{"id":163266,"date":"2023-02-22T13:35:43","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T18:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=163266"},"modified":"2025-09-22T11:45:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T15:45:51","slug":"making-of-a-poem-peter-mishler-on-my-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/22\/making-of-a-poem-peter-mishler-on-my-blockchain\/","title":{"rendered":"Making of a Poem: Peter Mishler on \u201cMy Blockchain\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_163405\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-163405\" class=\"wp-image-163405 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/lifetouch-search-results-1024x532.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/lifetouch-search-results-1024x532.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/lifetouch-search-results-300x156.png 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/lifetouch-search-results-768x399.png 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/lifetouch-search-results-1536x798.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/lifetouch-search-results-2048x1065.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-163405\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">All images courtesy of Peter Mishler.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>For our new series Making of a Poem, we&#8217;re asking some poets to dissect the poems they&#8217;ve contributed to our pages. Peter Mishler&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/theparisreview.org\/poetry\/7942\/my-blockchain-peter-mishler\">My Blockchain<\/a>&#8221; appears in our Winter issue, no. 242.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>How did you come up with the title for this poem? Were there other titles you thought about?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What even is a blockchain\/an NFT?<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was the subject of conversation everywhere you went, I got interested in the technology\u2019s claim that it creates an \u201cimmutable record\u201d of each transaction along the chain of a digital asset\u2019s ownership. I wanted to write a series of personal statements that could not erase what preceded them. Then I noticed this idea was also connected to a certain type of statement\u2014made by a certain type of man\u2014that we\u2019ve seen often, recently: a public apology by someone whose behavior grossly outweighs their supposed contrition. No matter how much they try to distance themselves from themselves, the mea culpa still contains something that can\u2019t be undone: it&#8217;s an \u201cimmutable record\u201d of all the actions that preceded their apologies, which sound far more like launching an asset than sincerity. So, I thought I would write in the voice of a corrupted consciousness that mirrors the workings of this new bro-corrupted mechanism of capitalism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I often save my drafts under file names that function as little code words or reminders about a feeling I was having during that day\u2019s writing. \u201cMy Blockchain,\u201d though, remained the official title, even as I played with other ways of reminding myself what I was writing.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-163410\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/sloshing-sound-search-results-1024x418.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/sloshing-sound-search-results-1024x418.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/sloshing-sound-search-results-300x122.png 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/sloshing-sound-search-results-768x313.png 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/sloshing-sound-search-results-1536x626.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/sloshing-sound-search-results-2048x835.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>How did writing this poem start for you?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I knew I wanted to use what ultimately became the final line of the poem\u2014\u201cto hear men sing now I care not\u201d\u2014as an opening or closing. At some point I began to read the line as a turn in the poem. I knew my task would be like the task of a sonnet: to accomplish that turn. I worked on this on and off for a couple of years with various lines, images, and half rhymes coming in and out, though one idea remained consistent: I knew that the penultimate lines would need to complicate the final line\u2019s potential to be read as pedantry. What better way to do that than to imagine it being voiced by a certain kind of man\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the type who would sing about himself for seventeen lines and then, in a different register, swiftly renounce that singing on some moral high ground?\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_163413\" style=\"width: 778px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-163413\" class=\"wp-image-163413 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-i-found-with-the-last-line-in-it-768x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-i-found-with-the-last-line-in-it-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-i-found-with-the-last-line-in-it-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-i-found-with-the-last-line-in-it-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-i-found-with-the-last-line-in-it-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-i-found-with-the-last-line-in-it-scaled.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-163413\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An early draft of \u201cMy Blockchain.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b>What were you listening to\/reading\/watching while you were writing this?