How does a poem begin?
Beginnings are the most important part of a poem because without a strong beginning, you’ll lose the reader. Many poems have lost me due to weak word choice and lack of tension, so I’m always paying attention to beginnings. The technical aspect comes later, however, because poems first begin in the heart and mind. In my own work, they begin with a question, or a phrase, or an observation. Occasionally an idiom I find funny or interesting. I tend to write two types of poems: poems of intent, and personal, meditative poems.
The first category might spark from research (read: fervent googling about why the world is the way it is) or by stumbling upon a fact (earthworms having five hearts – how devastating). I love learning via podcasts about history, climate, and economics. These subjects are so interlinked that I think they are the perfect breeding ground for poems, which serve to link ideas and thoughts. The linkages ferment in the back of my mind often until I have strong analogies or additional ties to my daily life. This has been a very fun analytical practice.
The second type of poem arises from freewriting, which I do as often as possible. I’ve heard that separating journaling from freewriting will make your work more focused, but I like to keep all of my thoughts, experiences, observations, and research in one place. Instead of morning pages, I practice night pages, writing when I’m tired and thus more imaginative. How do I understand this moment, this day, this month, this year? Through simile and metaphor. I once thought I could write myself toward any solution, which turned out to be untrue, of course, but I have plenty of material now, don’t I?
The most enjoyable poems begin, I believe, in other poems. Nothing beats reading a few poems by a brilliant poet and feeling the overwhelming desire to write. I love when poets use uncommon, but musical words in a poem, or words that are so precise that I have to look them up. I keep my phone near me when I read to do so. I love how poems become experiences this way, so they begin again and again in the hearts and homes of readers.
Farah Ghafoor is the author of Shadow Price (House of Anansi, 2025). Selections of her debut won the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry, and were finalists for the CBC Poetry Prize and the Far Horizons Award. Her work appears in art exhibitions, magazines, anthologies, and post-secondary course curriculums. Farah resides in Tkaranto (Toronto) where she writes about the intersection of climate change, colonialism, and capitalism.
