The first chapter of The Poet’s Companion is all about writing what you know. The first prompt I chose to do was about writing a daily, routine task. I found I struggled with this quite a lot. Of course, birds (I know) showed up in the poem, so my overexercised editing voice was roasting me the entire time I wrote for thinking anything good can come of the one trillionth poem with birds. But I am here to intentionally decouple the process of writing from the process of literally anything else, so here’s a quick bird poem, with all its rights sacrificed.
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The Do Over Program
There are diminishing returns in receiving a formal education for creative writing. I have a BFA and an MFA, and consider the experience of earning the MFA to be the greatest regret of my adult life. It’s not that I didn’t learn all the skills I needed to learn: craft, analysis, criticism, cold reading, writing for a cold read. It’s that learning these skills, and perpetually reinforcing them, clutters the font from which the writing itself springs. For me, this eventually meant no more writing.
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Nicole Connolly Writes 