Obsessions Are the Stuff of Poems

This post goes behind the scenes of a recently published poem. If you want to read it first, you can find it here.

Obsessions are the stuff of poems. Sometimes we chase them and sometimes they follow us around for years. Sometimes a poet becomes obsessed with a sound, sometimes with an image or an idea. Obsessions are like spells—siren calls for repetition and alchemy.

I’ve had a word crush on “fathom” since fifth grade when I found it in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I loved the sound of it. I loved that there was a specific word just for measuring the depth of water. And I loved that the word also meant to understand. But I also liked that fathom could mutate into something trickier; that which is unfathomable cannot be understood.

For decades, I’ve loved finding “fathom” in nautical stories and mysteries, but I could only use fathom every so often in poems, and usually only in verb form (how often, after all, do you need to measure six feet of water depth?). It kept showing up in poems and I kept editing it out.

And then suddenly the whole world became very interested in measuring six-foot increments of distance. And I found myself reaching for my obsession and writing “Approximating Fathoms”.

This poem taught me that obsessions aren’t just about inspiration; obsessions really are the stuff of poems—they provided the tangible (and measurable) details that help us grip our anxieties and hopes so we can wrestle them into poems. Obsessions give shape and structure to abstract feelings. They call us to investigate our depths.

Whatever this October brings you, I hope you find time to follow your obsessions—or to listen to their haunting whispers.

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