4), doing (4), haven (4), myself (4), here (4), 2016 (4), paper (4), making (4), end (4), maybe (4), someone (4), anyone (4), give (4), great (4), did (4), rely (4), follow (4), works (4), always (4), changing (4), comes (4), working (4), done (4), until (4), old (4), woman (4), sensory (4), versus (4), bits (4), knowledge (4), readers (4), cryptic (4), obfuscate (4), top (4), emotional (4), consider (4), fact (4), music (4), arpeggios (4), harmony (4), few (4), piano (4), comments (3), content (3), missing (3), coming (3), add (3), change (3), circumstances (3), slowly (3), though (3), see (3), hear (3), amount (3), spectrum (3), city (3), isn (3), outside (3), seemed (3), social (3), media (3), turns (3), september (3), tagged (3), craft (3), shameless (3), finding (3), worry (3), moving (3), never (3), convince (3), fancy (3), knife (3), carving (3), obviously (3), framing (3), daily (3), alone (3), level (3), maya (3), angelou (3), famous (3), advice (3), said (3), composed (3), padding (3), piece (3), untouched (3), four (3), twelve (3), distinction (3), resonance (3), better (3), everything (3), especially (3), material (3), sitting (3), image (3), sounds (3), whether (3), yet (3), further (3), does (3), put (3), trust (3), universal (3), room (3), today (3), were (3), bit (3), power (3), three (3), ones (3), waiting (3), descriptions (3), data (3), everyday (3), nothing (3), minute (3), regular (3), except (3), useless (3), truly (3), fully (3), subject (3), instead (3), looking (3), once (3), former (3), above (3), anything (3), knows (3), lot (3), song (3), difficult (3), feelings (3), off (3), believe (3), incidents (3), figure (3), allow (3), wrote (3), details (3), structure (3), along (3), hit (3), implied (3), drink (3), nobody (3), person (3), unless (3), object (3), perfect (3), resonate (3), number (3), complex (3), difficulty (3), action (3), obvious (3), concept (3), complete (3), means (3), ten (3), usually (3), abstract (3), felt (3), instrument (3), broken (3), key (3), constituent (3), sensations (3), got (3), depression (3), pressing (3), learning (3), website (2), required (2), bar (2), log (2), sign (2), subscribed (2), subscribe (2), wordpress (2), com (2), search (2), meta (2), anyway (2), answer (2), board (2), creative (2), surprise (2), personality (2), journal (2), useful (2), scenery (2), shift (2), terms (2), energy (2), earlier (2), drafts (2), book (2), inclined (2), probably (2), seem (2), goes (2), learned (2), tremendous (2), comparison (2), thanks (2), opportunity (2), notice (2), couple (2), weeks (2), phd (2), maintaining (2), job (2), admit (2), barely (2), either (2), realm (2), heard (2), unnecessary (2), audience (2), doubly (2), bad (2), monday (2), shame (2), meaning (2), soul (2), nor (2), exercise (2), help (2), walk (2), track (2), familiar (2), apotheosis (2), clear (2), tough (2), length (2), hour (2), authors (2), shouldn (2), following (2), brilliant (2), equally (2), reasons (2), leads (2), metaphors (2), toss (2), carefully (2), tasting (2), menu (2), quail (2), eggs (2), floating (2), short (2), putting (2), next (2), away (2), placed (2), distance (2), flavorful (2), six (2), almost (2), stuff (2), representing (2), metaphor (2), figured (2), relative (2), phrase (2), roasting (2), coffee (2), pass (2), shaving (2), live (2), labor (2), easier (2), agree (2), morning (2), living (2), very (2), create (2), significant (2), nature (2), devoid (2), argue (2), natural (2), classical (2), street (2), page (2), routine (2), prose (2), writers (2), particular (2), recipe (2), reading (2), constantly (2), points (2), set (2), aside (2), air (2), dreams (2), interesting (2), interpret (2), minutes (2), cafe (2), themselves (2), latter (2), hot (2), delicate (2), gold (2), important (2), organs (2), true (2), entails (2), throwing (2), care (2), unitary (2), absolutely (2), bodies (2), fading (2), lucky (2), heart (2), beautiful (2), difference (2), public (2), bottom (2), mix (2), sit (2), human (2), damn (2), affect (2), honesty (2), voice (2), hint (2), edges (2), follows (2), awareness (2), topic (2), supplied (2), restaurant (2), physical (2), visible (2), internal (2), taste (2), different (2), martini (2), event (2), explicit (2), backgrounding (2), wasn (2), dictionary (2), allows (2), medium (2), quite (2), gilbert (2), general (2), sort (2), fictive (2), convenient (2), workshops (2), authentic (2), forth (2), psychic (2), business (2), adage (2), stand (2), actions (2), itself (2), permeate (2), whose (2), rings (2), untrue (2), actually (2), positivist (2), verifiable (2), chances (2), degree (2), stands (2), importantly (2), called (2), paradigm (2), friend (2), forget (2), common (2), save (2), case (2), reason (2), zooming (2), tinier (2), quickly (2), entire (2), pure (2), fingers (2), minor (2), breaking (2), analog (2), digital (2), happened (2), musical (2), credit (2), under (2), parts (2), rhetorical (2), syntax (2), sure (2), moved (2), strings (2), came (2), molecular (2), lime (2), trees (2), sunlight (2), strum (2), dead (2), unit (2), naturally (2), harmonic (2), perhaps (2), napowrimo (2), bright (2), went (2), grad (2), cover (2), year (2), empty (2), school (2), april (2), list (2), email, loading, collapse, manage, subscriptions, view, site, report, privacy, account, join, 652, subscribers, navigation, thought, hoping, outlet, quality, reawaken, ichor, brain, bets, expression, remains, tool, thoughts, compelling, recent, flexibility, dedicate, dedicated, professional, writerly, web, incarnation, variety, weekly, prompts, reviews, workshopped, etc, anymore, involved, simple, seems, wants, ramp, editing, rewarding, hope, continue, learn, submitting, tastes, balance, curate, indesign, tricks, taking, prepping, layout, issue, eighth, contribution, rollicking, bryan, seth, assaracus, busy, temporary, shutdown, retreat, vermont, since, program, upheaval, conducive, keeping, non, essential, activity, totally, luckily, project, took, during, obligation, placing, sake, theoretical, easily, maintain, contact, thinking, flawed, harder, extended, accounts, confessional, admission, kinda, miss, blogging, comeback, revision, heads, character, embarrassed, path, resistance, art, unsure, succeeded, callous, stop, productive, overall, thrust, okay, irregular, constant, need, burst, neither, force, moldy, parietal, lobe, wherever, meantime, plenty, muscles, diary, featureless, locate, mood, pour, stories, friends, family, describe, boring, proud, besides, skills, dexterity, possibility, commit, deal, sameness, ritual, sole, motivation, apologies, happen, stumbled, whom, retract, statement, lifestyle, beat, similar, verbal, frills, compelled, secondary, stanzas, novelists, thematic, shaped, batter, building, extend, poached, tureens, chicken, broth, hate, egg, stuffed, fig, bacon, dipped, valrhona, chocolate, reasonably, imagine, geometry, bland, quadrilateral, exhaustively, detail, constitutes, easy, lined, necessary, everybody, enjoys, letting, float, necessarily, intend, finished, product, committed, experienced, accurately, running, rough, shape, sanded, varnish, tweaking, adjectives, verb, tenses, finish, dividing, hearted, throwaway, throated, summons, barista, caffeine, addiction, contemplate, essence, scent, vice, versa, collecting, images, unwritten, focus, hours, confounding, onto, courage, initial, convictions, skill, challenge, decide, doubt, appreciate, author, sentiment, comfort, jot, happy, memory, typed, paragraph, lost, contextualized, examples, carved, careful, glue, splits, discussions, natalie, goldberg, talks, unsaid, entirely, qualified, suffice, unqualified, deleted, ego, truest, juxtapose, placement, separateness, closeness, weight, lives, aren, considered, featuring, market, tables, laden, produce, shoeless, man, corner, ingredient, stew, pregnant, counting, front, store, bag, dogshit, lying, sidewalk, smell, variations, evaluative, purely, generated, gather, morass, both, arms, dumping, locked, banal, writes, generally, spice, curious, observation, overheard, verisimilitude, assuming, feature, detritus, stumble, fine, frequently, normally, evening, discover, frustration, discouragement, throw, hands, conclusions, left, taoism, simplicity, appreciated, unworked, ness, begins, explicate, chopping, severs, needed, depth, second, fickle, capricious, beings, suspicious, named, confuse, monotonous, marvelous, leap, ordinary, blocks, varying, route, stopping, shop, smelling, exotic, fruit, thursday, comparing, environment, aura, rain, sun, monotony, setting, alarm, allotting, door, heading, table, ought, immerse, treat, red, pincers, aimed, precisely, guide, carve, occasional, nugget, buried, therein, receptive, happens, become, catches, eye, ear, despair, notebooks, cell, phone, seemingly, disjointed, text, trash, habits, fixed, cranking, draft, kept, vague, constellation, somewhere, conjunction, free, handy, pen, sudden, urge, scribble, fast, evaporates, haphazard, inefficient, harvest, wordstuff, crafted, poaching, obscurity, responsible, familiarity, aether, due, consideration, surefire, hurt, dismay, soft, firm, nightingales, whippoorwills, devastating, memorized, collection, facts, spot, luckier, catch, luckiest, show, stringing, helps, names, birds, ensues, ourselves, lies, practiced, splitting, crafting, wings, responsibly, poetic, define, result, stuck, widespread, education, striving, against, belief, advocate, leaning, side, illumination, retaining, mystique, incomprehensibility, incomprehensible, tickles, carry, confusion, finally, promise, confusing, fills, gaps, wholeheartedly, camp, dissatisfaction, able, illuminate, negative, feedback, loop, authenticity, worried, foremost, recognition, certainty, starts, stops, scope, blurring, grand, scheme, talking, damage, potential, greater, choosing, wrong, lousy, synonym, ungainly, frozen, rolling, tops, thread, bead, dew, backwards, polish, becomes, tickle, discussed, step, entity, tickling, hung, location, she, threw, face, requiring, present, associations, towards, speaker, beneficial, publicly, embarrass, greatly, signification, question, seasons, mcd, booze, swimming, olives, reporting, link, recognized, facilitated, foregrounding, information, such, straw, divorce, casual, deployment, open, problem, complexities, carries, undeniable, versatile, agonize, fulfills, supply, occupies, nice, chunk, grey, area, imply, tone, connective, tissue, personal, sharply, defined, nerve, touched, insert, jack, crawling, apartment, his, wife, funeral, strands, hair, fuzzy, example, spend, staring, verge, tears, circling, sum, processes, referred, mixed, opinions, realistic, build, allusions, possibly, thorough, deploy, implication, legwork, third, oracle, delphi, γνῶθι, σεαυτὸν, thyself, clarity, solidity, rest, dimension, relates, dimensions, effects, worlds, separate, recognize, affects, showing, realization, mini, prompt, basis, implicit, contrast, met, gnothi, seauton, extension, era, increasingly, conversations, privilege, lived, positive, correlation, inner, somebody, justly, misrepresentation, beating, gong, suspend, assumptions, adages, hotly, contested, engine, hits, saying, sidesteps, linguistic, contain, mentioned, bend, rules, including, categories, books, likely, wikipedia, reality, impressions, beliefs, reasonable, include, strong, addendum, attributed, anaïs, nin, among, socrates, wisest, exactly, wise, understands, limits, personalized, everyone, agrees, upon, discord, tossed, frisbees, academia, worldview, pool, interpreted, logic, discussion, politics, religion, demonstrate, variable, properties, disagreement, charged, semantics, lends, themes, considerations, thereof, grapple, objectivity, yesterday, mine, seriously, conversation, favorite, call, opening, obscure, darken, cast, shadow, unclear, smoke, mirrors, masters, obfuscation, birdwatching, night, recursivity, applies, tearing, fragments, arrive, soon, perfectly, imperfect, test, hoped, frangible, solid, picked, speed, tempo, connections, songs, forgotten, overtly, subtly, affairs, dealing, pulling, chandelier, squinting, juicy, messiest, infinite, zoom, accurate, description, undiluted, completely, complication, shadows, usual, lose, interest, drama, equation, slip, mess, acknowledge, humanity, hell, shakespeare, sonnets, regularly, sonnet, 130, held, standard, afraid, honest, perceive, aesthetically, pleasing, classic, gotten, manipulate, discrete, separable, counted, hence, measured, cannot, noticed, despite, rant, particularly, compartmentalizing, psyche, isolation, romantic, look, shitty, playground, park, paris, partner, visiting, spouse, flame, therefore, intrude, blur, isolated, brains, silver, lining, hopeless, messiness, disrupt, introduce, changes, virtue, disharmony, borders, invited, texture, digits, scientific, studies, certainly, demonstrating, combinations, leonard, cohen, hallelujah, fourth, fifth, fall, major, lift, draws, ways, quirk, cerebral, biology, tradition, solution, trick, realize, recursive, element, ultimately, surface, matters, based, delicately, vivisect, sensation, arrange, choose, echo, higher, seduction, needs, aspects, operate, increases, exponentially, faint, saw, pick, musically, arpeggio, playing, swiftly, separately, succession, simultaneously, slowed, effect, uncomfortable, fascinating, instructive, bodily, flushed, skin, heat, beneath, ribs, opens, sees, engagement, ring, hostage, takers, arpeggiate, technically, helpful, ask, fatuous, suspicion, ugh, senses, summon, convey, effective, overlooks, truths, contains, decrepit, wearing, husband, jacket, thirty, color, leaves, constriction, doctor, walks, toward, sounding, suppose, objects, black, white, keys, struggling, helped, conceive, series, conception, oral, cavity, resonates, euphony, phonetic, inventories, agreement, cooperation, devices, built, echoes, represent, fit, deep, subtle, sublime, concepts, attempt, massive, lifelong, player, calluses, fingertips, developed, starting, progress, neutral, milk, hotel, harvey, magnetic, fields, decemberists, tom, waits, queer, hippie, commune, college, dorm, biggest, difficulties, reconceptualizing, idea, structured, frère, jacques, bach, minuet, stack, rivers, october, intended, express, alive, mark, milestone, somehow, energize, slipping, radar, written, discovered, hadn, known, linda, gregg, rip, cold, unlikely, pessimistic, revelations, outsnapping, future, bleak, uncertainty, week, san, francisco, student, stipend, poverty, miles, card, trip, expensive, country, flames, roommates, couches, obsessing, claw, ivory, tower, places, jobs, won, eat, meet, exciting, pastries, missed, lawrence, ferlinghetti, centennial, celebration, worked, lights, bookstore, kazim, ali, stark, reminder, inquisition, direction, low, grade, snap, deeply, knowledgeable, connection, funny, close, light, tunnel, funding, ends, summer, looks, oblivious, longest, counterpoint, office, anywhere, bartending, saturdays, volunteering, mondays, york, evenings, weekends, readings, edited, submitted, journals, small, satisfaction, success, eventually, became, foundation, suddenly, urgent, livelihood, depended, attended, round, per, month, weren, marks, dare, churn, high, effort, thoughtful, observational, hold, forever, dormant, blogosphere, shut, bothered, attempting, publication, editorial, hibernation, dissertations, phds, academic, consisted, ever, shifting, items, dissertation, 2019,

