Distinguishing your poetry from prose

The connection between music and poetry is the topic of a blog post yesterday by Kelli Russell Agodon. It's worth taking a moment to read her explanation as I believe it offers great insight into the sound our writing makes and what it can do to the poem. Check it out here.

Poets Against The War Anthology

Last night was our bi-weekly meeting of K.C. Metro Verse - a local chapter of the Missouri State Poetry Society. I did not take much of my own to read, but chose to read three selections from Poets Against The War.

My selections were:

1. Of a Forgetful Sea by Kelli Russell Agodon
2. Freedom From Speech by Terry Tempest Williams
3. On A Photograph of a Severed Hand by Jim Shugrue

I was taken by the number of poets my own age who were anthologized in this book. I recall seeing a seventeen year old, s few 20's and 30 somethings, but it is amazing the number that are my age. Men and women who were part of the Vietnam generation. There are a lot of profoundly committed voices that experienced the tragedy of our misadventure in southeast Asia and continue to be guided by the wisdom they acquired through that experience. Unfortunately we were lead into Iraq by those who failed to learn from the mistakes made in the 1960's.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

The brain lateralization test from October 10th prompted me to ask my immediate family if they would take it as well. My wife and two of my daughters have obliged. Interestingly the two daughters both scored 40% left - 60% right. Not far off my 35% - 65% split in favor of the right. My wife, not surprisingly split 85% -15% left favored. I will say, she has a strong aptitude for creativity so that 15% is well spent. Still, I am not otherwise surprised to see her more dramatically left brain orientated. She carries it quite well. ::smile:: ~0~

Let me take a moment to plug the e-mail syndication of stickpoet. If you find yourself reading these posts frequently, why not go to the left sidebar and sign up to get the posts in your e-mail? ~0~

This weekend I read a post on Kelli's blog in which she cited a poem by W.S. Merwin entitled Berryman (after John Berryman the poet).

I will tell you what he told me / in the years just after the war (it starts) and true to his word, the poem elicits advise. I was especially taken by the final stanzas of the poem.

...I asked how can you ever be sure /that what you write is really /any good at all and he said you can't //you can't you can never be sure /you die without knowing /whether anything you wrote was any good /if you have to be sure don't write

We write, proof, rewrite multiple times and finally conclude we are finished... yet worry endlessly. These are good words to remember. ~0~

What Makes a Successful Writer?

#links

What budding writer is going to pass up a headline like that? I couldn't. Besides the fact that I've often found the source (Kelli) to be an informative and positive reinforcement, it is just one of those lines I gravitate to no matter how any times I see it. I suppose it is the perfect pickup line for writers.

What is often the case when we read something like this, is it's really something we already know deep down inside. It is also quite often something that in spite of such knowledge, we need to keep hearing it and seeing it because it is something that is so simple in concept, that we make it hard to conform to.

I've come to the conclusion for instance, that forcing yourself to write through blocks is good, even at the expense of writing poorly, I've also fount that it is good to read some poetry every night before retiring, and often at least five minutes or so before writing, read a poem or two. Such exercises help me to see the magic of others in their words. I have several specific poets that I like to use in this capacity because of their particular talent as wordsmiths.

Playing with words, reading, these are certainly very basic and fundamentally easy things that writers can do. That so many believe in their link to successful writing is reason to take them seriously and make sure that they are integrated into the day-to day efforts of anyone who is wishing to improve his or her writing for whatever reason they write.

Sunday... I believe it is too early

Sunday morning and my mind is largely in sleep mode. I did notice something worth checking out over at Jilly's: The Reanimation of Ted Williams' Frozen Head.

Then I noted that Kelli responded to the NPR series "This I Believe" and her response can be read here. Thinking about this reminds me, I did one many moons ago, and decided to see if in fact that mine made it past the circular file. To my surprise, it did, and can be found here.

I've had breakfast and need to find what I did with my medicine but thinking about where I last had it is like doing mental calisthenics and it is too early for that. Ouch!

Robert Pinsky Gets the Best Gigs....

OH God this is funny. Kelli has a great post from the Cobert Report. Go to her blog and check it out.

Burrrrr..........

First Draft: It's Official...

Congratulations are in order to Kelli Russel Agodon. Atlantic Monthly even...

Another poetry quote for the day...

"Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words." ~ Paul Engle

I am patiently waiting the delivery of 100 broadsides from the printers for distribution for Poetry Month. OK, I'm not very patient, but I am waiting. That counts! Even if I don't have a choice. Hopefully they will arrive Monday in time for my KC Metro Verse meeting the following evening.

It's turned cold here. I mean the really cold, like the leaves on our bushes were young and green and healthy are bitten by the bitterness. Tulips which were in full bloom appear stripped and tortured with dry ice. This is not a good thing. Spring is under attack.

Small Knots

Some time back, on one of my Wednesday Poet Series features, I highlighted a North Western poet by the name of Kelli Russell Agodon. This past week, I’ve been reading her book Small Knots published in 2004 by Cherry Grove Collections out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her poetry is intricately layered and stirring.

