Keys to Poetry

After reading Simic's interview, I discovered many things about poetry I once did not realize. From each and every one of Simic's answers, I deduced a simple aspect of poetry that I felt was taught to me to be very different. This way of thinking I feel allows me to not worry so much about what is being put on paper but rather what is going on in my mind. The main points I found were:

1. Foreign does not mean unknown to the world, it just has to mean unknown to the individual.
       
When I attempt to come with a place that nobody has ever heard of, it makes it increasingly difficult to focus on the poem I want to create. In imagining a world that already exists but that I have not been to, I am able to write my poem about a place that is foreign to me without being foreign to others.

2. Mysticism dictates how to create a poem.

Rather than thinking about the conventionality of poems and how poems are "supposed to be," create a poem that has no conventions. Create a poem with mysticism, magic, uncertainty.

3. Have a place and then attempt to create it through language.

A poet never can create an elaborate setting without description. Before describing a place, find it!

4. Conveying thoughts not to words but to emotions.

I tend to try to convey my thoughts to words, but really poetry is an example of conveying thoughts to emotions and then to words. Our emotions are really us speaking.