Friday, December 21, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Poetry and Process Redux: (Some) Rules for Writing... a Book of Poems
In my last post, I cited some "rules" I find interesting and helpful in the writing of poems, all of which are good to keep creative juices brimming, muses engaged, and words flowing. These are primarily tips for producing individual poems, for staying in the zone and wanting to create, and if you're pursuing and trying to capitalize on moments of inspiration, this is good enough. But if you're looking to produce something larger than an individual poem, the rules only get you as far as raw material. There are more and different rules when you're writing a book.
Or so it seems to me. When I was compiling my chapbook To The Ones Who Must Be Loved, I was arranging poems that, though organized around a consistent thematic element, were all written as individuals. In the first draft of the manuscript, three problems emerged almost immediately:
Again here, I had a few poems before I had the idea for the book, but this time I started thinking about 6 poems in about what the final project should look like, and to apply some tools to refine the collection as it develops rather than discover its shortcomings later. To that end, I had do develop some rules and be firm about applying them.
First, I created an outline. Is that common for poetry collections? It didn't seem obvious to me, but there was a particular story arc I wanted to present and a list of images and incidents I wanted to make sure were included; this made outlining essential - and had the effect of ejecting some individual poems if they tread on space charted out elsewhere in the collection. After the 50% complete point, it seemed that for every two poems I added, I had to remove one to avoid the "repeated used of particular images" trap. Might be a little frustrating that the last pages of the collection are coming together so slowly, but I'm so much more confident in the final product - it's worth it.
Next, I had to set boundaries on voice. One big difference in the new collection is that I'm speaking in the voice of a historical figure, which made it easy to avoid my own cadence in language, but harder to achieve consistency without repetition of "favorite words". I tried to fill my head with this figure's writings - through translation, since he didn't write in English - so I could make intelligent word choices. There are some words that I've avoided religiously and some I've deliberately seeded throughout the book, but consciously, considering spacing in the book, link to the repeating themes. It may come across the same way to a reader, but it will be the result of something I'm actively trying, and therefore will have a better (and earlier) idea how to change.
The outline puts me in much better position to anticipate the page-sameness issue. Instead of following inspiration to create a poem and trying to find a place for it in the sequence later, I'm writing specifically to fill a need in the story arc or character development, which means I have an idea of the context for the poem long before it is complete. While this doesn't mean I don't reorder later (not by a long shot), it does direct me to consider choices on for, rhyme, length, etc. from outside the poem, anticipating and avoiding "sameness... on the page."
Now my collection is a narrative with a distinct story arc, and there are good models to follow (such as the novels in verse of Meg Kearney), but the outlining technique is adaptable to other forms as well if you can have a model for the final product in mind (like BJ Ward's Seventeen Love Poems with No Despair, a riff on Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair).
So here are are my rules for writing a book of poems (as opposed to collecting a book out of previously-written poems):
Are these rules any good? I don't know, I'm completing my second manuscript right now, and this is how I approached it. We'll find out next year if it worked.
Up next: There's no place like poem for the holidays.
Or so it seems to me. When I was compiling my chapbook To The Ones Who Must Be Loved, I was arranging poems that, though organized around a consistent thematic element, were all written as individuals. In the first draft of the manuscript, three problems emerged almost immediately:
- Sameness in look on the page
- too-frequent use of faborite words
- repeated presentation of particular images
Again here, I had a few poems before I had the idea for the book, but this time I started thinking about 6 poems in about what the final project should look like, and to apply some tools to refine the collection as it develops rather than discover its shortcomings later. To that end, I had do develop some rules and be firm about applying them.
First, I created an outline. Is that common for poetry collections? It didn't seem obvious to me, but there was a particular story arc I wanted to present and a list of images and incidents I wanted to make sure were included; this made outlining essential - and had the effect of ejecting some individual poems if they tread on space charted out elsewhere in the collection. After the 50% complete point, it seemed that for every two poems I added, I had to remove one to avoid the "repeated used of particular images" trap. Might be a little frustrating that the last pages of the collection are coming together so slowly, but I'm so much more confident in the final product - it's worth it.
Next, I had to set boundaries on voice. One big difference in the new collection is that I'm speaking in the voice of a historical figure, which made it easy to avoid my own cadence in language, but harder to achieve consistency without repetition of "favorite words". I tried to fill my head with this figure's writings - through translation, since he didn't write in English - so I could make intelligent word choices. There are some words that I've avoided religiously and some I've deliberately seeded throughout the book, but consciously, considering spacing in the book, link to the repeating themes. It may come across the same way to a reader, but it will be the result of something I'm actively trying, and therefore will have a better (and earlier) idea how to change.
The outline puts me in much better position to anticipate the page-sameness issue. Instead of following inspiration to create a poem and trying to find a place for it in the sequence later, I'm writing specifically to fill a need in the story arc or character development, which means I have an idea of the context for the poem long before it is complete. While this doesn't mean I don't reorder later (not by a long shot), it does direct me to consider choices on for, rhyme, length, etc. from outside the poem, anticipating and avoiding "sameness... on the page."
Now my collection is a narrative with a distinct story arc, and there are good models to follow (such as the novels in verse of Meg Kearney), but the outlining technique is adaptable to other forms as well if you can have a model for the final product in mind (like BJ Ward's Seventeen Love Poems with No Despair, a riff on Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair).