A few of my favorites from the book are:

Fifty-Six Knots, which touches me with iconic references to the Rosary and the way she has woven the lives of women together, and counting, and Hail Marys bleeding from the walls. Collection plates filling with broken rosaries and the suffered woman in the corner who unties each knot, allowing the beads to fall, baptizing the marble floors…. can you not hear that sound?

If you look closely at the poem on the page, it is constructed of 4 sever line stanzas. Each has a center justified fourth line creating a pattern as though it were strung together. Genius!

Vacationing With Sylvia Plath: Each of four stanzas begins by asking, Maybe if….
A poet’s contemplation that asks aloud and sort of comes back to me as an internalized echo. If the clouds didn’t look like tombstones… if the ocean didn’t seem so final… if I had a chocolate bar between breakdowns… these all grow in crescendo and the final stanza so strong that I won’t repeat it. You need to read it yourself.

It’s Easy to wake up in someone’s poem… (I love titles that become the first line)
Couplets that capture snippets of life around us. Real people you feel you must know being pulled into the page, their lives blots if ink… and in the same way you see how people awake one morning and presto! They become poems.

These are just three… The book is a real treat to read. Kelli is not so mundane as to write simply assessable work, but something that is just over the line and will likely appeal as well to those who like something just a bit more conceptual without going overboard.

Trying to Shake A Shade of Blue

When I came home from work last night we began tearing up our carpeting throughout most of the homes. The old carpeting along with some other miscellaneous items then were loaded in a rented truck and early this morning we visited the dump.

Things are moved about here and there so you can imagine the house is presently pretty much a total disaster. We have about 900 sq ft of imminent flooring to replace the carpeting. Of course there is no way the flooring is going down in one night like the carpet came up. I have a strange feeling of both accomplishment and feeling blue. Yes, we got right into the demolition part and completed it promptly. Still, I feel like I am in some foreign building and I don't know when I will be able to return home. Of course I know when I do, The floors will look really awesome. It just seems far off into the future.

In the meantime, I got a draft of a chapbook I'm working on sent off today to be reviewed. That was good news. Of course, as soon as it is gone, you feel a sinking feeling in you get that maybe it isn't ready. And I was able to read some in Kelli Russell Agodon's Small Knots that arrived by mail yesterday. I am really enjoying what I have read of it today, and I'll more to say about it later.

I've been pretty wasted today, I presume from all the carpet stuff. I really hope I am not coming down with something. (crossing fingers) I am quite as bad off as I was earlier and I may actually work on some rewrites this evening.

The Writing Process

In reading another poet/blogger post this week I realized something. Sometimes I am all over the map in process. The post I am referring to is by Kelli. Her post tells of one way to write poems, the process she employs.

Kelli's process itself is not revolutionary in my eyes and I sure most who have written for any length of time will recognize the process. I don't use it universally but more often than not it is a version of what I do. There are still times I try to force the issue, which is to say I sit down and say to myself, "let’s write a poem about "XYZ" and I struggle through the end to write something I am most of the time not totally happy with. Still, out of hard headedness or whatever, I will try this from time to time and with rare exception, frustrate myself and to a less than desirable end.

The aspect of Kelli's approach that impressed me was her organization in working from an "In Process" file. That is where her developing or embryonic poems are. A sort of purgatory for poems (perhaps it is the Catholic in me that identifies with this) from which she will return to cull ideas and rewrite, moving them out of the file when they become full fledged poems.

The process of writing about whatever comes to your mind and moving forward with it is in fact the process I most often employ. My problem is that I have gotten away from doing a lot of my writing one the computer. Imagine that! It is not that I am trying to step backwards in time, but rather that I often write these poetry beginnings in my journal. I suppose that there are two major reasons for this. One is that the competition for the computer at home is great. You know the movies where the family has one bathroom and four children only one of which is a boy? The male family members find it challenging to eek out a few moments in the morning for themselves. Actually, that is not just a movie, but my life for many years. Now it is the same pattern with respect to the computers in our household.

I do enjoy writing in the journal. It is handy and has become a near appendage to my body. Still, the organization issues associated with it are problematic at times. I can, and do go back through it to rework stuff. But this is not a smooth process and going back to even older journals that have been retired to the bookshelf presents another whole dimension of juggling to find something vague in my memory from 6 months or a year ago.

I may have to start trying to transfer the journal work to the PC on say a weekly basis and then try Kelli’s process.

Any others want to be brave and share their formulas for successful poetry writing?

Congratulations Kelli

• Congratulations to Kelli Russell Agodon for her Pushcart nomination by 32 Poems!
• 87 year old Ferlinghetti recognized by France for his poetry.
• Over the weekend I listened to a number of podcasts from Poetry Magazine's web site. The following one concerning a poem by Dean Young caught my fancy and I thought I'd pass it along. [click here]