Writing Problems: Where Do Poems Come From?

Write from the fungus of your feelings.—Jean Valentine

Fungi are not plants or bacteria. Nor are they animals, even though they digest their food with enzymes rather than photosynthesis. Thank you, Dr. Science. Nature’s decomposers, the fungi are genetically more similar to animals than plants.

Fungus comes from the Greek sphongos (σφόγγος, meaning “sponge”) and they are the most accurate of analogies for the poet in the natural world. Fixing time through networked information, joining seemingly unrelated things (e.g. plants and animals), fungi are nature’s poets.

Absorbing data from decay, they may resemble other life forms, but they’re not. They’re their own thing.

Everyone who was taught in school that poems are puzzles was done a disservice. Mushrooms are metaphors for transformation—changing things into energy. That is a poem in action.