So here are are my rules for writing a book of poems (as opposed to collecting a book out of previously-written poems):
- Explore the subject - write a few individual poems to see if the concept holds up in quantity and quality of ideas well enough to support a book,
- Design the final manuscript - for a narrative, outline the story from beginning to end. For other kinds of collections, define the "takeaway" of the book - either a model you'll follow or an impression you're trying to create.
- Write the last poem - this establishes the point you're working toward. You can change it later, but you can't program the GPS without a starting destination.
- Write regularly, targeting specific places in the manuscript when you're writing. Be aware of the poems you've already placed in these sections.
- Weed regularly, look for unintended repetition and especially for important elements of your outline that are less powerfully included than you like.
- Repeat 4-5 until you are satisfied with the draft
Are these rules any good? I don't know, I'm completing my second manuscript right now, and this is how I approached it. We'll find out next year if it worked.
Up next: There's no place like poem for the holidays.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Poetry and Process: Rules for Writing
The northeastern United States continues to recover from the incredible impact Hurricane Sandy has delivered to us. It's hard to imagine the long path so many people have in front of them to recover from this storm. For those of us who were blessed to be mildly impacted, the issue in front of is a simple one: restore a little order to things: get the kids back to school, get back to work, figure out a routine for keeping the gas tank full in the car. With that in mind, I'm considering order in the writing process - how do we get ourselves writing when it's so easy - even easier than usual - to do something else instead.
As practiced writers know, it's not really hard to find advice on how to write. And as those writers also know, it's exceptionally hard to find good advice on how to write. But if you're well-read across and within the writing industry, you can assemble for yourself some guideposts, some tracks to follow, some tips for maintaining quality and progress, that can come in handy when you're sitting down at the keyboard*, determined to just write something, and you want that something to have a chance to be good. Here are some tips from among the writers I follow:
Poet and columnist Grant Clauser admits he has "a tendency to change ... rules when they no longer suit" him, but his current rule set seems pretty good to me. Two from his most recent set are "Have a reader in mind" (something I've made a case for many times in this space - if you're writing for "no one", you're really writing for "people like you") and "Always be nice to dogs." OK, not entirely sure about that one, but then I've always been more of a cat person.
Children's writer Irene Latham has posted helpful maps for writing press releases and speaking in public as well as crafting poems, and offered up one of my favorite rules: "Engage at least two senses". This evokes the terrific imagery of cooking to me - blending multiple textures, multiple extremes on the sweet-savory continuum seems perfect for writing - blenging multiple elements of lanugage and craft and creating surprising combinatinos along the poetry spectrum. The rest of her rules are pretty good, too.
Robert Lee Brewer, the indefatigable source of poetry energy for Writer's Digest Magazine, expands the zone around the act of writing, listing 10 things that, done regularly, should keep your poetry fuel tank full enough that you can't help but write when the opportunity presents itself. He reminds us that "As a poet, you are an ambassador of poetry to those who are afraid to read it or think it’s something they just don’t 'get'." BTW, are you participating in the PAD Chapbook challenge? That's one way to keep yourself writing.
Anne Lamott - someone with pretty good advising credentials herself - said in an NPR interview that at one time she couldn't write if there were dishes in the sink; now she could write with a corpse in the sink. The trick is to use these - or any other bits of advice that ring true for you - to get to yourself the point where the act of writing is a trained reflex, a habit no more burdensome than breathing, so that when the real world begins to press in around you, it doesn't crowd the poems out.
Up next, the difference between writing poems for a book and writing a book comprised of poems. And how it took me way too long to learn it. Something to add to my personal rules list.
My best wishes to all in the Hurricane Sandy impact area. Be warm and safe, and know you're being prayed for all over the world.
* - or the notebook if you're stubbornly old school or still waiting for PSE&G...
As practiced writers know, it's not really hard to find advice on how to write. And as those writers also know, it's exceptionally hard to find good advice on how to write. But if you're well-read across and within the writing industry, you can assemble for yourself some guideposts, some tracks to follow, some tips for maintaining quality and progress, that can come in handy when you're sitting down at the keyboard*, determined to just write something, and you want that something to have a chance to be good. Here are some tips from among the writers I follow:
Poet and columnist Grant Clauser admits he has "a tendency to change ... rules when they no longer suit" him, but his current rule set seems pretty good to me. Two from his most recent set are "Have a reader in mind" (something I've made a case for many times in this space - if you're writing for "no one", you're really writing for "people like you") and "Always be nice to dogs." OK, not entirely sure about that one, but then I've always been more of a cat person.
Children's writer Irene Latham has posted helpful maps for writing press releases and speaking in public as well as crafting poems, and offered up one of my favorite rules: "Engage at least two senses". This evokes the terrific imagery of cooking to me - blending multiple textures, multiple extremes on the sweet-savory continuum seems perfect for writing - blenging multiple elements of lanugage and craft and creating surprising combinatinos along the poetry spectrum. The rest of her rules are pretty good, too.
Robert Lee Brewer, the indefatigable source of poetry energy for Writer's Digest Magazine, expands the zone around the act of writing, listing 10 things that, done regularly, should keep your poetry fuel tank full enough that you can't help but write when the opportunity presents itself. He reminds us that "As a poet, you are an ambassador of poetry to those who are afraid to read it or think it’s something they just don’t 'get'." BTW, are you participating in the PAD Chapbook challenge? That's one way to keep yourself writing.