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the past couple of years, I\u2019ve been playing music for a record I&#8217;m making that converses with a longer poetry manuscript, which includes this poem. I\u2019ve also been writing more, rather than reading. This is very new for me, after many years of compulsive reading. But I\u2019ve decided that at this point in my life I just want to make as much art as possible. So I read the Friday and Sunday paper, and then I get back to my own thing. That\u2019s how I spend my time if I\u2019m not at work or with my wife and children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the files for drafts of this poem took their name from the Sonic Youth song \u201cBull in the Heather<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Looking back at these drafts reminded me that I was listening to that song over and over again while writing what became \u201cMy Blockchain\u201d because the cadence of that song felt like the right accompaniment for single-line stanzas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Are there hard and easy poems to write?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The thing that can make writing hard for me is having an expectation that a poem should come together sooner rather than later. To prevent feeling this way, after I&#8217;ve published a poem, I compile all the drafts that led to it in a pdf, and on the final page I put the finished poem. These can be very long documents, spanning a number of years, and I look through them to remind myself how long it can take for something to happen. It\u2019s important to remind myself that all writing\u2014whether I perceive it to be productive or unproductive\u2014is always headed in the direction of realizing a finished poem. My main responsibility is to trust that and show up for that, and give myself less room to worry about what poem is going to come, and when.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_163412\" style=\"width: 778px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-163412\" class=\"wp-image-163412 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/playing-with-rhymes-768x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/playing-with-rhymes-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/playing-with-rhymes-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/playing-with-rhymes-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/playing-with-rhymes-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/playing-with-rhymes-scaled.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-163412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Playing with rhymes.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b>When did you know this poem was finished?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having a poem appear in a magazine makes it a lot easier to stop working on it. I think that\u2019s the moment I finally allow myself to leave it alone and move on to something else, because I know then that it&#8217;s communicating something to another person outside of what I&#8217;m hearing in it on my own. That doesn\u2019t mean I won\u2019t eventually return to it\u2014but it\u2019s more likely that I\u2019ll return to what I think I might have missed out on in it by writing something new. I find it easier to revise a poem by writing a completely new one where I bring some of the challenges of the old one into play. That way I don\u2019t overwork the old poem or get too far away from its energy, and I get to have that fresh-start feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Did you show your drafts to other writers or friends?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My wife is a poet, but we spend as little time as possible talking about our work, and we don\u2019t typically share it with each other. We talk a lot about art and music and movies and things, but not about our writing. It\u2019s been really cool at readings when one of us has new work to share and the other gets to hear it as an audience member for the first time, or when one of us gets to read the other&#8217;s work first in a magazine. We do, of course, toast to each other\u2019s publications and books, but keeping the act of writing quiet is preferable and even sustaining. It affirms the significance of our individuality and the private creative act. My wife read &#8220;My Blockchain&#8221; for the first time in the issue when it arrived in the mail, and she very knowingly said, \u201cI see what you\u2019re doing.\u201d That was all I needed to hear. It was a big compliment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-163414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-playing-with-rhymes-and-fellowesenglish-madrigal-verse-book-1024x742.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"742\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-playing-with-rhymes-and-fellowesenglish-madrigal-verse-book-1024x742.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-playing-with-rhymes-and-fellowesenglish-madrigal-verse-book-300x217.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-playing-with-rhymes-and-fellowesenglish-madrigal-verse-book-768x557.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-playing-with-rhymes-and-fellowesenglish-madrigal-verse-book-1536x1113.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/draft-playing-with-rhymes-and-fellowesenglish-madrigal-verse-book-2048x1484.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Peter Mishler&#8217;s debut poetry collection is\u00a0<\/em>Fludde<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI often save my drafts under file names that function as little code words or reminders about a feeling I was having during that day\u2019s writing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2332,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68811],"tags":[67827,68588,68619,68618],"class_list":["post-163266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making-of-a-poem","tag-featured","tag-issue-242","tag-making-of-a-poem","tag-peter-mishler"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making of a Poem: Peter Mishler on \u201cMy Blockchain\u201d by Peter Mishler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 22, 2023 \u2013 \u201cI often save my drafts under file names that function as little code words or reminders about a feeling I was having during that day\u2019s writing.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/22\/making-of-a-poem-peter-mishler-on-my-blockchain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making of a Poem: Peter Mishler on \u201cMy Blockchain\u201d by Peter Mishler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 22, 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