Monday, December 22, 2003
My Weekend
Lots of writing this weekend. Saturday I enjoyed a Christmas party with some writing friends from the northland. Good food... readings, gift exchange. It was the perfect anchor to a weekend of writing. Very positive one.
Ted Hughes - In the News
James Parker - writer with the Boston Globe explores The Wild Poet
Ted Hughes may have been most famous for his doomed marriage to Sylvia Plath. But in his fierce, elemental verse he worshipped another goddess.
Ted Hughes may have been most famous for his doomed marriage to Sylvia Plath. But in his fierce, elemental verse he worshipped another goddess.
Robert Bly - Poet With a Busy January Schedule
Robert Bly's 2004 Appearances
Jan 8 San Jose, CA
Poetry reading at San Jose State, Thursday 7 p.m .
Contact: Nils Peterson, 408-378-7536
Jan 9-11 Asilomar Conference Center near Carmel, CA
Annual Conference on Poetry. Robert Bly and guest teacher Danny Deardorff. Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday morning.
Contact: Wendy Martyna, 831-457-9340
Jan 11 San Jose, CA
Reading of spiritual poems - at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, 7 p.m.
Contact: Illana Berger, 408-283-0221, ext. 28
Jan 29 St. Paul, MN
Poetry reading for Otter Tail Review, 870 Grand Ave., 7 p.m.
Contact: 218-998-6466
Jan 8 San Jose, CA
Poetry reading at San Jose State, Thursday 7 p.m .
Contact: Nils Peterson, 408-378-7536
Jan 9-11 Asilomar Conference Center near Carmel, CA
Annual Conference on Poetry. Robert Bly and guest teacher Danny Deardorff. Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday morning.
Contact: Wendy Martyna, 831-457-9340
Jan 11 San Jose, CA
Reading of spiritual poems - at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, 7 p.m.
Contact: Illana Berger, 408-283-0221, ext. 28
Jan 29 St. Paul, MN
Poetry reading for Otter Tail Review, 870 Grand Ave., 7 p.m.
Contact: 218-998-6466
Friday, December 19, 2003
Quote of the Day
"The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century."
- E. L. Doctorow
- E. L. Doctorow
It's Friday... Time for the Stick Poet's Top 5 Blogs of the Week
Drum roll please....
No. 5. The Jetty (debut this week)
No. 4 Mikarrhea (last week No. 2)
No. 3 Love During War (debut)
No. 2 The Blue Kangaroo (last week No. 5)
No. 1 Chewing on Pencils (repeating at No. 1 - two weeks in a row)
There you have it... Congratulations to All! Sorry there is no monetary reward... Remember, we are talking poetry **Grin**
No. 5. The Jetty (debut this week)
No. 4 Mikarrhea (last week No. 2)
No. 3 Love During War (debut)
No. 2 The Blue Kangaroo (last week No. 5)
No. 1 Chewing on Pencils (repeating at No. 1 - two weeks in a row)
There you have it... Congratulations to All! Sorry there is no monetary reward... Remember, we are talking poetry **Grin**
Thursday, December 18, 2003
The Development of Poems Part II
I was pleased at the two responses yesterday's post has sparked. They provide some meat and potatoes to continue this topic a bit longer and add fresh insight.
The comment by Katey yesterday hit home with me. She said, "I once heard that the moment you decide to scratch something out and start over is the moment you should've kept going. It's the moment of diving into the unknown...the fear, that causes us to stop." This really paralleled with what I was feeling at the time I mentioned the forward by Ted Hughes to Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems. After all, It was this realization that Plath did not scrap her stuff, but work it and craft it into something she was satisfied with; even if it was not what she intended.
In Katey's post Writing Is Scary she expounds on some very good related points and provides some excellent sources. I especially liked what Natalie Goldberg said: If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you every place." The idea of giving yourself permission to write the "worst junk" is not new to me and I have often used it to get out of a rut. That said, I still at times experience a fear associated with my writing. When Katey talks about the fear of empty pages... mine is more the fear of what is on those pages. I know, it's ok to write junk... but you want to know that this isn't happening all the time.
I guess I need more work on staying with the emotions and energy... letting them take me where I need to go. The really emotional stuff - I do that fine. T can write through tears as well as the next. The concept of writing for therapy is not at all new to me.
When Stephen Dunn talks about your poem beginning at the first moment you've "surprised or startled yourself" and "throwing away" what proceeds that moment... that is I suppose where I most often get off track. Wanting to force that "revelation" to work within the framework of what I started isn't always easy. That's where I often lose it. Realizing that, gives even more significance to what Robert Frost meant when he said, "Anyone can get into a poem, it takes a poet to get out of one."
In James' remarks following my post yesterday, he pointed us to his own blog post: Island of Lost Poems He too has had a lot of poem leftovers but he explains how he has dealt with this quite well making use of a poetry e-mail list to get feed back and post them on his blog... look for more feed-back and then sometimes tweak them a bit more based on that feed-back.