Anne Lamott - someone with pretty good advising credentials herself - said in an NPR interview that at one time she couldn't write if there were dishes in the sink; now she could write with a corpse in the sink. The trick is to use these - or any other bits of advice that ring true for you - to get to yourself the point where the act of writing is a trained reflex, a habit no more burdensome than breathing, so that when the real world begins to press in around you, it doesn't crowd the poems out.
Up next, the difference between writing poems for a book and writing a book comprised of poems. And how it took me way too long to learn it. Something to add to my personal rules list.
My best wishes to all in the Hurricane Sandy impact area. Be warm and safe, and know you're being prayed for all over the world.
* - or the notebook if you're stubbornly old school or still waiting for PSE&G...
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Supertramp's Interest in My Health (or: Poetry and Living In The Moment)
Thirty years ago every time I opened a TV Guide I was greeted by the cover from Supertramp's Breakfast in America in the Columbia House Record Club, and invariably concluded from that cover that this was not an album I would devote a fraction of my penny* too. I never actually joined the Columbia House Record Club, but in those eager planning sessions, I never circled Supertramp as I imagined how I'd deploy my cent.
A little more than twenty years ago, I began to formulate the hypothesis that whatever music was popular when you were entering high school would somehow be popular with you later in your life, even if it wasn't your music when it was everyone's music. This theory derived from finding myself singing along with Keep on Loving You, Babe, This Is It** and a hundred other songs that had been kicking around the radio waves from the mid 70s through the time I trundled off to college, secure in my accordion and my music case full of standards and mazurkas.
During a long car ride about ten years ago, I realized that a surprising number of songs that I numbered among my favorites belonged to Supertramp, not that I ever attributed the songs to that group of performers. This in itself wasn't a great surprise, as The Cars, Styx, Three Dog Night, Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, Little River Band and so on and so on and so on had worked their way into my music collection, mostly as I acquired LPs on drastic sale as CD's became popular, then CD's as all the Sam Goody closed. But Supertramp remained out of my line of sight during the great vinyl elimination.
Every day this week, some Supertramp song seemed to be on 70s on 7 during 2 or 3 of the 75 minutes I spend in the car daily. As I had been identifying the songs to my daughters throughout the week (after recounting most of the above story on Tuesday), when the radio pumped out "intellectual, cynical" yesterday morning, they were hysterical, and I promised myself I'd put BIA on my iPod this morning. Which I did.
This brings me to a street corner a little more than a quarter-mile from my house - the corner where I typically decide whether to break my morning exercise walk off early and head home or turn the other direction and add 10 minutes to it. I had been marching in celebration to the shuffling tracks of Supertramp and as I slowed to a stop to consider my decision, a new song started down the wires of my headset. What song?
Why, "Take the Long Way Home", of course.
So what does this all have to do with poetry? Well, for starters there's the joyful notation of the moment. The ability to recognize the remarkable, but not to let it pass. Not satisfied to be aware of these moments, the poet needs to do something with them. To translate coincidence into something else. Report the moment, but not just as a purveyor of fact, but with the insight of someone aware of a great tradition of connecting this with that.
And for me in this case "this" is a thirty-year relationship with a song that popped up with a very specific message for me. My first draft has me thinking about Roger Zelazny. I'll make the connection for you another time***. Unless you can make one yourself...
* I don't know whether I should miss those days.
** The eclectic nature of my musical taste has been previously reported...
*** (HINT: The particular story I'm thinking of is in Unicorn Variations).
A little more than twenty years ago, I began to formulate the hypothesis that whatever music was popular when you were entering high school would somehow be popular with you later in your life, even if it wasn't your music when it was everyone's music. This theory derived from finding myself singing along with Keep on Loving You, Babe, This Is It** and a hundred other songs that had been kicking around the radio waves from the mid 70s through the time I trundled off to college, secure in my accordion and my music case full of standards and mazurkas.
During a long car ride about ten years ago, I realized that a surprising number of songs that I numbered among my favorites belonged to Supertramp, not that I ever attributed the songs to that group of performers. This in itself wasn't a great surprise, as The Cars, Styx, Three Dog Night, Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, Little River Band and so on and so on and so on had worked their way into my music collection, mostly as I acquired LPs on drastic sale as CD's became popular, then CD's as all the Sam Goody closed. But Supertramp remained out of my line of sight during the great vinyl elimination.
Every day this week, some Supertramp song seemed to be on 70s on 7 during 2 or 3 of the 75 minutes I spend in the car daily. As I had been identifying the songs to my daughters throughout the week (after recounting most of the above story on Tuesday), when the radio pumped out "intellectual, cynical" yesterday morning, they were hysterical, and I promised myself I'd put BIA on my iPod this morning. Which I did.
This brings me to a street corner a little more than a quarter-mile from my house - the corner where I typically decide whether to break my morning exercise walk off early and head home or turn the other direction and add 10 minutes to it. I had been marching in celebration to the shuffling tracks of Supertramp and as I slowed to a stop to consider my decision, a new song started down the wires of my headset. What song?
Why, "Take the Long Way Home", of course.
So what does this all have to do with poetry? Well, for starters there's the joyful notation of the moment. The ability to recognize the remarkable, but not to let it pass. Not satisfied to be aware of these moments, the poet needs to do something with them. To translate coincidence into something else. Report the moment, but not just as a purveyor of fact, but with the insight of someone aware of a great tradition of connecting this with that.
And for me in this case "this" is a thirty-year relationship with a song that popped up with a very specific message for me. My first draft has me thinking about Roger Zelazny. I'll make the connection for you another time***. Unless you can make one yourself...
