On Loss

What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “On Loss”?

We had an assignment for a poetry MOOC and I wrote two lipograms, “On Loss” and another called “Endlessness,” as well as a tautogram, “Acknowledgement (After Parker),” where every word included an A, and every line started with a different word beginning with A. I loved them all so much, but they didn’t fit with other poetry I wrote or journals with whom I was familiar. They almost came across as light verse, but the subject matter was quite serious and utterly sincere. I realized that I needed to incorporate some explanation, but the form could not accommodate an organic one within the poem itself …and the last thing most poets ever want to do is to feel a need to footnote a poem! So a triptych was the perfect solution for “On Loss.” I am still working out the means of adequately framing the other two unobtrusively while still maintaining the constraint of my chosen form, and feel confident some solution will emerge as it did with this one.