Writing in One Burst

Notes from a writing workshop at the Dominican MFA Creative Writing Retreat, Fall 2024

Writing From The Body

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) had a number of teachings related to the idea of writing in one burst, one of which is: to see something in a flash of light. This teaching was recorded by his student Doho and translated by Yoshiharu Ozeko as: In a flash of light – when an idea arises write it down roughly in that moment before it disappears. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we might hear this and connect it to the Beats’  first thought, best thought which focuses on a creative burst rather than a reflective editing process stressing a body-based, sensory presence. 

Basho also taught that there are two ways of writing a poem – through an elevated heart or through craft alone. He explains that a practiced writer can write a poem through craft alone but it won’t have the luminosity of a poem that is written through an elevated heart. What Ozeko translates as an elevated heart, we might call inspiration or a moment of insight. But part of the concept is that  an elevated heart doesn’t just happen, it can be cultivated, developed intentionally. One can take deliberate steps to get into a create space for finding or making a poem. We can set ourselves to be closer to poetry. Often, we step in this direction through reading poems but I think in terms of getting into a space of writing new poems, it’s equally important to think with the body. 

I was talking with my musician friend about writing in the morning or the evening and about practicing music. I said I would miss too many days if I wrote later because the day gets away from me. He laughed, wishing he could practice earlier in the day but his gigs are always at night. He needs to practice at the same time of day as he performs so that his internal clock, his energy and focus is accustomed to playing then. He practices at night so he can play at night. This is the art making of the body. 

We write from the body – we cultivate a writing practice not with the mind but through the body. To write with Basho’s elevated heart is a practice that can be nurtured and developed. Some writers do this by returning to places that inspire their work or by writing every day. 

Poet Nicole Callihan, author of chigger ridge (Word Works) and many other books, describes her process of writing in one burst:

“I mostly only write in one fell (& sometimes failed!) swoop. I see my revision as the many poems that go to live quietly in the cloud, like those are preparations that allow me to write the actual poem. Usually, I take 20-30 minutes and just go… A consistent, almost daily practice of these cordoned moments allows me almost immediate access to my deepest language. And so it’s the burst, yes, but it’s also about making the space–sustaining the flammable conditions–where that burst can exist.”

It’s Callihan’s daily practice that primes her to write in one burst. Rather than a long editing process, she can simply edit by choosing between writing from different days. The poems are immediate and raw and as we read them, we step into the energy of that moment.

 A Different Kind of Revision

One thing about poems written in one burst is there are often traces of the writing process in the finished poem. We see this sometimes in paintings with paint drops on the canvas. Dean Rader’s Poem Begun on the Day of My Father’s funeral and Completed on the first Day of the New Year is a wonderful example of this. We often think of revision as changing words and line breaks, adding phrasing or cutting out lines, but another option is Callihan’s approach to revision, which is based on a process of selection. Write one poem every day and after three months, choose the best poem and leave the rest behind. 

Basho’s elevated heart involves cultivating one’s poetic attention. Stepping into momentary attention. It’s also an intuitive process, one we feel through the body. Revising poems written in a burst or with an elevated heart is a sensory process. In revision, we can stay in that space and attune to our body-based experience of the poem. We don’t need to decide when a poem is done based on the poem on the page. How we feel internally about the poem, if it has done what it needed to do in our process, that is also a way the poem can reach a point of being finished. And, of course, what we might need to embrace is that a poem is never finished, only abandoned.

Many poets write all in one burst, or at least have some poems that arrived fully formed. Below are links to some wonderful poems written this way by Nicole Callihan and Daisy Fried. Mary Austin Speaker’s book, The Bridge, was written entirely while commuting on the train over a bridge. Our phones have given us easy access to be always looking, checking, and texting back while we are moving through the day. Writing in one burst cultivates a different kind of attention, that we get into a space to write, the same space that we hope poems will pull us into.

Sources and Reading Recommendations:

Nicole Callihan‘s poems The End of the Pier, 103 Pine Ln. and Marriage

Daisy Fried’s series, Quickies in Widowhood

Dean Rader’s Poem Begun on the Day of My Father’s funeral and Completed on the first Day of the New Year

Mary Austin Speaker, poem from The Bridge in the Boston Review.

For more on Basho’s teachings, see Toshiharu Oseko’s, Basho’s Haiku.

Dean Rader’s poem foregrounds traces of the writing process. Fried’s poem Yahrzeit from Quickies in Widowhood pairs nicely with Rader’s poem. And if it were online, I would also link to giovanni singleton’s series following the death of Alice Coltrane in her book Ascension (Counterpath, 2012). Subtheme: these are also all poems of mourning.