* I don't know whether I should miss those days.
** The eclectic nature of my musical taste has been previously reported...
*** (HINT: The particular story I'm thinking of is in Unicorn Variations).
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Poetry and The Olympics (or the Pursuit of Excellence)
This afternoon, after 2 hours of Boggle and Apples to Apples with the family, I flipped on the Olympics and became immediately engrossed in the USA-Montenegro men's water polo match.
Yes, I know the women's beach volleyball was on opposite. I suppose that says something about me.
I freely admit to being a sports junkie. While baseball has always been my game of choice - to watch, to play, to simulate on Xbox, to play in tabletop form with Baseball Strategy*, APBA, Longball**, whatever - any combination of skill and competition has the potential to capture my attention. When I understand enough of how a game is played to appreciate the requisite skill, or it's one I play at a low level, I really enjoy watching people do it well.***
Of course, there's a lot to be said for the up-and-comers, too. When I was attended a cousin's little league game, I appreciated the kids' effort - at least those who seemed to be interested in the game. It was coach-pitch, the level at which you begin to screen out the kids who are playing because they like the uniform and the 90 minutes out of the house from those who want to be ball players.
I suppose I have the same feeling about poets.
I likewise admit to being a word junkie. Poetry is my baseball. Among literary diversions, it's the game I've played the longest, it's the one I do best - well enough to sometime be asked to play with the big kids, those who do it better, but under no illusions of my skill level. And it's a joy, frequently an electric one, to be around those who do it really well. I know enough of the art to know what it takes to be that good, and I appreciate it as the amateur appreciates the professional. I'm a AAA utility infielder in the big leagues of poetry. I keep the skills sharp where I can and am very, very proud to put on the major league uniform when I have the chance.
On the other hand, when you're working with students - grammar school English classes or adult learners at the local bookstore - and one of them jumps on your simple metaphor assignment and comes up with something excellent, unexpected, that makes you say "wow" under your breath and have to take a minute to respond, you're seeing potential, someone making a connection with poetry, maybe someone who's going to take it seriously for a while. That, too can be an electric moment.
As I watch the Olympics, I can't help but draw the comparison between poetry and water polo - or more generally, poetry and any of the sports that are undeappreciated in my home country but which require great dedication just to become "good". Water polo's eggbeater is poetry's iamb**** - a tool we in the know use to do what we do, invisible to most, but appreciated by some.
I resolve to appreciate more in the next couple of weeks.
* - Avalon Hill's entry into the sport. Worth a look at a game fair.
** - an under-appreciated game from the 70s. Bobby Murcer fans take note.
*** - water polo is the former, in case that wasn't obvious.
**** - dactyl? enjambment? insert your favorite tool here.
Yes, I know the women's beach volleyball was on opposite. I suppose that says something about me.
I freely admit to being a sports junkie. While baseball has always been my game of choice - to watch, to play, to simulate on Xbox, to play in tabletop form with Baseball Strategy*, APBA, Longball**, whatever - any combination of skill and competition has the potential to capture my attention. When I understand enough of how a game is played to appreciate the requisite skill, or it's one I play at a low level, I really enjoy watching people do it well.***
Of course, there's a lot to be said for the up-and-comers, too. When I was attended a cousin's little league game, I appreciated the kids' effort - at least those who seemed to be interested in the game. It was coach-pitch, the level at which you begin to screen out the kids who are playing because they like the uniform and the 90 minutes out of the house from those who want to be ball players.
I suppose I have the same feeling about poets.
I likewise admit to being a word junkie. Poetry is my baseball. Among literary diversions, it's the game I've played the longest, it's the one I do best - well enough to sometime be asked to play with the big kids, those who do it better, but under no illusions of my skill level. And it's a joy, frequently an electric one, to be around those who do it really well. I know enough of the art to know what it takes to be that good, and I appreciate it as the amateur appreciates the professional. I'm a AAA utility infielder in the big leagues of poetry. I keep the skills sharp where I can and am very, very proud to put on the major league uniform when I have the chance.
On the other hand, when you're working with students - grammar school English classes or adult learners at the local bookstore - and one of them jumps on your simple metaphor assignment and comes up with something excellent, unexpected, that makes you say "wow" under your breath and have to take a minute to respond, you're seeing potential, someone making a connection with poetry, maybe someone who's going to take it seriously for a while. That, too can be an electric moment.
As I watch the Olympics, I can't help but draw the comparison between poetry and water polo - or more generally, poetry and any of the sports that are undeappreciated in my home country but which require great dedication just to become "good". Water polo's eggbeater is poetry's iamb**** - a tool we in the know use to do what we do, invisible to most, but appreciated by some.
I resolve to appreciate more in the next couple of weeks.
* - Avalon Hill's entry into the sport. Worth a look at a game fair.
** - an under-appreciated game from the 70s. Bobby Murcer fans take note.
*** - water polo is the former, in case that wasn't obvious.
**** - dactyl? enjambment? insert your favorite tool here.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Poetry and Preservation
me·mo·ri·al [muh-mawr-ee-uhl, -mohr-] noun: something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event, etc., as a monument or a holiday (from Dictionary.com)
We live in an era when preservation of memory is a function of proximity to a Verizon Hot Spot and access to The Cloud. When tweens capture images on field trips with their iPhones and upload them into PowerPoint projects the next day. When we have developed ways to truncate even the simplest of observations into 140 characters, and taken the vowels out of words we send to two-inch screens in the hands of friends 30 feet away rather than use our voices to communicate them. And it's good, knowing all this, to spend a moment understanding how poetry has served and continues to serve the practices of preservation in this era.
