This is just a quick follow-up post to yesterday’s and a note on the joys and dangers of writing exercises. This morning I wrote a poem titled Continental Divide based loosely on the exercise I described. When checking out the fact that Minnesota’s divide goes in three directions, I found the roadside marker that I linked to. It mentions a drop of water falling, which became part of the poem I wrote this morning. Or is it a poem? Is it finished? Probably not. Will it be finished? Hard to tell. It looks like a poem, and this morning I think it is a poem in some stage, so I’m happy. But that’s the danger of exercises. They may give me something that looks like a poem and feels like a poem, but only time will tell whether it is a poem I want to claim as my own. Of course, isn’t that always the case with early drafts!
Exercise
Published by Kendall Dunkelberg
I am a poet, translator, and professor of literature and creative writing at Mississippi University for Women, where I direct the Low-Res MFA in Creative Writing, the undergraduate concentration in creative writing, and the Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium. I have published three books of poetry, Barrier Island Suite, Time Capsules, and Landscapes and Architectures, as well as a collection of translations of the Belgian poet Paul Snoek, Hercules, Richelieu, and Nostradamus. I live in Columbus with my wife, Kim Whitehead; son, Aidan; and dog, Aleida. View more posts
Kendall Dunkelberg 