“By the time you get to articulation, there shouldn’t be a reason that you are staring at a blank page.” – dimitrireyespoet.com
This theory discusses 4 main stages of the creation process. Whether you are a baker, a builder, a school teacher, mathematician, aesthetician, gamer, or homemaker— the process of creation is always the same. The essence of this theory is simply the process in which we make decisions. For every choice we make, there is a varying time we spend preparing, meditating, doing, and reflecting on each situation we choose to face. As a creator, we are in a constant state of acute decision making, and understanding the 4 stages of the creation process will help reassure you that even when a poem isn’t being created on the page, it’s still being created in your mind.
Preparation Period
This is when you’re just existing in the world. Existing is where creative thought is manifested. While functioning in your day to day life, you are in action until you experience something that inspires you to solidify that moment so it exists forever in an artistic medium.
waiting for the subway, sees rats run along the tracks
Incubation Period
This is what happens after you’ve experienced, became inspired, and now began to make connections and create dialogues. Why were you inspired? What was noteworthy? This contemplative stage is where the cogs of your brain start working and you start thinking about related and unrelated subjects that start creating the narrative of your art. Many people feel this period most often because this is where the mind is most active, rather than the preparation period that operates more from the subconscious.
Watching rats run along tracks & watching skateboarders ride along the platform. Bringing together the two as those who populate and use areas in ways others don’t ie, a subway for transportation is a source of food and lodgings for rats and a source of play and adventure for skateboarders.
Articulation Period
After the creation of ideas, now it is time to turn these abstractions into tangible objects. If you think about writing in this 4 stage process, by the time you get to articulation, there shouldn’t be a reason that you are staring at a blank page when you can be writing. Write what you’ve been incubating. Your experiences, your thoughts, and your life are all treasure troves of information you can pull from.
(draft)
Kick, push, kick, push.
Travelling ten bricks per second.
They kick, push away to the sounds
of a train whirring by. Rats run
the rails along the rust-brushed tracks
while plastic bags roll along like skateboarders.
Validation/ Revision
In the 4th stage, you will be cycling through moments of validation and revision in your work, holding it under a lens to make it it’s best piece. With this final stage, you may recycle through multiple stages until this poem is fully completed by looking for more inspiration, rewriting sections, or stepping away from the poem in order to return to the piece at a later date.
The example I’ve included in this blog was a poem published in an early edition of Rigorous Mag and it was a piece that took me several weeks to write. I remember returning to this poem three times after some time in the incubation period where the inspiration for the bag and the cop both came from different situations. As with most of my poems, they aren’t one-offs and they take some time until they’re good enough to be read publicly.
To skate like them.
Kick, push
kick, push.
Travelling ten bricks
per second. Carve
and pivot.
The transit police
says, There’s
no skatin’
here… They
kick, push
away to
the sounds
of a train whirring
by. Bags
chasing behind
the lightrail
resemble giant
rats that
kick, push
kick, push
along the rust-
brushed
tracks.
*appears in Vol.1 Issue 2 of Rigorous Mag
Do you have a step 2.5? A fifth step?
I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say.
Teespring
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