How does a poem begin?
with a gemstone the colour of a dream
with feathers dropping at my feet
with a photo album disintegrating in my hands
in frustration
and more frustration
in a fever and grief and unrelenting bad news
on a Sunday a word gifted by Kirby
in the beak of a bird
in the circle it ties with its flight
in the streak of colour it leaves in the sky
in leaves
in absence
in the verb
to be
in a different language
in a day
already gone by
I started to compose a response to the question of how a poem begins and then decided that, rather than rely on my flickering memory, I would look and see how the poems in my book actually began. Above is an abbreviated catalog. As I recorded this list, it struck me that what these items share in common is desire. Desire to reach / to return / to discover — a place / a mood / a moment. A desire to join a communal call, to add my voice to those who have howled / are howling into the wind. A hope that I can write my way there.
My book, Precedented Parroting, started to take shape in the leadup to the pandemic and to George Floyd’s murder, to the rise of wildfires out West and increasing instability in the weather everywhere. I had a dream of a parrot flying and crashing, the landscape blinding, orange and red. And then, we were living in that surreal dream, ash literally falling from the sky.
This past June, I had another parrot dream (to bookend the first?), this time of a parakeet, sky blue, feathers scorched. It was alive, but its feathers bore evidence of its precarious journey. At first, I interpreted this dream as a reflection of what we had already been through. Now, following the last US presidential election, I wonder if this second parrot dream was a herald of what is yet to come. I feel an eerily familiar restlessness and worry, though this time worse. The first time, the parrot emerged frightened but physically unscathed. What lies before us this time? This is how a poem begins for me, with a need to express something, though I don’t know what exactly. And here, sound comes into play. While my poems might begin with an image, event, or phrase, what carries them forward are rhythms. They are meant to be read out loud. Maybe where my poems truly begin is with my need for a lullaby.
Barbara Tran's debut book, Precedented Parroting, was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. She lives in Tkaronto with her partner and their two canine adoptees.
