I have no formal poetics. I have spoken about poetics, and I have contradicted myself. What seems clear one day is not on another.

Just speaking. Where I'm from and where I'm going. The motion of thought in the present. I don't break any new ground. It's all been said and done.

What I'm interested in is the immediacy of poems. Something approaching improvisation, and yet edited for the page and voice. No explanations needed. A voice spoken and heard. For me writing a poem is about wakefulness, about thinking musically. The movement of that.

Someone said that you had to practically wear a bow tie to listen to classical music these days. I don't want to ever wear a bow tie when I write or read my work.

Patrick Friesen's works copyright © to the author.