From: davidsands@yahoo.com   
      
   Books on poetry will probably confuse more than   
   elucidate the process of writing. I made my living   
   as a writer for about four years, and may do so   
   again. One thing I learned is that you have to   
   write every day. If you wait until the "important"   
   ideas come along, you may wait forever. And an   
   advantage of writing daily is that you get all the   
   clinches out of the way, and are able to come up   
   with original ideas. You also tap that part of   
   brain which produces imagery. Once you have a   
   handle on imagery, dimensions open up as they can   
   only in poetry. "we live in a house of cards the   
   queen and i" is a poem I just posted. I could   
   write a decent essay based on those few words. If   
   I waited for an important idea, no dice. But   
   subtlety has a way of sneaking up on you.   
      
   My technique is to write a title, then a poem   
   based on that title. For example:   
      
       fine dining   
      
       the linen smells of salmon   
       and the one thousand sauces   
       which make it taste like beef   
      
      
   Just kind of a Texas EW coast joke. I prepared a   
   great slab of salmon for supper. Sometimes food   
   and poetry are so sisterly it's eerie.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)