7: Anatomy of a Poem

Start at the heart, if you can stomach it.
No lily-livered words. You’ve got the gall
To lung forth consonants, to spleen your vowels.

Compose your verses from the convolute
Vessels and arteries of the living language.
Give each line spine and sinew, might and muscle.

Full-blooded rhetoric with pounding pulse,
Or placid meditations deep as breath:
Give it your best shot. Go with your gut.

Nerve it all up in the skin of sound.
Let dry bones live. Make eyes taste, fingers hear.
Sing the body, electric, intricate.

6 thoughts on “7: Anatomy of a Poem

  1. Oh – marvellous! Energetic, muscular, inviting creativity, venerating the creative. And to finish with that echo of ‘I Sing the Body Electric’? Beautiful! Truly an anatomy lesson – visceral and immediate – but a complete and total celebration of poetic creation!

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