It seems generally accepted that poetry, at some point in our past, was essential in the recording of history. That in addition to being the oral vehicle by which epic fiction was captured, verse was part of the "historian's" tools for remembering and retelling the stories of their people, before even those people had the means or the inclination to commit those stories to paper (or stone, or any medium).
At some point, the act of recording no longer required the mnemonic devices of rhyme and meter, which required poetry, like any art, skill, or technology, to fill other niches in service of preservation, lest it become obsolete. Surely, poetry also morphed in artistic directions as well, which we can consider another time, but poetry continues to have an essential place in the memorializing of person and events.
Some say we are suffering from short attention spans because of the evolution of media; I see it a little differently. Perhaps we no longer need the same kind of attention span - largely because information is more universally and immediately available. However, when something is recognized as worth sharing, it may now shared with a highly distilled accompaniment of language - a tweet with a Tiny URL - requiring the "historian" to find only the essential accompaniment for what is to be shared. But just like there have already emerged a handful of tools for "tweeting" more than 140 characters while still using twitter, poetry will adapt and serve.
Whether indirectly or directly, poetry still serves us as a repository for memories. Maybe it's direct, like an elegy for someone in your community, or veiled in symbol, like "O Captian, My Captain", or indirect like the poppies we purchase outside churches and grocery stores that owe their existence to "In Flanders Fields." Maybe the personal elegy you compose for a departed friend, maybe the poem you turn to when asked to eulogize them. Poetry continues to play a role in memory because of the poet's focus and vision - focus to discern details in and around a person's life or the circumstances of their death, vision to see how those detail can be crafted into something memorable. Worthy of memory, and presented in ways that last. With its crisp and concise language, poetry may even find itself flourishing as it lends itself to being shared in small bits.
Poetry will find its place in today's version of memorialization the same way it adapted to the written word and every other innovation in its communication through the centuries. It's on the poets to make use of the tools and keep it well-crafted and relevant.
We live in an era when preservation of memory is a function of proximity to a Verizon Hot Spot and access to The Cloud. When tweens capture images on field trips with their iPhones and upload them into PowerPoint projects the next day. When we have developed ways to truncate even the simplest of observations into 140 characters, and taken the vowels out of words we send to two-inch screens in the hands of friends 30 feet away rather than use our voices to communicate them. And it's good, knowing all this, to spend a moment understanding how poetry has served and continues to serve the practices of preservation in this era.
It seems generally accepted that poetry, at some point in our past, was essential in the recording of history. That in addition to being the oral vehicle by which epic fiction was captured, verse was part of the "historian's" tools for remembering and retelling the stories of their people, before even those people had the means or the inclination to commit those stories to paper (or stone, or any medium).
At some point, the act of recording no longer required the mnemonic devices of rhyme and meter, which required poetry, like any art, skill, or technology, to fill other niches in service of preservation, lest it become obsolete. Surely, poetry also morphed in artistic directions as well, which we can consider another time, but poetry continues to have an essential place in the memorializing of person and events.
Some say we are suffering from short attention spans because of the evolution of media; I see it a little differently. Perhaps we no longer need the same kind of attention span - largely because information is more universally and immediately available. However, when something is recognized as worth sharing, it may now shared with a highly distilled accompaniment of language - a tweet with a Tiny URL - requiring the "historian" to find only the essential accompaniment for what is to be shared. But just like there have already emerged a handful of tools for "tweeting" more than 140 characters while still using twitter, poetry will adapt and serve.
Whether indirectly or directly, poetry still serves us as a repository for memories. Maybe it's direct, like an elegy for someone in your community, or veiled in symbol, like "O Captian, My Captain", or indirect like the poppies we purchase outside churches and grocery stores that owe their existence to "In Flanders Fields." Maybe the personal elegy you compose for a departed friend, maybe the poem you turn to when asked to eulogize them. Poetry continues to play a role in memory because of the poet's focus and vision - focus to discern details in and around a person's life or the circumstances of their death, vision to see how those detail can be crafted into something memorable. Worthy of memory, and presented in ways that last. With its crisp and concise language, poetry may even find itself flourishing as it lends itself to being shared in small bits.
Poetry will find its place in today's version of memorialization the same way it adapted to the written word and every other innovation in its communication through the centuries. It's on the poets to make use of the tools and keep it well-crafted and relevant.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Poetry and "Poetry"
Yeah, I've missed half of National Poetry Month. Going to miss the other half, too, I'm afraid. But if participating in our month in the public eye means being lumped in with the likes of Snooki and Dr. Oz, I'd just as soon spend the time on my taxes.
There's a new anthology out, edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras, called "The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry: Timeless Poems by Snooki, John Boehner, Kanye West, and Other Well-Versed Celebrities", in which the Petras extract some found poems from the utterings of people normally hunted by paparazzi more than poets. From what was quoted in my local paper I'm sure it's quite funny, and it certainly seems to poke fun at folks who deserved to be so poked. But....
The April 9 headline in the Today section of our Newark Star-Ledger was "Celebs go Shakespeare". Ugh. Even if I accept these artsed-up celeblurbs as poems, this headline is way off the mark. First, it's not like the celebrities set out to be poets, and more importantly, this ain't the bard telling us about "the depth and breadth and height/My soul can reach", this is Carmen Electra saying "I had nice b--bs before --."
