In the beginning was the Word.

Western civilization rests upon those words. And yet there is a lively group of
thinkers who believe that in the beginning was the Act. That nothing can
precede action— no breath before act, no thought before act, no pervasive love before some kind of act.

I believe the poem is an act of the mind. I think it is easier to talk about the end of a
poem than it is to talk about its beginning. Because the poem
ends on the page, but it begins off the page, it begins in the mind. The mind acts,
the mind wills a poem, often against our own will; somehow this happens, somehow
a poem gets written in the middle of a chaotic holiday party
that has just run out of ice, and it's your house.

An act of the mind. To move, to make happen, to make manifest. Be an act of Congress.
A state of real existence rather than possibility. And poets love possibility!
They love to wonder and explore. Hard lot! But the poem, no matter
how full of possibility, has to exist! To conduct oneself, to behave. How a poem acts marks
its individual character. A poem by Glandolyn Blue does not sound
like a poem by Timothy Sure. To pretend, feign, impersonate. That, too,
yes and always, because self-consciousness is its own pretension, and has been from its
beginning; the human mind is capable of a great elastic theater.
As the poet Ralph Angel puts it, “The poem is an interpretation
of weird theatrical shit.” The weird theatrical shit is what goes on around us every day
of our lives; an animal of only instinct, Johnny Ferret, has in his
actions drama, but no theater; theater requires that you draw a circle around the action
and observe it from outside the circle; in other words, self-consciousness is theater.

Everyone knows that if you query poets about how their poems begin,
the answer always the same: a phrase, a line, a scrap of language, a rhythm,
an image, something seen, heard, witnessed, or imagined. And the lesson is
always the same, and young poets recognize to be one of the most important
lessons they can learn: if you have any idea for a poem, an exact
grid of intent, you are on the wrong path, a dead-end alley, at the top a cliff
you haven’t even climbed. This is a lesson that can only be learned by trial and error.

I believe many fine poems begin with ideas, but if you tell too many faces this, or tell it too loudly, they will get the wrong idea.