Art in Words

I was reading an article about Laura McCullough and her book The Dancing Bear. For her, writing poetry is about discovery and she says that her poetry helps her explore her obsessions. [source] I have thought about this in the context of the confessional school but even as I write more and more stream of conscinence material to begin first drafts, I believe there is a lot of discover to be had even in more abstract work. Sometimes this produces the most surprising imagry in this art. We are not intentionally driving a piece in a certain direction trying to hammer some specific idea, meaning or image into the poem. To me, this, perhaps more than anything else, is justification for the free verse form.

~

Select lines from Robert Lowell's Epilogue:

I hear the noise of my own voice: / The painter's vision is not
a lens, / it trembles to caress the light. / But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eyes / seems a snapshot, /

~

Poet's Quote of the Day:

"The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become." ~ May Sarton

Ted Hughes project given boost

Local News - Yorkshire Post Today: News, Sport, Jobs, Property, Cars, Entertainments & More: LB6

Story generated from local news source in Yorkshire on state of the Ted Hughes Project by locals.

Upcoming Events

The new Busch Stadium in St. Louis - View of the home plate side.

Poet Quote for today....


"Baseball will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us." ~ Walt Whitman

Poetry Events:

John Ashbery Festival

• From April 6 - April 8 the New School in New York City will sponsor a festival honoring John Ashbery, the author of more than twenty books of poetry and the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and fellowships from the MacArthur and Guggenheim foundations.

Readers at the festival will include: Mark Bibbins, Billy Collins, Daniel Halpern, Bob Holman, Ann Lauterbach, Ron Padgett, James Tate, Susan Wheeler, and, Ashbery himself. Click here for more information.

Kansas City, Missouri at The Writers Place:

Friday, April 7, 7:30pm- Michelle Boisseau and Michael Waters will read from their poetry. (click here)

Writers Place - 3607 Pennsylvania - Kansas City, MO 64111

tags: Poetry John Ashbery Baseball

Poetry is about discovering, not dissecting

The Herald-Mail ONLINE: "Poetry is about discovering, not dissecting"


Nice piece written by Lydia Hadfield - great for poetry month. I could not have said it better.

More is More

I've been fairly free wheeling with my poetry drafts these past few days. I'm not sure that I've
produced much that I am happy with, but I have been spilling the ink quite well. In the long run, this is a good thing. It means for instance, that I am gravitating away from trying to force something to happen. I am not suffering delusions that I have kicked that habit, only that for the time being, I've moved beyond that.

I'm looking forward to being able to cull some material from what has been flowing on the page. It just hasn't hit me yet, but with greater volume comes greater opportunity. This is kind of a weird thought in some respects because most of us are accustomed to challenging the assumption that somehow, more is better. In this case, I think it has the greater potential, but in terms of raw material, it is not in itself necessarily better. The reality is that more is simply more to cull from. If I go fishing in a lake with 200 fish in it, I am not going to always catch more than down the road where there are only 100 fish in the lake, but the possibilities are better. I view this the same as creating material for poems. It is good to initially spill out your treasure troff of musings. Then see where that leads.

Poet Quote for Today

"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die." ~ Maya Angelou

The ordinary

Morning view of Arch from our hotel room

I was in St Louis this weekend - weather was nice. Saw the new Busch Stadium which is nearing completion for the Cardinals home opener. It certainly felt like spring time was itching to get underway.

I had a bit of an epiphany about what we see in life. An too, perhaps what we miss and I found a wonderful link between that and my view of poetry. It seems that sometimes when you look with a great deal of focus you can find the most unique and beautiful things among the ordinary.

I saw for example, in downtown St. Louis, an area richly green with ivy spread across the ground and amid it was planted the bright red on/off valve on a stem. Here was a man made flower so to speak in the midst of natures lush foliage. Some would perhaps discount this as an intrusion into nature and it could be viewed that way. I chose to look beyond that.

While waiting for my wife who was in the city on business, I happened upon a bead shop. I can't tell you how excited I was about this. I don't bead, but I have been in enough shops with my wife to know that she would have found this one exciting. Unfortunately they were closing before she was to be finished with her meetings, but I picked up a very small item for her there and she seemed delighted by it.

It has occurred to me that sometimes the ordinary is only ordinary if we allow it it be. Yes, there are many extraordinary things in this world that we can marvel at, but it is important to not overlook the beauty around us in the ordinary course of life.

I found a poet's quote for today that sort of fit into what I am saying...

"For sure I once thought of myself as the poet who would save the ordinary from oblivion." ~ Philip Levine

When I saw this quote, I thought that perhaps Levine was on to something. I have always found poetry about the simplest things to be so enjoyable. If we can find ourselves within the ordinary, certainly the objective of saving the ordinary from oblivion is a noble cause for any poet to take on.

tags: Poetry St. Louis Busch Stadium St Louis Arch Creativity