Text of the page (random words):
ople will get a general sort of fuzzy feeling but those who resonate with gilbert s work might for example spend several minutes staring at the page on the verge of tears am i being fictive here i m working backwards a bit because really you should polish the language last after you ve figured out the emotional arpeggios you want to hit and you can only figure those out in relation to your topic where the implied vs the supplied becomes most significant something in the world will tickle your fancy enough for you to want to write about it before you do as we ve already discussed you ll want to step back and consider yourself as an entity in that tickling moment and everything that entails where people get hung up is in the details do i use the actual name and location of the restaurant the actual physical details of the woman the actual drink she threw in my face you can but nobody s requiring it the only person who will know these visible things are the people who were present in the room and the only person who will know the truth of the internal things in that moment the associations of the restaurant the feelings towards the woman the taste of the drink is the speaker changing them isn t going to make or break the poem and in fact changing them can be beneficial for three reasons obviously you do not want to publicly embarrass someone unless they re a public figure remember the power of language a different name or word can greatly add to the music or signification of the thing in question four seasons vs mcd s vs the cafe booze vs her martini vs her martini swimming with olives the point of your poem especially if you re reporting more than one event may be to link things together in an explicit relation that you only recognized after the fact which can be facilitated by foregrounding or backgrounding certain information such as if the drink throwing was the last straw before the divorce you might worry that changing these details will affect the authenticity or honesty of the poem whatever those things are what you should be more worried about is the honesty of your voice first and foremost and the recognition of where your realm of certainty starts and stops hint it has less scope than you think it does but you can often get away with blurring the edges there s truth and then there s truth and then there s truth if you don t have a clear sense of who you are in the grand scheme of the world s opinion and where you re coming from at the moment of what you re talking about in the poem the damage you ll do to your poem s potential resonance is greater than that done by choosing the wrong form or a lousy synonym or an ungainly length for the piece structure follows content and content follows nothing less than a delicate self awareness a single moment frozen and rolling along the tops of all the world s thread like a bead of dew poets often try to pass off the cryptic as the poetic and readers often try to define anything they don t understand as cryptic the result is the negative feedback loop of poetry that we ve been stuck with probably as long as we ve had widespread public education readers believe that poetry is difficult to understand so many poets believe they have to obfuscate their writing from top to bottom there are also those who striving against this belief illuminate their writing from top to bottom i advocate for a mix leaning on the side of illumination but retaining some of the mystique and incomprehensibility because well the world can be incomprehensible what tickles my fancy are incidents that i don t fully understand so i sit down and try to figure out why i don t understand place myself in relation to that moment then i can make that part of the subject matter and allow the emotional chords to carry notes of that confusion which is all too human and finally the language which i promise i try to make least confusing of all fills in the gaps when i started writing i was wholeheartedly in the camp of the cryptic but i learned over time how much dissatisfaction i was getting from barely being able to understand what i was trying to say if you wrote the damn thing you at least should know what you re trying to talk about words have a tremendous power that we must use responsibly responsible use entails familiarity throwing poems out into the aether without due consideration of what things in the world they re representing is a surefire way to hurt others and yourself i note with dismay that yes most people still don t read poetry but enough of them do for me to care about this but writing a poem is not a unitary process and your knowledge will be soft here firm there i think about poems as things like nightingales or whippoorwills absolutely devastating in their song but with difficult bodies fading into the scenery