When you write, whether it’s for a living or just a passionate hobby, you tend to field a lot of questions. Someone wants to know why you killed off their favorite character when they seemed like they would be so important to the overall story, or they question the subtext of the dialogue because they were so sure Emmitt was really attracted to Maya. If you write poetry, as I did for I Am A Broken House, you get questions about the meaning behind each poem: Was that poem about donuts or eternal life?
I don’t make a habit of dissecting my poetry or fiction for anyone, but as I gathered the material that would eventually become the book, I realized that folks were bound to have some questions. The mistake that a lot of readers make, especially with poetry, is believing that every piece is personal in nature. That’s not always 
true. The fiction writer side of my brain often employs the poet side to work out a snippet of a story within the framework of a poem. So a poem like “The Liar” (Her mouth’s a trap for foolish rats, her tongue its rancid cheese…) is not personal in nature, but the writer in me trying to tackle a subject—in this case, the Biblical Whore of Babylon—through poetry. Other pieces like “The Quiet Room” are extremely personal in nature. That particular poem is a sort of stream-of-conscious recollection of my mother’s death and the thoughts and emotions that bombarded me during that time.
So, that leaves the question: How does the reader know which ones are personal and which are not? The truth is…you don’t. And that’s okay. You see, for the poet, the goal is to fill his work with universal truth so that everyone can find a bit of themselves or their own experiences within it. If it becomes too much about the poet, the reader will lose the ability to relate. If the poetry is too impersonal, you end up with the same problem. So, to have the most impact, the poet must aim for the proper mix of personal and universal. That’s not always an easy task, I have to tell you.
Do I mind questions about the work? No, not so much. Does that mean I’ll answer them? Sometimes I will and other times I won’t. It’s not an attempt at being coy, I assure you. It’s just a writer trying to preserve a bit of the mystery that makes the work so rewarding.
J
