(Because we all know the poets are the SEXY PEOPLE!)

From Where do your poems Originate, Germinate, Percolate, and/or Inseminate?

For ME, when I’m writing as both False Me AND Real Me, the sources are constant, consistent, exhaustive, and clearly labeled:

1. The classic, original way: I wake up with a thought or sentence repeating itself in my head for an unidentified, arbitrary, inevitable, pounding, and UNRELENTING reason until I’m MADE to string these homely popcorn words into a cheap tinsel swag of a poem that, surprisingly, often sparkles in spite of its humble origins.

2. Seeds from Texts I Write, Things I Say to Myself [Out Loud], Things I Say or am PREPARING TO SAY To Others, Things I Imagine Saying Anonymously, Things I Long to Say, Things I Find Myself Saying To My Dog [doggedly], and Other Posts on social media. Some even were conceived from my comments on Internet Dating Sites back when my stomach could still stomach them.

3. I find fully composed poems in my Notes folder on my iPhone with NO memory of writing them. The idea of not recognizing an offspring I have labored to produce makes me feel like a TERRIBLE Mother and understandably terrifies me.

4. I find scraps which, remarkably, I refrained from publishing immediately. Considering Immediate Gratification Gratifies me Immediately, for which I’m immediately gratified, I hope you recognize how much “Virtue I’m Signaling” in my withstanding of temptation! I recycled these Scraps to craft Something Better and More Sustainable. For which I’m extremely proud of myself. Lastly:

5. With considerable Deliberation, I set down and out to deliberately Write Something, deliberately! Note: this Source is infrequently tapped.

NOW FOR THE JUICY PART:
Let’s talk about YOU and YOUR POEMS!!