things about which i trust my feelings more than some half memorized collection of facts things that you re lucky to spot and even luckier to catch luckiest of all when you can show it to someone else and have them feel the same way you did when you first heard its heart stringing song it helps that the names of these particular birds are also beautiful some amount of each experience and the poem that ensues is certain and some of it is not we try to know which is which for ourselves as well as for the readers the poetry lies in how we get practiced at splitting the difference and crafting wings out of words posted in essays tagged craft essay obscurity poetry poetry process truth writing practice leave a comment september 16 2016 by joseph harker essay carving wood poaching eggs as always this is all opinion most of it true anyone who knows me and my writing habits knows that i don t really have a fixed process in place for a while i used to be really good about cranking out a new poem draft every day and for a long while after that i just kind of kept a vague constellation of possible lines floating through my head these days i m somewhere in between given the right conjunction of circumstances free time a handy pen and paper the sudden urge to get some words out i ll scribble as fast as i can before the feeling evaporates it s haphazard it s inefficient and it doesn t harvest a lot of raw wordstuff to be crafted into poetry but it works for me every writing guide i can think of makes the following points more or less you should always carve out a regular time to write every day sometimes what you write will be trash with the occasional nugget of gold buried therein the important thing is to keep it up to get yourself into the routine of writing be receptive to what happens around you be ready to take notes immediately once something that could become poetry or prose later catches your eye ear or other sensory organs above all don t despair if your notebooks and cell phone are full of seemingly useless and disjointed bits of text because your work comes out through the process more than anything else and these points are all fine ones to make except for when they don t work i don t think i m alone in frequently having the experience of trying for several days to note down every possible raw material then set aside one hour normally in the evening when i have space to think to turn it every which way only to discover it s all useless i also don t think i m alone in finding it a recipe for frustration which leads to discouragement at that point you truly don t follow a regular practice when you throw your hands in the air i ve come to two conclusions about why this might be first there s something about raw experiences that are best when they are left raw untouched think of 樸 or pu the uncarved block in taoism a form of natural simplicity that is appreciated fully in its unworked ness or think of dreams which in my opinion immediately start to be come less interesting the moment one begins to interpret and explicate them chopping up experiences or shaving pieces from them severs the part from the whole and the whole is often what is needed to truly understand the depth of the part second poets are by nature fickle and capricious beings you should be immediately suspicious of any self named poet who isn t don t confuse the everyday with the monotonous especially if your subject matter is how the marvelous can leap from the ordinary as with many poets everyday life is when you walk six blocks every morning varying your route and time little by little maybe stopping in this shop instead of that one tasting or smelling some new and exotic fruit on monday but not on thursday comparing your environment s aura in the rain versus the sun monotony is setting your alarm allotting x minutes to get yourself out the door heading to the same table at the same cafe and not looking up once until you re ready to leave poets ought to immerse themselves fully in the former and treat the latter like a set of red hot pincers aimed precisely at their delicate bits it s tough to have a regular writing process without trying to gather up the morass of everything into both arms and dumping it on the page and without getting locked into a banal routine now not every poet writes about everyday experiences and they generally have an easier time much like prose writers do they have a very particular recipe that they re making which they might spice up with a curious observation or an overheard line or two for verisimilitude if nothing else we ll come back to that but at the moment i m assuming that if you re reading this you re like me constantly trying to write poems that feature the resonance between the detritus of daily life and some kind of universal feeling so first let s talk about that uncarved block for a minute how should we use what we stumble across in the course of the day in her discussions of haiku natalie goldberg talks about how they should create a sense of space where the unsaid is just as significant as