Sixth Poem/Process

As a writer I often focus on a more narrative/emotion approach to writing than writing concerned with process. This is not to say however that I am unconcerned with the process by which writing appears. This poem perhaps exemplifies these facts. Although it appears as a rather conventional poem, it was created by more mechanical means. The text was generated by typing out a large free write and then randomly copying and pasting snippets of the text inside of the main body until the order of the writing was hopelessly confused. This process was repeated several times, leading to many suprising and satisfying coincidental conjunctions. From there, I went on to delete pieces, paring the text block down through many versions until arriving at what you see before you.

This is a poem about chances, chance meetings and chance accidents. I was concerned with the way in which a bad accident creates a sense of irrevocable fate. Also, I wanted to show the way in which such an occurrence acts as a means of forcing the mind to work harder and faster. The normal course of our consciousness is altered and what is not then possible? Here I tried to show the way in which the one party to the accident--a car crash--extends thinking about the other party of the accident so far that their minds actually become one.

INCIDENT

Car barreled through a swath of small trees.

Now, burning.

Listen to instinct.

Dizzy, oil-slicked, filthy.

Flies talking.

Drop something.

The girl.

Get up.

Can’t get myself by myself.

Might not we make

now to unwind?

My will outside me;

I am a vision

of an earlier decision,

watching sister decline,

to leave in the hot rod.

Roaring between different and elsewhere places.

We became

one self. The event,

distinct from context, premonition, consequence.