One of poetry’s gifts is that it can hold up a mirror for us, one that allows us to freshly see ourselves and our lives, to feel how others have lived our experiences.

That’s what the best poets do. I’m still working at it, but happily learning from a master, Barry Dempster, one of my favourite poets. He doesn’t do private tuition, but that hasn’t stopped me from conducting a private Barry Dempster tutorial program. Reading his work – and listening to him whenever I can – has taught me much about how to use imagery to transform the ordinary. For an example of how he does it, take a look at The Conversation.

At a recent reading, Barry told us he takes his students on ‘poetry walks’ where he gets them to examine every bush and leaf, every crack and berry up close, so that detail can inform their work. Good idea, I thought. But living as I do with migraines and fibromyalgia, I don’t always make it outside. Fortunately, I have years of remembered observation to draw on.

So when it comes time to write my poem a day, I simply go somewhere. I relive an experience, working to recapture its essential details.

Here’s an example, first draft:

The higher we go, the more we hear

We sleep high, your guest bed floating
among Toronto’s clouds, the down-slide
of windows the blankest of mirrors reflecting
the preening weather, bluest sky to grey’s layered
weight. Up here, I’d thought height contained
only multitudes of bird song on wind, gravity holding
a city’s discord to the ground. I was wrong.
Each intersection squawks us awake, the horns of hurry
blaring as engines rev in lighted anticipation.
The weighty whine of air-brakes lift us from
our warm blanketed cocoons and into the bright glare
of the truck’s cab, radio crooning the long-haul,
a dog’s nuzzle cold on the hand gripping gears.
But we travel just a few miles down the Gardiner,
Lake Ontario sparkling our eyes awake, before
your furnace comes on, a low humming of warmth
covering our ears. We roll into it, skin-to-skin
with work’s release, and sleep until coffee enters.

Remember, the single rule of my writing a poem a day is to write the first words that come into my head. They’re usually the title. There is no rule that says I have to keep those words, so they’re quite often edited out. The rule is simply there so I don’t get in my own way, dithering over the blank page. I find my subconscious almost always has a plan for the poem. My job is to listen. And then to fix the results.

The first thing I did in this poem was to change the perspective from ‘We’ to ‘I’. It’s pretty hard to convince a reader that both members of a couple are imagining being in a truck’s cab at the same time. It’s much stronger to use a single, clear voice.

Then I had to get rid of repetition: ‘high’ in the title and the first line meant one had to go. So I changed the title. And I had ‘awake’ twice. And ‘until’. Bad. But then I chose to deliberately repeat ‘I’d thought’ to emphasize my narrator’s preconceptions. And I still begin and end with ‘sleep’. While revising the poem over the last few weeks, I’ve carefully considered each word and its role.

That led me to pare images at the beginning and the end, where I don’t want the distraction. I shortened line lengths. And finally, I took out the coffee. I don’t like coffee. Even the scent of it in a poem disturbs me.

Here’s the current final version:

Heard Visiting You

I sleep high, your guest bed floating
among Toronto’s clouds, up a slide
of windows, blank mirrors reflecting
weather’s changing face. I’d thought
height contained nothing more
than wings, the streaks of bird
and plane singing songs
only sky can hear. I’d thought
gravity held a city’s discord
to the ground. I was wrong.
Each intersection squawks me
awake, the horns of hurry blaring
as engines rev in lighted anticipation.
I’m lifted from warm blankets
by the weighty whine of air-brakes
into the bright glare of a truck’s cab,
radio crooning the long-haul,
a dog’s nuzzle cold on the hand
gripping gears. I travel a few miles
down the Gardiner, Lake Ontario sparkling
at my eyes until your furnace
comes on, a low humming of warmth
covering my ears. I pull it closer
as sleep slides me away

This poem was published on the Parliament of Canada’s Poem of the Month website, December 2010.