A lot happens by accident in poetry.

"A lot happens by accident in poetry." Thus spoke Howard Nemerov, poet of precision yet humble before mystery. His words strike at the heart of creation itself: that while craft, discipline, and thought are necessary, there remains in poetry an element of chance, of surprise, of the unforeseen. The poet may set out with one intention, yet the words, once breathed into being, take on a life of their own. It is as if the poem itself chooses to reveal what the poet did not know they carried. The accident becomes revelation.

The ancients understood this mystery well. The Greeks believed the poet was seized by the Muse, that divine presence which whispered beyond the reach of reason. To them, what Nemerov calls “accident” was inspiration, a visitation from beyond the self. A poet might plan the meter and the rhyme, but suddenly a line would come, unbidden, radiant with meaning. It was not the product of calculation but of surrender. And so poetry has always stood at the border between skill and accident, between the discipline of the writer and the wild gift of the unknown.

History gives us countless examples. Consider Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his dream-born vision of Kubla Khan. He set out to write a poem after reading of distant lands, but it was in a half-sleeping state that the poem’s lines poured forth in a torrent of imagery. When he awoke, he tried to capture them, only to be interrupted, and thus the poem remained unfinished. Yet even in fragment, it is one of the most celebrated works of English verse. Here we see Nemerov’s wisdom: accident brought forth a masterpiece, though it was never intended as such.

Or think of Emily Dickinson, writing in her quiet Amherst room. Many of her poems, scribbled on scraps of paper, seem almost accidental in their construction—short lines, slanted rhymes, dashes scattered like fragments. Yet these “accidents” of form became her signature, a new kind of rhythm that reshaped the way we read poetry. What might have seemed careless or incomplete became, in truth, a new path for the art itself. Poetry thrives on such accidents, where what is unplanned becomes essential.

This is not to say that poetry is born of accident alone. Skill, reading, memory, and craft are the soil in which the seeds grow. But the greatest blossoms often spring from what was not planted, from a word that slips into a line, from an image that appears unbidden, from a thought that takes a turn no logic predicted. The poet, like the alchemist, must learn to recognize the gift when it arrives, to accept the accident as part of the design.

The lesson here is both humbling and liberating: do not demand that every line, every creation, be perfect from the beginning. Allow for the accident. Do not fear when a poem veers away from your plan, for it may be carrying you closer to truth than your intention could. Often in life, as in poetry, the greatest discoveries are not those we planned, but those that surprised us, those that broke through our careful maps and revealed a new world.

Practically, this means cultivating openness. When writing, do not strangle the poem with control; let it breathe, let it wander. When living, do not despise the unexpected turn; it may be the very moment that shapes your destiny. Embrace the accidents, in art and in life, for they often carry messages the conscious mind could never invent.

So remember, children of tomorrow: "a lot happens by accident in poetry." The accidents are not failures but gifts. They are the whispers of the muse, the footprints of the unknown guiding us into revelation. Honor them. Welcome them. And know that in every accident, whether in a poem or in life itself, there may lie the very truth you were meant to discover.