Under the headline is the tag "Poetry anthology finds beauty in ridiculousness." Beauty? Really? One of the editors explains "We're like stupidity experts. I am one of the only people who can say I proudly make my living from stupid." I think that's great! If stupid were string beans, MTV could solve world hunger all by itself. And I'm glad someone smart is harvesting that stupidity for some personal gain. But is it beauty? Is breaking Kate Moss's insightful "I just started wearing bras. It's a miracle." into
I just started wearing
bras.
It's a miracle.
creating something beautiful?
I should say that I enjoyed reading NJ journalist Amy Kuperinsky's article - it's funny and smart, the way I expect the Petras intend this anthology to be taken. But just like Kuperinsky's good journalism isn't poetry, neither (IMHO) are the creations the Petras have collected likely to rise to the level of poetry. Why do I think this? Well, Wikipedia defines poetry as "a form of literary art which uses the aesthetic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning." as the definition of poetry. Can repurposed celebrity quotes rise to that? I'm skeptical.
Now I hear you saying: Is this really that big a deal? What is it about this book that gives me an itch I can't scratch? Well, the things is that it's being celebrated as part of National Poetry Month. To be fair, when 2012 Dodge tickets went on sale, that was featured with equal prominence (if not quite equal length or equivalent imagery) in the Star-Ledger. My worry is that, just like my friends in places other than New Jersey seemed to believe at there just must be at least some in The Sopranos, people will believe the finds in this book must be real modern poetry.
And is it? Well, I promise to take a stroll through the book when it arrives in my library system, and if I find anything that sways me toward accepting these as poems I'll tweet my approval. Until then, I'll stick with Poetry Daily, AAP, and Your Daily Poem for my NatPoMo headlines.
There's a new anthology out, edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras, called "The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry: Timeless Poems by Snooki, John Boehner, Kanye West, and Other Well-Versed Celebrities", in which the Petras extract some found poems from the utterings of people normally hunted by paparazzi more than poets. From what was quoted in my local paper I'm sure it's quite funny, and it certainly seems to poke fun at folks who deserved to be so poked. But....
The April 9 headline in the Today section of our Newark Star-Ledger was "Celebs go Shakespeare". Ugh. Even if I accept these artsed-up celeblurbs as poems, this headline is way off the mark. First, it's not like the celebrities set out to be poets, and more importantly, this ain't the bard telling us about "the depth and breadth and height/My soul can reach", this is Carmen Electra saying "I had nice b--bs before --."
Under the headline is the tag "Poetry anthology finds beauty in ridiculousness." Beauty? Really? One of the editors explains "We're like stupidity experts. I am one of the only people who can say I proudly make my living from stupid." I think that's great! If stupid were string beans, MTV could solve world hunger all by itself. And I'm glad someone smart is harvesting that stupidity for some personal gain. But is it beauty? Is breaking Kate Moss's insightful "I just started wearing bras. It's a miracle." into
I just started wearing
bras.
It's a miracle.
creating something beautiful?
I should say that I enjoyed reading NJ journalist Amy Kuperinsky's article - it's funny and smart, the way I expect the Petras intend this anthology to be taken. But just like Kuperinsky's good journalism isn't poetry, neither (IMHO) are the creations the Petras have collected likely to rise to the level of poetry. Why do I think this? Well, Wikipedia defines poetry as "a form of literary art which uses the aesthetic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning." as the definition of poetry. Can repurposed celebrity quotes rise to that? I'm skeptical.
Now I hear you saying: Is this really that big a deal? What is it about this book that gives me an itch I can't scratch? Well, the things is that it's being celebrated as part of National Poetry Month. To be fair, when 2012 Dodge tickets went on sale, that was featured with equal prominence (if not quite equal length or equivalent imagery) in the Star-Ledger. My worry is that, just like my friends in places other than New Jersey seemed to believe at there just must be at least some in The Sopranos, people will believe the finds in this book must be real modern poetry.
And is it? Well, I promise to take a stroll through the book when it arrives in my library system, and if I find anything that sways me toward accepting these as poems I'll tweet my approval. Until then, I'll stick with Poetry Daily, AAP, and Your Daily Poem for my NatPoMo headlines.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Where Poetry Intersects Precision
"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is
really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and
the lightning." - Mark Twain
In my interview last year on Poetic Lines with Elizabeth Lund, I commented on how one element of poetry that most appeals to me is its precision. This comment has created some interesting discussion, especially among my technologist friends, as the definition of precise seems to argue against the condition of poetry - good poetry, at least - which creates opportunity for the reader to insert their own experience and develop their own interpretation.
That confusion seems reasonable, when you know the definition of precise is the state of "being just that and no other", to be "definite or exact in statement, as a person." But one can be precise in certain elements without being rigidly defined in others or from all points of view. Consider the Mona Lisa, in many ways a precise portrait of a woman, yet filled with elements that encourage speculation ("Who is she?" Is she smiling?" Why that background?" Did she have eyebrows?"). How about the pointillist paintings of George Seurat, which at the smallest detail are precise elements of color but which at a slight distance back combine to appear to the eye as other colors, and a little further back become characters in a scene, and which a few steps back from that are a complex snapshot open to the art of the storyteller (Sunday in the Park with George, anyone?)
