INSPIRATION ENTRY #1

"There is no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet." —Gabriel García Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Patrice's Rules for Writing Poems

1. It doesn't have to make sense. Logical sense is highly overrated. Write with your intuition. See where it leads you. Which means don't try to understand why you're choosing the word "subway" to follow the word "mountain." The why comes later.

2. Let yourself be surprised by what you write. Don't plan it. Write phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence. The writer should be as surprised by the ending as you hope the reader will be.

3. Trust your imagination. It's far smarter than you might think.

4. Be foolish. Foolish mind, in writing, anyway, is often wise mind.

5. There is no wrong way to write a poem.