How does a poem begin?
When I first started learning paper quilling, I twirled the foundational shapes over and over again—coils, teardrops, marquise, squares—covering my tiny coffee table with them. Practicing my tension when rolling coils, some would have tight centres while others were so loose you could only see the strip edges in shifts of light. But to practice these shapes, I needed an end point to work toward, something tangible that my bodymind could achieve. This is also how my poems begin: at the end.
The poem forms around an end that has either been sketched, felt, or whose body is blurry, but its edges appear. There is no poem I’ve written without knowing what kind of ending I want to get to, even if that ending drastically changes or needs more shape after the initial writing is finished. When creating a paper quilled piece, the artform requires me to begin a project with a semblance of an end, even if it is as simple as “I’m making a daisy.” An ending helps me plan what shapes are needed. What shapes compliment, fit well together. An art of building is one that takes many shapes and entangles them into something bigger. What are poems than endless entanglements?
I am also obsessed with the lyric. This preoccupation makes sense to me—much of my practice revolves around amplifying experiential knowledge, a knowledge that directly stems from the “I.” Paper quilling is an experiential act; I physically spool a strip to create something other than itself. The same can be said for poetry. Working from an “end” makes me ask of my poem or paper quilling: what came before? What shape is necessary? What lines shine through when there is disruption to my imagined end? A poem begins at this point of disruption; it is where the unexpected forges a path. When it’s time to glue the quilled shapes to a canvas, the pieces never fit together how I first imagined. The paper attaches to the canvas the way it wants, the way it needs to in order to reach its ending. Even when I work towards a specific knowing, my endings are always a surprise with what they become. They are never what I think they will be. This surprise is the magic. This surprise is what makes poems resonate beyond the page, beyond the canvas.
Tea Gerbeza (she/her) is the author of How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press, 2025). She is a neuroqueer disabled writer and multimedia artist. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Regina. Most recently, her poem “Body of the Day” was a People’s Choice Award finalist in Contemporary Verse 2’s 2024 2-Day Poem Contest. She also made the longlist for Room magazine’s 2022 Short Forms contest. Tea won the Ex-Puritan’s 2022 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for poetry. New work appears in ARC magazine, Action, Spectacle, The Poetry Foundation, Wordgathering, and Contemporary Verse 2. She is one of four Pain Poets. Find out more on teagerbeza.com.
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credit: Ali Lauren Creative Services