How is that precision lends itself to interpretation and exploration? Precision in detail creates a vividness that frees the reader or viewer to focus their attention on something larger. This also requires precision in execution, precision in specifics without pushiness in purpose. Poetry instructors will steer students toward concreteness in word selection (precision!) and focus on images - creating in language the same situation that a viewer could have in front of a great painting. All the best guidance I've received in my progression as a writer has been to set the scene up, then step away without telling people what I see in it. It took several encounters with editors telling me they wanted my poems - minus the last two lines - for me to get that. Leave the interpretation to the reader.
Precision in art is a sign of craft, like Seurat's dots and DaVinci's brushstrokes. I find it always something to strive for, no matter what I'm writing about, and I think it shows in which poems last and which don't.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Where Poetry Intersects ... Place
There's a diner that figures prominently in my poem "Surviving the Flood". I tell a little about meeting a man there and engaging him in a debate about the "meaning" of the flood. Whenever chance takes me past it, I recall immediately and powerfully the moment the poem came into existence and the story of my conversation with the opinionated old man. Only problem is, it never happened.
The diner's not even a diner, actually, it's a small deli on a suburban street, and I've never so much as used its parking lot to make a U-turn, let alone stepped inside it for a braunschweiger on rye. Yet every time I pass the place, I remember the days when northern New Jersey was a maze of cone-lined work-arounds and so many people were suffering with the effects of our swollen rivers, and I remember vividly the first lines of "Surviving" taking shape in the silence of my idling car.
Is it a bad thing that I fabricated a diner and its small population of characters from a neighborhood delicatessen? The deli very much was part of the inspiration for the story of the poem; there's a truth in there, but I took quite a poetic liberty with the narrative. I think Stevens ("Poetry is the supreme fiction, Madame") and Picasso ("Art is a lie that makes us realize truth") are on my side in this debate, and who are any of us to argue?
A more interesting question for me is the power of the connection of place. It is absolutely true that I can't pass this little deli without experiencing again the moment of the poem's birth. And that's not the only potherem of mine that has such an impact on me. For that matter, I have that relationship with other people's poems, too. When I'm visiting Massachusetts, there's corner on a road I frequent that is like a tap from which "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" pours. There's one supermarket (an Acme, ironically) that always launches me into BJ Ward's "Mythology at the Shop-Rite". Hopefully I needn't articulate where the Great Falls of Paterson take me.
This has become very interesting to me. In To The Ones Who Must Be Loved, many of the poems have very specific places of origin, and since I still live in the midst of those places, I still live in the midst of the poems, some of which I wrote a dozen years ago. And when I visit my college campus, which I do several times a year, I recall vividly even the poems I've long-since buried for being sentimental nonsense (or reminders of people no longer in my life) - and not just my own poems, and not just famous poems or poems I know well. I walk past a particular dorm and remember a poem by one of my coeditors of our incarnation of the college litmag. And I bet he could tell me about the night it was born as vividly as I remember it. I rarely think of that poem any other time, but when I'm there, its title is as clear to my mind's eye as as the first time I read it. In 1985.
Is it that way with many poets and poems? Your own or other works that have been important to you in your writing travels? I've heard it said that among the senses, smell is the most powerful trigger of memory. That may be so, but I'm leaning toward believing that sight has its own particular power, and that place is a more powerful promoter of poems.
The diner's not even a diner, actually, it's a small deli on a suburban street, and I've never so much as used its parking lot to make a U-turn, let alone stepped inside it for a braunschweiger on rye. Yet every time I pass the place, I remember the days when northern New Jersey was a maze of cone-lined work-arounds and so many people were suffering with the effects of our swollen rivers, and I remember vividly the first lines of "Surviving" taking shape in the silence of my idling car.
Is it a bad thing that I fabricated a diner and its small population of characters from a neighborhood delicatessen? The deli very much was part of the inspiration for the story of the poem; there's a truth in there, but I took quite a poetic liberty with the narrative. I think Stevens ("Poetry is the supreme fiction, Madame") and Picasso ("Art is a lie that makes us realize truth") are on my side in this debate, and who are any of us to argue?
A more interesting question for me is the power of the connection of place. It is absolutely true that I can't pass this little deli without experiencing again the moment of the poem's birth. And that's not the only potherem of mine that has such an impact on me. For that matter, I have that relationship with other people's poems, too. When I'm visiting Massachusetts, there's corner on a road I frequent that is like a tap from which "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" pours. There's one supermarket (an Acme, ironically) that always launches me into BJ Ward's "Mythology at the Shop-Rite". Hopefully I needn't articulate where the Great Falls of Paterson take me.
This has become very interesting to me. In To The Ones Who Must Be Loved, many of the poems have very specific places of origin, and since I still live in the midst of those places, I still live in the midst of the poems, some of which I wrote a dozen years ago. And when I visit my college campus, which I do several times a year, I recall vividly even the poems I've long-since buried for being sentimental nonsense (or reminders of people no longer in my life) - and not just my own poems, and not just famous poems or poems I know well. I walk past a particular dorm and remember a poem by one of my coeditors of our incarnation of the college litmag. And I bet he could tell me about the night it was born as vividly as I remember it. I rarely think of that poem any other time, but when I'm there, its title is as clear to my mind's eye as as the first time I read it. In 1985.
