Held Breath

Introduction To Held Breath

Some poems arrive with a destination already in mind.

Others simply begin walking.

Held Breath was one of the latter.

The starting point was a simple challenge: write about something that has been waiting. I knew only that whatever was waiting should not be named, and that the reader should be left wondering what it was waiting for.

From there, the poem found its own way.

I began with the landscape—the old bóithrín, the grass, the trees, the changing light—and gradually the feeling of waiting emerged from the place itself. Nothing in the landscape was in a hurry. Nothing demanded an answer. The further into the poem I went, the more the idea of waiting seemed to belong not to one particular thing, but to everything around it.

That was when I knew I had to resist the temptation to explain.

One of the things I am learning about poetry is that sometimes the writer knows more than the reader needs to know. A poem does not always have to reveal its answer. Sometimes it is enough to leave a few clues and allow the reader to decide what they see.

The poem also became another lesson in editing.

I am beginning to understand that editing is not simply correcting mistakes after the writing is finished. It is more like renovating a room from beginning to end—moving something that is in the wrong place, taking away something that does not belong, opening a little more space where the room feels cramped, and occasionally putting something back exactly where it was because, after all that work, it was right there in the first place.

Words have had to earn their place.

So have punctuation, pauses, line breaks and silence.

Some changes have made the poem clearer. Others have simply made it different. Learning to recognise the difference has perhaps been one of the most useful parts of the process.

Eventually there comes a point when another change may be possible, but no longer feels like an improvement.

That is when I put the pen down.

Held Breath is not my best poem. I don’t think every poem has to be. But it is the poem I could make from this idea, at this point in my journey, and I am satisfied that it has become what it needed to become.

And perhaps that is fitting.

Because some things are worth waiting for.

And some things simply continue to wait.

Kings Quote:
We have to listen to what is being said, just as we must learn to see what is already before us.

bóithrín : Small Road, lane : BOH-reen

Thank You for joining me on this journey of writing and discovery. Poetry, for me, is a continuous learning process. A way of finding my own voice and writing style and exploring the beauty of words.

I also write from the heart and never with the intention to cause offence. However, if anything I write ever causes discomfort, please know it is never my purpose. I am only human and occasionally typos or small errors may slip through; I do my best to correct them as soon as they are found.

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With Gratitude,

Pat Fitzgerald