Sarah Kay

It's a navigation tool.

It helps me maneuver my way through my own living.

And sometimes that's what the poem is for.

Sometimes I write a poem and I just needed to write it.

And then I go, thank you for your service.

And I put it in the drawer and that's the end of that.

And sometimes I write a poem and there's something about the poem that I think is

someone else might get something out of this poem.

And then I get to decide, okay, well, does this poem want to live on the page?

Does this poem want to live out loud in front of people?

Am I thinking about what the words are doing physically on the page and the way my eye is pulled across the words?

Or am I thinking about what my face and my voice and my

intonation and my hand gestures are going to be?

What are the tools at my disposal when I start to think about sharing this poem with other people if I decide to share it?

And then if I get all the way to, and now we're building a collection,

then it's a whole different set of questions.

What is this collection for?

What is this collection doing?

Is there an arc?

And what poems serve the arc?