Introduction and Philosophy

Probably the biggest breakthrough I made this semester was discovering that I can write poetry. I had never before attempted the genre seriously, so at the beginning every poem I wrote seemed like an experiment. It was amazing to receive back that first batch of poems with some positive feedback. It felt like an unexpected gift.


Once I discovered that I was able to write poetry with some measure of success, I still wasn't sure what kind of poet I was. This collection of poems is the result of my search for my own style and my own theme. I have attempted love poems, confessional poems, poems based on childhood memories, poems inspired by science, poems employing extended metaphors, and one ekphrasis. Stylistically, I tried writing poems in first, second and third persons, poems that were more than a page long and poems that were shorter than fifteen lines, poems in short stanzas, long stanzas and no stanzas. These poems came to me in several different ways. Some of them were inspired by an experience. Others were based on thoughts or ideas I couldn't stop turning over in my head. At other times, an image or sound would come to me and eventually turn into a poem. On a few occasions, words or phrases came to me whole and then spun out into a larger poem.


Not all of my attempts were successful, but each one taught me more about what I am capable of. I learned that my poems tend to be of a thoughtful nature. They are cerebral and interrogative and usually in a formal tone. My poems are about probing life's questions. This is the reasoning behind the title of the chapbook, "Interrogations." I hope that my readers will be inspired to ask as many questions as I have. It is my conviction that one of the primary purposes of human life is to question. Our ability to wonder about things makes us unique in the universe, and that can be terribly lonely. We must question together so that none of us will be overwhelmed by the questioning.


In my searching, I did find one theme that I kept returning to over and over again. This was the theme of nature. Over the course of the semester, I discovered that the most productive place for me to generate ideas for poems or compose them is in the alleys through which I walk on my way to and from ACU. This is because more than any other place I am during my day, there I feel closest to nature. I walk in dirt rather than on cement. I pass by trees, bushes, grass and weeds growing wild and untended. Flocks of little birds fall silent as I pass the shrubs where they shelter. Dogs of all sizes, breeds and temperaments run to the edges of their fences to bark at me or beg to be petted or simply to stare.


Most of my day I spend in climate controlled buildings sitting in chairs made of synthetic materials interacting mainly with technological devices. But for those few minutes every day, I can feel the sun's heat or the bite of the wind or the wet of the rain. Being outdoors just makes me feel different. It puts me in a different frame of mind, one in which I feel freer to simply think and create. I suppose this is the reason so many of my poems are centered on images of nature. Even poems that don't take nature as their theme tend to use nature imagery or metaphors to illustrate their ideas.


Perhaps one of the downsides of my search for themes is that my poems' subject matter is all over the map. This became a problem when I began to try to organize the poems for the chapbook. Other than the four poems of my suite, which focus on the nature theme, almost none of the poems seemed to fall into logical categories. Eventually, I realized I would have to be creative in my organization of the poems. I decided to organize them as a sort of emotional journey. I begin with poems that are emotionally lighter and slowly move the reader toward the heavier and more intimate poems.


However, I do not believe that a reader should feel compelled to read the poems in the order I have chosen. I think a book of poems, of any length, should be designed so that the reader can pick it up, open it at any point and find something interesting and meaningful. This is how I have always related to books of poetry. I never read them straight through from beginning to end. Instead, I open them at random and flip through until a title, word or phrase catches my attention. Or, alternately, I open to the table of contents and do the same. If I find the poet worthwhile, I will eventually read the entire collection, though it may be years before I finish.


This behavior is a result of my view of the purpose of poetry in everyday life. Novels are for immersing oneself in another world for a while. Textbooks are for teaching. Essays are for spurring one to action. I still have not quite figured out what short stories are for. And poems are for slowing down time. A book of poems may take me years to finish because I want to slow down and savor each word in the time the poem gives me. When I sit down to read a poem, for that short space of time, I focus my attention completely on those words. The poem draws out the moment in a way that nothing else can. Poems are a way to fill the free moments in between the clamoring events of our busy lives. They are breathing space, a period of rest. I hope that my poems can be that for my readers, not a distraction from life but an intensification of it, a temporary narrowing down of life to a few, essential words.



Sara
December 11, 2008