I started re-reading Edward Sanders’ Investigative Poetry again this weekend (my first introduction had been with Joanne Kyger a couple years ago), and I've been thinking about "how" one might go about being an investigative poet. Some of Sanders' ideas:

"one of the first rules of Investigative Poetry: Do not hesitate to open up a case file on a friend."

"an Investigative poet of any worth at all will have to become as skilled a collagist as the early Braque."

"The art of the excellent footnote is ever to be practiced."

Of course, Sanders also goes into great detail about making files and glyphs and event grids and data clusters -- all of which may very well describe his own process, but is not necessarily the sort of thing that I’d like to spend my time doing. Perhaps I’m not as organized in my methods (at one point, Juliana urged me to make a spreadsheet detailing all of the things in Valley/Ridge that I’d covered, and all of the things I hadn’t, and I tried it out, but I’m not sure how much good it did me, as it would be impossible in any project to say Everything That Can Be Said).

"When facing or working gingerly around a hostile data-source, always remember to let a close friend, or even the police, know where you are going, and when you will be finished, and the approximate geographical location of the facing."

One thing that strikes me as I read Sanders’ text is how it is suffused with a 1970s-Watergate-CIA paranoia that ought not be out of place today, and yet feels dated in its earnestness, in its willingness to pay attention. These days I wonder if anyone notices we live in a fascist theocracy. Is it complacency? Or just a failure of imagination?

What could the poets be doing?