No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story.
I had been reading Haiku for five years before moving to Japan. Bashō, Issa, Buson…their work hovered in my margins like birds outside a window: elegant, distant, beautiful. I read their poems with reverence, but from a certain remove, as one might admire a bonsai in a museum case.
The way I tend to write is less about beginning with a clear argument and more about paying attention to small moments until they begin to suggest something larger.
The lights flashed in the rearview mirror. Red and blue filled every inch of space. I looked over at my roommate, Sonya. We were driving home after a night of partying in Coconut Grove. It was Sonya’s last day in Miami, where we were freshmen at Florida International University.
And again and now, I will try and reason with the mirror.
I carry fragments of lines in my mind for days or weeks before writing them down. Sometimes the line arrives whole, sometimes only as rhythm. I try to follow the sound first and the meaning later. Language, like water, tends to find its own level if you give it enough patience.
The movie showed both your delight and your weariness. The delight showed most when you were training your dog Rothko, methodically rewarding him and praising him when he accomplished his tricks.