I'm Adali Mone and this is The Slowdown.

I was sitting with a poet the other day and we were talking about how so much of what

we love about writing poems is how they can surprise you, teach you something you don't

know yet.

I'm sure there are people who start with an idea, a deep sense of knowing, a certainty,

a truth, but mostly I start with questions, a wonder, a worry, with something that's

moving around in me, making me uncomfortable or in pain.

And then if I'm lucky, if I'm paying attention, the poem will unravel on its own and make

me aware of something that I might not have even been ready to explore.

The act of discovery is what keeps me coming back to the page, the way I might want to

start writing about flowers or trees and end up writing a poem about a parent or a beloved

friend that's no longer alive.

That's what happens when you're not just writing the poem, but you're listening to the

poem too.

That strange alchemy is hard to explain, hard to teach, and certainly hard to replicate

though we try again and again to capture that buzzing magic that can be addicting as an

artist, as a human.

Today's poem shows us how that process of discovery can illuminate the real subject matter and

how whether we like it or not, the poem tells us what is circling inside us and cannot

be denied.

No poem for the field of poetry by Philip B. Williams.

In the grip of a noriester, you come bearing grief, have in pieces not come in peace.

...