Beginnings are exciting, but they are also hard to spot.

My nephew is learning to crawl this summer. He’s an energetic baby and he gurgles knowingly at my literary references, but he’s finding (as each of us did once) that quadruped-style locomotion is a complex challenge. First, there’s the matter of pressing off his tummy-time blanket and onto hands and knees. Then there’s the issue of coordinating his limbs into forward movement. Recently, he perched excitedly on his hands and toes and then rocked himself backward, away from the toy he was trying to reach. This was, of course, great progress, but not the in the direction he wanted, and not necessarily of a linear sort. So he made some frustrated howls and tried again. And again.

Soon, so many efforts and beginnings will have contributed momentum that it will be difficult to say exactly which forward push was his first crawl. (In fact, between my drafting this letter and my sending it, my sister reports that he’s been crawling a few days.)

Beginnings are exciting, but they are also hard to spot. I’m thinking about how to locate the beginnings of poems and channel their forward energy as I prepare to teach a class on titles and first lines later this summer. (It will be a virtual workshop through The Muse on August 1st.)

Titles and first lines are the words that name the poem and open the door for the reader. They are the reader’s entry-point to the world and the action of the poem, which means that they have to do lots of invisible work to orient readers and to draw them into the dance. A good first line not only helps the reader find their footing in time and space, but also hires the reader as a co-participant (a co-conspirator) in meaning-making. A good first line is an on-ramp, an aperitif, an opening curtain, a plunge into refreshing lake water. And, of course, the title (subtly or not) cues and prepares readers to expect a particular kind of reading experience (ideally while also being eye-catching and memorable enough to stand out in a literary journal’s table of contents).

But titles and first lines are rarely the entry point for the poet. Poems begin when a deer bolts past as you French exit a party. Poems begin as you set a horse loose in a pasture and wonder whether language domesticates thought or thought domesticates language. Poems begin as a single image: the open palm of a veined leaf. Poems begin as syllables stringing themselves into echoes—mournful, marrowed.

The poet’s task is to follow this first glimpse or note and see where it leads. This often means that a first draft offers several possible starts, pathways that branch off and circle back as the poet finds and writes their way through the poem. (One of my teachers once described this as “throat clearing” and I like the way this makes a forest of the mouth.) Sometimes the sounds or ideas that began a poem can be abandoned entirely as the poet finds new possibilities. Occasionally the poet will find that they need to do a little more work to orient the reader—and the first written line will wind up in the middle of the poem. More often, the poet will realize that they’ve tried too hard to guide the reader and bogged the poem down in explanation, which can be trimmed to give the poem a cleaner, more compelling launch.

This means that poems begin again in revision, in rehearsal, as the poet points the poem toward the reader and nudges it forward.

Wishing you many good beginnings this July,

Ceridwen

P.S. Here’s the registration link for “Let’s Get This Poem Started”. You can get 35% off with code LAUNCH. Got questions about the class? Feel free to hit “reply” and ask.