He spoke of setting a goal of writing a poem a day. Getting an image and letting a few words flow from there. Putting less into planning and letting the energy be more directed to the creative process.
I have appreciated hearing from these two peers sharing their insights and the collective sum of their exploring how this all relates to their own work. It has added to my original thoughts on the creative prowess of Sylvia Plath.
The comment by Katey yesterday hit home with me. She said, "I once heard that the moment you decide to scratch something out and start over is the moment you should've kept going. It's the moment of diving into the unknown...the fear, that causes us to stop." This really paralleled with what I was feeling at the time I mentioned the forward by Ted Hughes to Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems. After all, It was this realization that Plath did not scrap her stuff, but work it and craft it into something she was satisfied with; even if it was not what she intended.
In Katey's post Writing Is Scary she expounds on some very good related points and provides some excellent sources. I especially liked what Natalie Goldberg said: If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you every place." The idea of giving yourself permission to write the "worst junk" is not new to me and I have often used it to get out of a rut. That said, I still at times experience a fear associated with my writing. When Katey talks about the fear of empty pages... mine is more the fear of what is on those pages. I know, it's ok to write junk... but you want to know that this isn't happening all the time.
I guess I need more work on staying with the emotions and energy... letting them take me where I need to go. The really emotional stuff - I do that fine. T can write through tears as well as the next. The concept of writing for therapy is not at all new to me.
When Stephen Dunn talks about your poem beginning at the first moment you've "surprised or startled yourself" and "throwing away" what proceeds that moment... that is I suppose where I most often get off track. Wanting to force that "revelation" to work within the framework of what I started isn't always easy. That's where I often lose it. Realizing that, gives even more significance to what Robert Frost meant when he said, "Anyone can get into a poem, it takes a poet to get out of one."
In James' remarks following my post yesterday, he pointed us to his own blog post: Island of Lost Poems He too has had a lot of poem leftovers but he explains how he has dealt with this quite well making use of a poetry e-mail list to get feed back and post them on his blog... look for more feed-back and then sometimes tweak them a bit more based on that feed-back.
He spoke of setting a goal of writing a poem a day. Getting an image and letting a few words flow from there. Putting less into planning and letting the energy be more directed to the creative process.
I have appreciated hearing from these two peers sharing their insights and the collective sum of their exploring how this all relates to their own work. It has added to my original thoughts on the creative prowess of Sylvia Plath.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
The Development Of Poems
What becomes of all those poems we start? Ideas that seem great at one point and then the bottom sort of drops out of everything and we turn the page and move on. I have many of those. Some I've scribbled over as if to add my insult to the effort or mark them for death.
In the forward to Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes writes, "By the time of her death on 11 February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my knowledge, she never scrapped any of her poetic efforts. With one or two exceptions, she brought every piece she worked on to some final form acceptable to her, rejecting at most the odd verse, or a false head or a false tail. Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn't get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy. The end product for her was not so much a successful poem, as something that had temporarily exhausted her ingenuity."
Considering Hughes' words against the backdrop of the book he wrote the forward for, it is worth noting that Collected Poems is the total sum of Plath's 224 poetic works between 1956 and her death in 1963. Plus some fifty poems selected from her pre-1956 writings. It is also significant to note that this book was a Pulitizer Prize winner.
If the assessment by Ted Hughes is correct, that Sylvia Plath did not waste away her work, but endeavored to craft each piece into something she was satisfied with, she did so quite well by literary standards of her time.
I wonder how many like myself have pages, or perhaps volumes of scraped work. Speaking for myself, I often subscribe to the parctice of not wanting to force something to work. I'm not suggesting that is a bad attitude to take, but I wonder how many times I really bail out on something without truly exhausting possibilities. I think I may be hearing muffled voices of some of those old ideas calling from the pages of writing journals I've put aside.
In the forward to Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes writes, "By the time of her death on 11 February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my knowledge, she never scrapped any of her poetic efforts. With one or two exceptions, she brought every piece she worked on to some final form acceptable to her, rejecting at most the odd verse, or a false head or a false tail. Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn't get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy. The end product for her was not so much a successful poem, as something that had temporarily exhausted her ingenuity."
Considering Hughes' words against the backdrop of the book he wrote the forward for, it is worth noting that Collected Poems is the total sum of Plath's 224 poetic works between 1956 and her death in 1963. Plus some fifty poems selected from her pre-1956 writings. It is also significant to note that this book was a Pulitizer Prize winner.
If the assessment by Ted Hughes is correct, that Sylvia Plath did not waste away her work, but endeavored to craft each piece into something she was satisfied with, she did so quite well by literary standards of her time.
I wonder how many like myself have pages, or perhaps volumes of scraped work. Speaking for myself, I often subscribe to the parctice of not wanting to force something to work. I'm not suggesting that is a bad attitude to take, but I wonder how many times I really bail out on something without truly exhausting possibilities. I think I may be hearing muffled voices of some of those old ideas calling from the pages of writing journals I've put aside.
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