Realizing it is Us...

It's a quiet Saturday where I sit this morning. Everyone else in the household is off doing something but I've been reflecting about an article I read this week in Poets & Writers.  Actually I've been sort of triangulating between art, community and literary journals.

Most who read this blog will have no problem grasping the significance of art an/or literary magazines in daily life, but I do have friends who don't get it. Why should they, for most have no interest in poetry and any reading they do is for pleasure (nothing wrong with that) but I'm thinking for the most part what they are reading is pretty superfluous.

What has sparked my thoughts this morning is an arts magazine call The Newtowner. Founded in early 2010 this journal of literary, visual and preforming arts is produced by a volunteer staff in a small Western Connecticut community  that became a house world this past December with the tragic shooting of twenty children and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The Newtowner is a quarterly magazine. Following the that tragic December, Georgia Monagham, magazine founder reports that she felt like she didn't care if The Newtowner ever went to press again. But that changed as she considered the magazine had an opportunity to do something for the community. The Newtowner could actually play a role in helping to define the community rather then allowing it to be defined by the events on December 14, 2012.

What has happened since that time is to move ahead with a tribute issue to Newtown. Also a goal to put a free copy in the hands of everyone in Newtown, Connecticut.

Monagham's idea is a significantly positive message reflecting art. If a community can be defined by it's art, doesn't that make it's art all the more relevant? I think it does and I love the idea that out of this tragedy such a vision is possible, but must we have tragedy in order for us to define ourselves by art? Must it take such darkness in our lives to realize we are the art? I think more communities should explore their art. Newtown could be a ripple that undulates through communities around this country that allow themselves to find their talents and allow others locally to see those talents first hand.

Others who have lent a hand to this special issues include:

• Nationally acclaimed authors and illustrators  Wally Lamb, Lois Lowry, Katherine Paterson,and Steven Kellogg
• Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa
•   Sesame Street’s Alan Muraoka

I'm always hearing people say, "poetry is just not relevant to me" and perhaps when we see that  we are all poets, painters, photographers, singers, dancers, story tellers we will meet art and realize it is us.

Note: you can help with funding the project to put a copy of The Newtowner in every home in Newtown by making a contribution here.     Or pre-order get your own copy.

To rub meaning from moments

When I was reading Laurie Rachkus Uttich's Why We Write in the Sept/Oct Poets and Writers it struck me how important observation is to writers of all genres. Even when we protest that a poem is not about us, it really is about how we perceive the world around us. If I say all I need is a pin and paper to write I've really simplified things and missed a very significant ingredient in any writing recipe.

I found Uttich's essay thought provoking and believe she would be exciting teacher to study under, what I liked most and will stick with me was her following words:

"We observe and analyze, rub meaning from moments,

And yet none of it is truly real to us until we write it down,

And when we don't write, we end up on our knees."

The Birth of Poets

A young Belarusian poet named Valzhyna Mort (Martynava) was featured in the recent issue of P&W. From that article came this great line... "Someone said we're born a poet from this wound inflicted on us by other poets' poetry."



In terms of my own experience, I feel a real kinship with this statement. There are a number of poets whose work has touched me in such fashion, but I suspect if I were to recall one single poem, from on poet that had this kind of impact upon me, strangely enough it would be The Blue Dress by Sharon Olds. Remarkably strange I suppose for a guy since it is written in the persona of a young girl and the main prop being a blue dress. Yet the poem speaks to relationships and lack of relationships and the very first time I read it there was a real visceral connection to this poem. This was not the first such instance, there are works particularly by Plath, and Sexton which impacted me, but perhaps the strongest I can attribute to a single poem was the Olds poem.



I wonder how many others writing poetry can point to a specific poem that profoundly inflicted a wound so great that did or could have been the birth of their own inclination to writing poetry?

Order & Reason

I’ve read many poetry books where I paused at some point and asked myself, “why is this poem here?” The sad thing is, many of these are very good poems, they simply don’t appear to belong where they are or even in the book.

Perhaps the greater art than writing the poems is arraigning their placement within a manuscript. It’s an agonizing task, but an important one none the less. The paint artist gets to work his or her subjects onto the canvas as the picture is coming into being, but the poet must take individual poems and piece them together like working a giant jigsaw puzzle.

I imagine most of the time poems are written without future consideration for a broader manuscript. I realize there are exceptions to this, but even when one is writing with a broader manuscript in mind, it is unlikely that the whole manuscript will be written in a concise order or that all of the poems will end up in the final manuscript.

I heard Katrina Vandenberg read in Kansas City sometime in the past couple of years. She is the author of Atlas, published by Milkweed editions in 2004. This week I read an extraordinary piece in P&W on the subject of ordering you for manuscripts that was written by Katrina.

Putting Your Poetry in Order sounds a bit like planning for one’s death but it’s not. Still, there is something very final about a manuscript. How and what you place in a poetry manuscript may well have a lot to do with how a potential publisher views the work and it certainly can be important to the consumer once the book is published. I know I have read some poetry books that seemed so disjointed that I will likely not give the poet a second try for a subsequent book of poetry.

If you have wondered about creating a reasonable continuity to your manuscript, and don’t have a clue other than thinking you must have a strong opening poem, then I recommend reading Katrina’s thoughtful approach. It may startle you to know that the placement of poem number two is as important as that first one.

My wife would laugh at what I am about to write here. It is helpful with poetry to have a reason to what you are doing. I find that if I have a reason for a word, for a line break, for an order to copy, then there is a greater likelihood I am creating something that will work.
Will everyone see “your” reason in the work? Probably not. But some will see it, and when asked by others, you’ll have something better to say than, “It felt right.”

Mail Box

From the mail box yesterday, came my latest issue of Poets & Writers. This is the issue where P&W features the 12 debut poets for the year. I always enjoy this issue because I like to see who's there. A notable gem was among the 2005 list - Dana Goodyear. Her book Honey and Junk was a very worthwhile read. It will be interesting to see who among the 2007 group will hit my radar down the road.

Also noted a piece in this issue that looks interesting titled The Art of Reading John Ashbery.

Side note... 8 out of 10 people responding to the survey - If Spencer Tunick came to your community to do one of his photo shoots and needed volunteers, they would you talk it all off for art. There were two blushers who said no way. (OK, I added the blushing part)

Believing

" A poet must never make a statement simply because it sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true." - W. H. Auden

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My NaPoWriMo is moving along. Successfully producing one new poetry draft a day for each day of the month.

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Poetry, Baseball, San Francisco.... does it get any better than this? (click here)

"One of the great things about baseball is it brings together imagination and reality," said Jeff Brain, a poet who participated in the event.