"For me a poem often begins as a constellation of words coursing through my head like little electric shocks. This often happens when I'm in great pain or pleasure, doing laps in a pool, or in the bardo between sleeping and waking. I don't know why. The words feel like irritants in the soft lap of an oyster, as Henry James had it. Then the pearl -- if one could call it that with a straight face -- starts to congeal around the irritant. A snowball in the muck." Head to Cecil Vortex to read more of his compelling interview with Poet/Author/Teacher Maggie Nelson.
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