To improve, writers reflect on the process of what happens as they write. On Day Poems, I've offered up the value of having a pen pal, sending a postcard, and making a card to give to someone. Try writing a poem about writing a letter. Doing so requires you to consider audience, setting, and character.
Writing is a solitary act. You enter into a relationship with your reader that is imagined before it's realized. Somewhere I read that a relationship exists before the people are there to fill it. In this way, writing is an act of faith. Writing a letter exemplifies that faith: you compose in the present moment something you hope will reach the hands of another at a later time. (If you've ever sent a letter and had it returned to you months later, then opened and read what you'd intended for the recipient, you've had that somewhat surreal experience of interiority, gotten a peek into your internal workings.)
Daily Prompt: Write a poem about writing a letter. For an example, read "Preparing a Missive," a poem I wrote while thinking about my Ohio pen pal. My thanks to elephant journal for publishing it this week.
Thanks to elephant for publishing my poem "On the Island of Recollection." While culling old journals in December (an annual ritual) I found the poem scribbled on a final page. It needed some reworking. Since I had started the poem years ago, I've written about rubber boots and read Krishnamurti's writings on memory and Lewis Hyde's on gifts. All that ended up in the poem, this time around.
This leads me to...
Poetic Mind Tip #4: Keep a notebook.
It doesn't have to be a journal or diary, meaning you don't need to write in it daily. But keep a pad handy, jot down ideas, let them sit, and reread them occasionally. You may find an idea you want to pursue. There are lots of great books on journaling. Kay Adams's Journal to the Self is one. And I recommend Terry Tempest Williams's When Women Were Birds for an unusual perspective on journal keeping and the creative self.