Is it that way with many poets and poems? Your own or other works that have been important to you in your writing travels? I've heard it said that among the senses, smell is the most powerful trigger of memory. That may be so, but I'm leaning toward believing that sight has its own particular power, and that place is a more powerful promoter of poems.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Poetry and Interpretation (Or Not)
Though we tended to be perceived as very similar men (which I suppose we probably were), my father and I did not share a great number of common interests. There were the ones he trained into me (like being a Mets and Jets fan. Thanks, Dad.), and one or two that I adopted so we'd have something we could do together when I was old and smart enough to want those things, but for the most parts, our definitions of fun were fairly divergent. He was all Statler Brothers, I was all Billy Joel. He was about solos, I was about the band. He preferred blondes, I preferred brunettes. And he never really figured out why I liked to write and why I called it "poetry" when it didn't rhyme.
Not that there weren't things we enjoyed together. We played many satisfying card games together - spades, pinochle, sheephead, euchre. We could both lose half a day to a good bit of historical nonfiction. We both habitually looked for the algorithms that defined number sequences. But I always suspected that we came to things a bit differently, and stuck with them for different reasons.
Near the end of his life, I discovered my father liked Scent of a Woman. We never discussed it, but I always had the feeling he best enjoyed the parts where Al Pacino was giving someone hell. It wasn't all that big a stretch to imagine my father applying a ranger choke hold as part of defending something he felt strongly about. But those aren't the parts of the movie that attract me. I liked watching Chris O'Donnell be honorably passive-aggressive, giving people a more gentle grief than the caricature his costar was portraying. It used to bug me a bit, that even when we agreed, my father and I, we disagreed (and on the golf course, the card table, and the homework desk, it was clear this was frequently the case). It took a long time to just get comfortable that there was something we could appreciate together, to enjoy for no other reason than that we both enjoyed it.
Fast-forwarding, I recently shared poem with someone who's known me for quite a while but only recently discovered my writing hobby, and this precipitated a predictable discussion ("Wow, you really write poetry?" "Is this the kind of poem you usually write?" "Do you read Good Housekeeping? I saw a poem in there last year."). This well-intentioned but generally uninformed sort of dialog has at times been a mild irritant for me (which I'm sure you can trace in the archive without too much trouble), and it surprised me not to have that reaction this time. My recent rediscovery of Poe has me reliving some dusty memories that have softened my edges a bit.
This includes experiences like a college classroom debate about "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", in which the professor posited a possible interpretation of "His house is in the village, though/He will not see me stopping here" as an atheistic comment. I remember that students who hadn't had a strong opinion about anything in the past 2 months were suddenly agitated and vocal. I also remember them breaking into two camps, basically "all real poets are skeptics" versus "Robert Frost is Norman Rockwell." I don't remember how it ended, but it's evidence of why "Woods" is a great poem - it evokes interpretation and passion. Decades later, I still don't know what Frost meant. It's not important to my connection with the poem.
While it's nice to have a shared mindset with someone, I realize that's a basis for forming a club, not for creating great poetry (or art in general). I've finally gotten comfortable accepting the "This can't be poetry, I get this!" response and people's confidence that they know exactly what I was trying to say. It's good just to be happy that they have a strong response to my poems. At least we can have that much in common.
Not that there weren't things we enjoyed together. We played many satisfying card games together - spades, pinochle, sheephead, euchre. We could both lose half a day to a good bit of historical nonfiction. We both habitually looked for the algorithms that defined number sequences. But I always suspected that we came to things a bit differently, and stuck with them for different reasons.
Near the end of his life, I discovered my father liked Scent of a Woman. We never discussed it, but I always had the feeling he best enjoyed the parts where Al Pacino was giving someone hell. It wasn't all that big a stretch to imagine my father applying a ranger choke hold as part of defending something he felt strongly about. But those aren't the parts of the movie that attract me. I liked watching Chris O'Donnell be honorably passive-aggressive, giving people a more gentle grief than the caricature his costar was portraying. It used to bug me a bit, that even when we agreed, my father and I, we disagreed (and on the golf course, the card table, and the homework desk, it was clear this was frequently the case). It took a long time to just get comfortable that there was something we could appreciate together, to enjoy for no other reason than that we both enjoyed it.
Fast-forwarding, I recently shared poem with someone who's known me for quite a while but only recently discovered my writing hobby, and this precipitated a predictable discussion ("Wow, you really write poetry?" "Is this the kind of poem you usually write?" "Do you read Good Housekeeping? I saw a poem in there last year."). This well-intentioned but generally uninformed sort of dialog has at times been a mild irritant for me (which I'm sure you can trace in the archive without too much trouble), and it surprised me not to have that reaction this time. My recent rediscovery of Poe has me reliving some dusty memories that have softened my edges a bit.
This includes experiences like a college classroom debate about "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", in which the professor posited a possible interpretation of "His house is in the village, though/He will not see me stopping here" as an atheistic comment. I remember that students who hadn't had a strong opinion about anything in the past 2 months were suddenly agitated and vocal. I also remember them breaking into two camps, basically "all real poets are skeptics" versus "Robert Frost is Norman Rockwell." I don't remember how it ended, but it's evidence of why "Woods" is a great poem - it evokes interpretation and passion. Decades later, I still don't know what Frost meant. It's not important to my connection with the poem.
While it's nice to have a shared mindset with someone, I realize that's a basis for forming a club, not for creating great poetry (or art in general). I've finally gotten comfortable accepting the "This can't be poetry, I get this!" response and people's confidence that they know exactly what I was trying to say. It's good just to be happy that they have a strong response to my poems. At least we can have that much in common.
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