the three lines in the actual piece we can talk about what makes a haiku another time and i don t think i m entirely qualified for that but suffice it to say 5 7 5 and a couple nature words do not a haiku make some of the best haiku are the ones which take two unqualified moments devoid or deleted of ego uncarved wood in the truest sense and juxtapose them it is in their relative placement and the sense of separateness or closeness that the poem s weight lives i would argue that this can work for moments and things that aren t considered natural in the classical way too try writing a haiku like poem haiku like featuring street market tables waiting to be laden with produce and a shoeless old man sitting on the corner try it with the ingredient you re missing for a stew and the pregnant woman counting her change in front of you in line at the store try it with a bag of dogshit lying on the sidewalk and the smell of roasting coffee try these without using the word i or its variations without using any evaluative language without using any words that are not descriptions purely generated from sensory data these are all individual image moments from my morning today i didn t jot them down they were living whole and happy in my sense memory until i just typed that paragraph now they have lost a bit of their power because they ve been contextualized as examples in this essay the block of wood has been carved even a little bit language is a knife that you must be very careful with for there is no glue to put what it splits back together but when it comes to dividing up the spectrum from image to whole hearted experience it s all relative one poet s throwaway phrase will be another s full throated apotheosis for me roasting coffee summons up the years of working as a barista my shameless caffeine addiction a space to contemplate an essay like this one in essence comfort for another poet it might be just one more scent they have to pass through on the way to the bar my uncarved block might be your wood shaving and vice versa when you go collecting images and sounds and moments don t worry so much about whether they work in some as yet unwritten poem focus on how they matter to you and then let them live in your head like that for a little while at least for me it s never less than 24 hours confounding the whole daily writing process thing even further when the time does come to put them onto paper when you re ready to turn them into poetry by which i mean even a single line trust the courage of your initial convictions and let your skill with words do the hard labor the challenge for poets is not what you decide your raw material experiences are but how you convince me that they are which is much easier said than done even the best universal poems leave room for doubt but they re the best because one can at least appreciate where the author is coming from even if one doesn t agree with their sentiment not everybody enjoys letting all this stuff float around their head but just try you might surprise yourself my point is that you don t have to necessarily get everything down immediately especially if you don t intend to go all out from raw material to finished product in one sitting i find it most useful to only start writing when i m committed to representing what i ve experienced on paper as accurately as possible to keep running with the metaphor don t half finish your wood carving get at least the rough shape of it figured out and sanded down the varnish tweaking the adjectives changing the verb tenses whatever comes later anyway i said even a single line earlier which leads me to one more point i want to make about using these raw experiences obviously your poem may be composed of several lines and several stanzas i ll shift metaphors again while novelists and long form or thematic poets may toss in one of these carefully shaped moments into their batter you may want to try building a tasting menu poems that take a single experience and try to extend it by padding and padding with unnecessary lines are like individual poached quail eggs floating in tureens of chicken broth there s no shame in having a short poem but if you hate having too short poems as i do try putting the quail egg next to a stuffed fig next to a piece of bacon dipped in valrhona chocolate most haiku get away with two whole reasonably untouched moments placed some distance from each other imagine the flavorful geometry you can get out of four or six or twelve and the distinction between a bland poem and a flavorful poem is often the distinction between padding and resonance twelve lines that form a quadrilateral out of four experiences is almost always or at least often better than twelve lines that try to exhaustively detail one remember what constitutes an experience is up to you but that s the easy part convince me that what you ve lined up on your menu makes sense and is necessary if it s not already clear re framing your daily experiences in this way makes it tough to commit to even the same length of time every day let...