30/30 - Day One

Artist: Marie Kinscher

Tupelo Press' 30/30 project means cranking out a poem every day, for public viewing nonetheless. That's daunting. My typical process involves the slow accretion of lines and ideas and drafts over weeks, sometimes months. 30/30 gives me no time to perfect and hone and second guess. It's good and terrifying too. I spent the morning pushing words around the page. Nothing. I tried one poem, then another, then another. The thought came that I might not be up for this.

Then I took a walk and looked at the cracked glaze of ice on Horseshoe Lake like so much candy or stained glass in the sunlight. And I remembered that life doesn't take place inside my head (and what is true of life is often true of writing and vice versa). I walked with dust kicking along Shady Beach Road beneath the bluest sky and the first lines of the day's poem came to me.