Identifying More With the Pigs

DESPOT- absolute ruler
DEM- people
CARDI- heart
STA- to stand

Where am I going with this?
Athens?
Imagine this was a subversive poem.

Taking a break from working on my essay about revising a poem. I decided to list the poetic devices I used from draft to draft, documenting the increasing density of poetic diction.
The poem I chose to write about has purposeful line breaks, a nod (fourteen lines, the last two heading off as envoy for the poem into the lived future of the reader with any sort of luck) to the sonnet form, active verbs, personification, rhythm of a personal persuasion, and the neat trick of addressing the poem to its subject, a gorilla, which (who?) I have personified.

I am fond of this poem. I feel proud of having written this poem. Writing about the process of making this poem is making me question my authenticity as a poet. Where are the metaphors? alliteration? assonance? Cases could be made, but truth would be stretched. I probably was about what I am often about when writing a poem, which is to say taking a large shapeless blob of pen scratching and prying off more than half the words. I never know at the outset what I mean to do outside of move the pen across paper to see what shows up. Like the lemon juice writing that magically became visible when your mother ironed the paper. With any luck you had not written "I hate mom" or actual swear words. No worries about me, I was very careful. I am no longer careful with words onto paper. I get it all out there. Easier to x something out than coax a thought into the pen with the pigs already snorting and rolling around. I don't think about my process so much as slosh through the mud taking inventory and throwing the inedibles over the fence. I guess I identify more with the pigs than their keeper.

Writing about my process makes me see that I believe things about making poems:
remove all unnecessary words
use the most accurate word
even if I don't stick to a particular meter, I make decisions based on the rhythm of the poem as I say it aloud.
I make line break decisions based on rhythm and suspense, not, "uh, this looks long enough."
Words have meanings but they also have size and shape and sound and history and all of these qualities influence my choices.
A poem is a piece of visual art.
The title matters.
A poem is no place for an instructional filmstrip or power point presentation.
A poem should have music in it and mystery and intuitive leaps and it should be somehow beautiful.
The poem should read as though it was made effortlessly but put a hell of a lot of effort into making the poem that sounds inevitable.
Be as concise as possible without sacrificing any music. Turn up the music.
Don't allow your reader to believe you think she is an idiot.