Poetic Risk

This whole business of art and risk that I mentioned in my post yesterday came about as a result of listening to an NPR broadcast in which a person was talking about a architect with a particular flair for bold artistic design. The person related how his work involved great risk taking and asked if, "after all isn't that what art is about, being able to take risks?"

The suggestion of artists being able to take risks with their work was not totally new to me. Still, it is not something that I dwelled upon and really didn't extent my thoughts so far as my own poetry.

In comment to my post yesterday, Roxx talked about the risk involved in submitting your work. And while I too thought about this, I have sent out enough material and read enough of my work in public that I am for the most part not particularly wary of such exposure any longer. At least not to the point of dwelling on it with dread or fear of rejection. I know this is a hurdle most all of us have to get over at some point and I don't want to minimize what Roxx has said, but I am thinking more about the risk in the act of creating art itself. Forget submitting it anywhere for a moment and think about writing in a journal a poem or poems. Where is the risk that you are taking, or are you?

It is a challenge to cycle through ideas sometime and write about things that have been touched upon a million times before by others. You have to be different in your approach. Perhaps this has something to do with the advent of post modern poetry and many gravitating away from structured forms and or creating new ones themselves.

Stepping outside the box and doing something different or applying yourself diligently to a form or subject matter that has historically been uneasy for you... these are risks. The first erasure poems involved risk. The first Hay(na)ku poems were risks... and so on. If you are putting something together that you believe in, but know is different and challenges the norm, and may or may not be widely accepted, than you have risk.

So now, I need take a good hard look at myself and ask just how often am that I allowing myself to take risks with my writing?

tag: poetry and writing

Wrapping Up The Weekend

The weekend is history. I hate how that sounds so final.

I was able to tinker with a couple of rough drafts and also brainstorm for some new ideas. Nothing new submitted, and no rejection letters for that matter.

To the right, Barry at the dog park on Saturday. Barry is not well socialized where other dogs are concerned. He looks pretty happy go lucky here, but in truth he hardly interacted with any other dogs and was mostly annoyed at those who wanted to check him out.

Submissions to the first issue of Rogue Poetry Review have been coming in. There is still time to submit. More details here.

Listened to a podcast of Janet Holmes being interviewed by Amy King and I found it particularly interesting. Also Holmes read form of her Dickinson Erasure poems. I found them to be quite resolute and efficacious. Talk about no wasted words.

Just throwing this question out for people to be thinking about. If taking risks is a sign of a true artist, then what do you consider risk taking as a poet and how well do you fair by your own standards? I've been thinking about this myself and will blog more in depth on it soon.



Tags: Janet Holmes Amy King Rogue Poetry Review Poetry and Writing

Peaches & poems lie mangled among the dead | News | The Australian

Peaches & poems lie mangled among the dead News The Australian: "UNDER the rubble of a stone shack in a peach orchard, metres from the Syrian border, lay the deeply personal effects of 33 new casualties of war.
A tattered red book of love poems, with stickers and photos of someone's beaming wife, lay metres from a frugal mattress. Blood-stained shoes sat on a rock nearby, alongside an audit book documenting trucks that had left with their cargo in the past month. "

Warrantless wiretaps ruled unconstitutional

Warrantless wiretaps ruled unconstitutional:

It didn't take a surgeon or a rocket scientist, just a federal court judge to figure out how many ways the Administration is wrong on this issue.

"There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,'' Taylor said in finding that the administration's wiretapping violates an array of constitutional rights and a 1978 law requiring court warrants for electronic surveillance related to terrorism or espionage. It was the first ruling in the nation on the legality of the program.

ba-da-bing!


tag: Warrantless wiretap

Filtered Onto the Page

The thoughts that make their way onto a page- where do they come from? They appear like rays of light filtered through the branches and leaves of our interwoven mind.

Layers of experiences, memories, fears, joys, exhilaration, dreams, wishes, desires, pain, love and of course hatred. Then of course we create variations of these by mixing up from bits of two or more like a painter on a palette. A bit of dream with a little fear added, and so on.

Such thoughts make up our very human existence. They also make up our poetry. Isn't poetry in some way very much like the whole human experience?

Meet Poet: Michael Ondaatje

"It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not." ~ Michael Ondaatje

Ondaatje was born in 1954 and immigrated to Canada at age 19 from Ceylon or what is now Sri Lanka. He presently resides in Canada and you can find out more about him an his work at Famous Poets

A couple of his poems:

Application For A Drivers License [click here]

The Time Around Scars [click here]

Why is George Bush reading Camus? By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine

Why is George Bush reading Camus? By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine

John Dickerson is not the only one wondering What's Up With That?

I have to wonder how the president views the main character, Meursault. Any empathy for his plight? Is Bush capable of empathy? Was he drawn to the book because Meursault killed an Arab without provocation or remorse? Is this just a case of trying to impress people who generally read their books right side up and books that actually have more words than pictures in them? So many questions.....