🌐How I Write Poetry | Factorizing the Heart
This is the English version of the original Japanese essay.
Original Japanese version available here.
Poetry is truly troublesome. Even when I try to write it, nothing comes out.
There are several ways I write my poems. I try writing them as they come to mind.
I write essays. For that purpose, if I may say so, I am looking for "material."
Among the seeds of thoughts I have collected at those times, there are some that simply cannot become essays.
When I start writing them to make them into essays, they end after about 10 lines.
My method is to tidy those up and shape them into poems.
Recently, "Autumn 2026" is one such example.
Next is the method for pieces like "I Must Wear a Hat on Rainy Days".
It was a method of taking short, interesting words like "a 100-yen plastic bottle," "the sky was cloudy," "it was raining," "I wasn't sure if I should wear a hat," or "it was almost the rainy season," lining them up in one place (the title section if it's on note), and turning them into a poem.
When this method is finished, there is no climax, no punchline, not even any meaning; only the "thought" rises up, which makes me feel uneasy.
However, there were people who understood, so if I want to "convey my thoughts," I suppose that is fine even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
The most common way is when I feel a momentary tremor of emotion in my head.
For example, "There was a snail in the room at that time"
"There's a snail, yes, it was there that time too, surely, it will probably be there in the future too."
That was all. From here, I write about the current situation and such in as much detail as I can to give it a sense of presence.
And as I continue writing, I make new discoveries from there.
"Why was I thinking about that just now?"
It is like "factorizing the heart."
I understood while I was writing. You don't know until you try writing it.
What I was thinking about at my core was a simple thing.
In "There is bread at the bakery," even though I am writing about something very simple like "why is there bread at the bakery," that poem is still loved by many people. I am grateful.
Since I don't know what will catch people's hearts, I learned that it is meaningless to be afraid.
There are times when I get stuck while writing. At those times, I reviewed whether it had become a generalization.
It is fine if it is different from a generalization.
It is just, "Because that's what I think."
"It was posted on that bulletin board"
For that poem, the chorus originally wrote a generalization: "I thought it was better to say it than to regret not saying it."
But that was not what I wanted to say.
The feeling of hesitation. If I say it, will it be seen? If I say it, won't it be invisible?
When I was talking to the AI about wanting to put those feelings into words, it anticipated and chose the words for me, so that poem is "thoughts" and "meaning" by Yumilemontea. Part of the "production" is by AI.
It is frustrating. Especially since those were words that were on the tip of my own tongue.
The chorus that was created that way was
"I will regret it if I don't say it I will regret it if I do say it"
It was.
It has become words very close to my center. Thank you, AI.
One thought...
Does not necessarily bring one poem.
Once a "thought" emerges, as long as that tremor continues, I will keep writing.
Turning red and blue, from far and near, sometimes calm, sometimes distraught.
If you write down that series of flows, a surprising amount of poetry is created.
That is the result of carefully facing my true feelings.
When it was finished, the unburned emotions were urging me on, saying "one more," "one more."
"Because it's done."
I think that is fine.
I collected fragments of what I thought, and it became a poem.
That is my poetry.
