in last week’s wag session, our prompt was inspired by kathy evans’ poem “Bio”: “Write a bio for yourself, as a poem.”

many years ago, I read a linda gregg essay (“the art of finding”) in which she argued for a poet’s need for “resonant sources.” in it, she writes: “There are two elements in ‘finding’ a poem: discovering the subject matter and locating the concrete details and images out of which the poems are built. In this instance, I do not mean the subject matter to be the ideas or subjects for poems. Instead, I am referring to finding the resonant sources deep inside you that empower those subjects and ideas when they are put in poems.”

for gregg, those resonant sources included the landscape in northern california where she grew up: the live oak trees, the stillness, the tall grass, the dry smell of hot summer air, the red-tailed hawks circling high above, etc. these images and sensations are present as “essences” in her poetry - even if the subject matter differs wildly from that place, those images, that feeling. she wrote: “These images and details fuel the poem from the outside and also are what help distinguish poetry from prose.”

my thinking was, in order to write a bio of oneself as a poem, the resonant sources must be the milestones - to write a bio as a poem is to trace the gathering of resonant sources, to make a road of resonance through one’s life. here’s kathy evans’ poem in full below. let it rip and be resonant :)

Bio

Kathy Evans

Born at midnight, fish were spotted on the ceiling, and language,

all song and curlicues.

Mother was a pretty ribbon, father, a painted merry-go-round horse.

I hunted arrowheads,

watched water-skeeters on the surface of a pond.

I had a pet chameleon with half a tail that lived on my windowsill.

Somewhat abstract, I loved swimming pools, the deep end,

kissing boys on the high school hill,

listening to the sound of distant trains in the middle of the night—

I walked in hot mud

ate pie cherries from a tree above a creek,

was baptized for the dead, read Edgar Allan Poe,

could crack codes, enter caves and sestinas.

When asked, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I always answered, “the weather girl.”

x

julia