How to Park a Poem

My trusty Subaru has developed an odd quirk. Sometimes when I park and reach to take the key from the ignition, my car turns only partway off and refuses to release the key; then I have to wiggle the steering wheel to a straight forward position and then restart the car before turning it off and pulling the key out. This has is gotten me thinking about the tricky business of stopping the forward momentum of a poem—moving from words to stillness/silence and arriving at an ending that feels like a completion (if not a conclusion)—and getting a draft (whether it’s a 1st draft or a 12th) to a point where I can walk away from it and trust that it will still be there when I return.

I have three favorite (and sometimes overlapping) strategies for endings. An image—a forward glance, a backward glance, a distant point on the horizon, a pervasive smell or a fading echo—can give the poem a still point to land on. An action—whether a repeated hammering or a single knock—can end the poem on a decisive note like a crisp turn into a chosen parking spot (this is especially true if the action is one that has been delayed throughout the poem). And a speaker who voices a realizes or declaration (ideally something less generic than Google Maps’ “the destination is on your left”) can signal just where the poem has arrived.

Sometimes even when I think I’ve found the right final image (or action or declaration), the poem still doesn’t feel settled when I finish reading it aloud. In this case the issue is often pacing and my challenge is to change the penultimate line/stanza or even one in the middle—the equivalent of accelerating through yellow light on the way home or tapping the brakes at the top of the driveway.

It’s a tricky business to get the poem to arrive at a full stop without slamming on the brakes or losing momentum too early. And sometimes the best way to find it is through patient fidgeting.

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