The Speak Easy

Rusty Truck:  Do you have a particular place or routine where you write best?

Christopher Robin:  Whenever I travel, which is often, I take a stack of letters and poetry notes with me, get a motel room or a campground and get more writing and reading done than at home. Vegas is great for poetry. There’s something about writing and gambling that I really love.

Todd Moore:  Anywhere in the world is fine as long as the lines are coming.

William Taylor Jr. I tend to get most of my ideas and notes that eventually become poems from just walking around the city and hanging out.  The bars, the streets, whatever.  I generally hammer it all together at my desk at home.

Chris Toll:  I used to smoke 420 when I wrote. I don’t smoke 420 no more. But I do like to put some music on and then turn on the TV with no sound and then sit there writing in the meaningless glow. This is when I’m close to “finishing” a poem. I usually start out just collaging my lines so I’ll often have a piece of paper in my pocket and I’ll write down lines as the Voices in the wind give them to me.

Father Luke:  That’s kind of fancy. Writers write, that’s all I know about it.

Howie Good:  I prefer to write in the morning. I  wrote in a study at a desk when our kids (four!) were little, but now that they’re largely out of the house, I write at the dining room table on a laptop. I keep at my elbow an assignment pad with notes and phrases I’ve been jotting down. The dog usually sleeps under my chair. (Pretty picture, yes?)

A.D. Winans:  I don’t carry a notebook around with me, so I almost always write at home, or sometimes ,if traveling, in a motel, when I can’t sleep.  I don’t have any real routine.  I write when the muse strikes me.

Eugenia Hepworth Petty:  I have always written (since the 80s at least) via keyboard, whether typewriter or computer. I have kept written journals as well, but my mind tends to be flying too fast for me to write things down with a pen on paper, and then I cannot even decipher my handwriting. I do just use to or three fingers to type, but it is faster than writing by hand. Sadly, I have yet to get into a routine with my writing since returning from Ukraine more than a decade ago. I sometimes wonder if I need a feng shui consultant to tell me which direction to face my desk.

Alan Catlin: Not really

Rebecca Schumejda:  My lack of routine is what keeps me going, but I do like to write in the morning before the outside world comes crashing in.

Jack Henry: No, to both parts.  I disdain routine, for a poet.  Other writing forms it’s necessary.  I think a poet needs to write in any and all environments.  The “world” one lives in directly influences their style and voice of writing.  One can write the same type poem in different place and the place the poem is written will affect the poem.
A last thought specifically to the “best” portion…I used to be one of those that thought writing in the morning was best.  Then I found there is no best.  This isn’t a criticism of the question rather the concept of best.  Often a writer has no control over the muse.  It’s critical to get the thought out and on paper immediately.  This also lends to the thought that once a poem is written it no longer “belongs” to the poet.  The determination of “best” is out of their control as a poet might think they wrote a piece of shit at 3AM in the morning, therefore that is not the best time, but when they show that piece to someone and that someone loves the work, the control is gone.

Misti Rainwater-Lites:  Sometimes I write in my journal in bed and then transfer it to the computer (MS Word, which is Satanic) in the library downstairs. Lately I’ve just been going straight to the computer. I don’t listen to music. I don’t eat or drink anything. I give it all to the word.

Jennifer Blowdryer:  I write best on a deadine. it sucks but there it is.

Scott Wannberg:  In my so called office at the keyboard.most of my prattle is in the moment

Hosho McCreesh:  I write at night, often to music, preferably near an open window or a fan to keep cool. I’m hoping to set-up my writing room exactly as I like it–but it’s slow going because I am lazy about that kind of work.

David Pointer:  Yes, I write best late at night; however, I have two little girls and have to get to bed fairly early to answer the bell for each new day.

F.N. Wright:  I can write anywhere but have one room I call my “writing room” but another where I paint. I prefer late evening hours when it is quiet though where I live its usually quiet most of the day & night. This has not always been the case in my life.

Bradley Mason Hamlin:  Reject alcohol, coffee, and pussy until your fingers explode.