Step 1. Begin with Origins

• Ask: What first drew me to poetry?
• Was it sound, image, story, rhythm, spiritual experience, political urgency?
• Write a short paragraph or list that traces your earliest attraction.

Step 2. Define What Poetry Is (to You)

• Try completing sentences like:
  • Poetry is…
  • Poetry should…
  • Poetry must never…
• Don’t worry about sounding final. These are “working definitions” that may shift later.

Step 3. Identify Your Lineage

• Which poets, artists, thinkers, or traditions do you feel aligned with?
• You can think in terms of:
  • Teachers (those who directly influence your style).
  • Ancestors (poets long past who resonate with your spirit).
  • Companions (contemporary voices you feel in dialogue with).

Step 4. Articulate Your Concerns

• What themes or questions return again and again in your writing?
• Some poets center on nature, others on language itself, others on justice, faith, memory, the body, etc.
• Try to name 2–4 core concerns that matter most to your writing.

Step 5. Describe Your Method

• How do you approach making a poem?
• Do you begin with sound, with an image, with free-writing, with research?
• Do you revise for clarity, or do you embrace fragmentation?
• This is where you can talk about form, rhythm, and process.

Step 6. State Your Aims

• What do you hope your poems do in the world?
  • Console? Disturb? Clarify? Enchant? Bear witness? Preserve memory?
• This helps clarify the ethical, spiritual, or social dimensions of your poetics.

Step 7. Draft a Poetics Statement

• Pull together Steps 1–6 into a single page of prose.
• Keep it personal, exploratory, open-ended.
• You can shape it as:
  • An essay (direct and reflective).
  • A manifesto (bold, declarative “I believe…”).
  • A letter (to your future self, or to another poet).
  • Even a poem (an Ars Poetica).

Step 8. Revise and Live With It

• Revisit your statement every year or two.
• Let it grow as your work and life change.
• Think of it as your evolving “charter” as a poet.

⚡️Tip: Some poets keep a “Poetics Notebook” alongside their drafts — a place to jot stray thoughts on what they’re trying to do, which eventually forms the backbone of their statement.

Other questions

What is your writing process like?

How do you think about or understand your poems?

How does your location influence, impact, shape, disrupt, derail, or determine your poetic work?

Why does this work come from your body?

How do you experience the act of reading and/or misreading text and how does this relate (or not) to the act(s) of reading and/or misreading the body?

What is something you always wanted to have happen?

What is a question you wish you were asked?

What are (your) poems made of?

What are (your) bodies made of?

Where/how/why/in what ways do you live in your work?