The Poetry Federation

The Poetry Federation

Share this post

The Poetry Federation
The Poetry Federation
A Game of Bad First Drafts

A Game of Bad First Drafts

A meta poem about writing. Like florals for spring, groundbreaking. Also was restricted to a word bank for this exercise.

Daniel Henderson's avatar
Daniel Henderson
Mar 11, 2024
∙ Paid
20

Share this post

The Poetry Federation
The Poetry Federation
A Game of Bad First Drafts
10
8
Share

open book lot
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
There is a dry fire
within me. Tethered 
to the conditional 
syntactical
densely patterned 
unpunctuated 
fine succession 
of the winged gift 
that is the first 
draft of a poem. 
Improbability 
is high 
so chisel 
the discursive 
the provocative 
the nostalgic
when ending
the last line 
for it will be 
suspended  
ba…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Poetry Federation to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Daniel Henderson
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share