How a Poem Happens

HOW A POEM HAPPENS

I think many poems, especially ones that come from autobiographical experience, have to weigh the value of truth and Truth.

Tony Hoagland

I believe in such a thing as getting lucky sometimes. I also believe that one of the gifts we cultivate as working poets is the instinct for where a poem can be found—the coordination of details and dimensions, the angularity with which a tone can be established or how a story can be positioned, to best catch the light.

Emilia Phillips

I don't often write poems that overtly begin out of a reading experience. It's a subject that I fear others find boring, but this one seemed so charged because of its context that I couldn't help but write it.

Traci Brimhall

I think many poems, especially ones that come from autobiographical experience, have to weigh the value of truth and Truth.

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In 2009, Brian Brodeur created “How a Poem Happens,” a digital archive of interviews he's conducted with over two hundred poets including National Book Award winners Marilyn Hacker and Terrance Hayes, as well as Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Dunn, Claudia Emerson, Galway Kinnell, Maxine Kumin, Philip Levine, and Richard Wilbur. "How a Poem Happens" is distinct from other poetry-related blogs in that it focuses on how one specific poem was made.

It has been used in the classrooms of graduate, undergraduate, and even high-school creative writing and literature classes as a free poetry anthology with accompanying commentary on craft. A Craft of Poetry panel about the blog, “How a Poem Happens: Five Poets Explore How their Poems Were Made,” was a featured event at the 2011 AWP conference in Washington, DC.