Only You Can Write Your Poem

“I am the only one who can write my poems. No one can write them for me.”

This is what Paul Willis says to him­self when he gets so busy with other things that he doesn't have time to write. And the same is true for you. No one can write your novel, your short story, your book, or your blog post (although it's tempt­ing some­times to think so).

Paul Willis has been writ­ing poetry for well over twenty years. He has pub­lished poems in mag­a­zines like Poetry and Wilderness, and has appeared in pub­li­ca­tions such as The Best American Spiritual Writing. He has pub­lished two books of poetry; the most recent, Rosing From the Dead, came out in 2009 (by the way, what a great pun). 

He is also the poet lau­re­ate of Santa Barbara, California, the city where I grew up.

What advice would you give to young poets, maybe poets just start­ing out?

Everybody has these to-do lists that are a mile long. And if you're any kind of respon­si­ble per­son, peo­ple keep giv­ing you things to do. When you're writ­ing a new poem, how do you put that on the top of the list and give the time and space to engage in the writ­ing process? That takes courage.

You have to learn how to say no to things. You shrivel up to your­self and oth­ers if you're not writ­ing. I say to myself, “I am the only one who can write my poems. No one can write them for me.”

I know some peo­ple who really write a poem every day. I don't do that. I write a poem when it comes along. But I try to involve myself in some­thing involved with poetry every­day. There are so many voices say­ing, “There's some­thing else you need to be doing right now.”

How do you pub­lish your poetry? Do you look at a poem and say, this poem would work for this mag­a­zine, that poem would work for this other magazine?

I leave my poems on my desk for many months, some­times a year before I send them out. I try to dis­tin­guish between a poem I like because it reminds me of a par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence or a poem that works as a poem that any­one would like.

What does a "good" poem look like?

Poets start­ing out write poems that are like fam­ily photo albums or home movies, which are great, but you don't want to be caged into watch­ing a fam­ily photo slide show for ten hours.

A poem needs to be a gift for the reader, not just a spe­cial moment for the writer. That doesn't mean I can't write about my own experiences.

I've found the more par­tic­u­lar I am about my own expe­ri­ence, the more the reader can sum­mon his own par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence. If I write about my grand­mother, you as the reader are reminded of your grandmother.

If you like poetry (and even if you don't), make sure to pick up a copy of Rosing from the Dead from WordFarm Press. It can also be pur­chased on Amazon.