Occasionally I’m asked what it is like to write poetry.
mostly, a poem is like a fish that fights the line,
and a poet a fisherman that doesn’t want to fight,
and thought, a line that breaks under tension.

Yet there are times,
unaided by fisherman or line, 
a poem simply jumps in the boat
whole, inexplicable, stunned
as surprised by itself as you are
this is what poets mean 
when they say they discover a poem

And discovering poems is why 
we put up with writing them
the experience of jumping
leaving the water
expecting to have gravity
take you back
and by nothing but dumb luck
finding a boat 
being taken beyond
          gasping

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es mus sein was one of my yearbook quotes
It was so awful and loveably me.
I had read Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being
and was impressed by a passage in which he riffs on it.

I wasn’t sure what it meant 
but was sure it was deep
terribly deep
and more important 
nobody else would know either

In the mot juste of es mus sein
the yearbook staff assigned to quotes
took my desire to be smarter than I was 
south of the border
and so under all the angsty things I wrote stands:
Es mus seino — It must be-o

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It’s like getting three wishes and wishing for less wishes.
It’s like designing a flag the exact same colour as the sky.

How does she think of these?
It would seem she walks around with brilliant similes 
looking for antecedents.
They are so good that the similes have stopped serving
their objects and strut around in sequins
while everything she tries to speak about 
slouches in khaki.

A few stats, 
in her first two collections,
there are over 500 similes,
that is on average 6 similes per poem.
211 similes for love,
125 similes for sex.
And it should be mentioned
a strange preponderance of kites and telescopes.
If you are ever lost,
and aren’t sure what poem your are in,
look around and if there is a simile about 
love or sex, and a kite floating oddly above,
then there is a 98% chance you’re in a Hera Lindsay Bird poem.

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people say words
but they don’t mean them
people write words
and they don’t mean them either
does poetry have a loafing problem

in the cladogram of poetry
who is the first beast on your branch
or are you trying to negotiate
a new limb

let critics scoff at your poetry
let friends, husbands, wives, and parents
scoff at your poetry
it is living with compliments
that’s excruciating
can one write poetry
without being a poet

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Father Zossima’s body starts to smell
ambition whispers 
around the bed
an acolyte opens a window
people gather.
we are told the stench is sin

and so, to return to our story
I’m in love with my wife
when she sleeps,
I’m in love with the world 
when it sleeps,
and I love, faltering, 
but still love Father Zossima.

Check out other work in the Practicing My Writerly Gaze series here.

electric, immovable
she writes,
a voice that scares her
an honesty 
that beads and freezes
on the pane

Check out other work in the Practicing My Writerly Gaze series here.

It is kind of hard shaving your asshole.
It’s a bit of a blind spot really. I have many.
Blind spots, not assholes. 
Why do I do it? I do it like I do many things.
Like writing poems.
I am wondering if poems are like assholes–
hard to find, delicate, 
somewhere you shouldn’t go near with a razor.
Yet we feel compelled. I even listen with razors.

Burroughs wrote a lot about assholes. 
One of his characters taught his asshole to talk. 
It didn’t end well. I can’t help thinking,
if mine could talk, what would it say? 
It always looks angry. At least in the mirror.
Mirrors are funny though. 

In a car once with my brother, I heard
an interview in which DFW said
he believed something down to his asshole.
What he believed, I can’t remember 
even at the time it didn’t seem
as interesting as where
he felt that belief.
I’ve never felt anything that deep. 
Maybe my sphincter lacks conviction?
I’ll deal with that later. For tonight
my little rosebud will have to be content
with being groomed: bald and beautiful.

Now I realize a poet asks a lot 
when he asks the reader to contemplate his asshole.
If you are still reading, thank you for indulging me.
I want you to know 
I didn’t try to write this poem.
It doesn’t make any sense
but I feel like it picked me.
Where poems come from and why 
is a knotted mystery to me.
Tipping my seat to DFW I never fail to feel
that kind of uncertainty where the poems don’t shine.