Brother

One of the methods I've used to learn more about writing poetry is to copy a poem by someone else, then study how that poet created the images and made the poem work. It sounds simple, but isn't.

I copy the poem longhand and leave every second line blank. Then I make several photocopies and use the pages as study work sheets. I begin by going over the poem line by line and making my own notes in the blank spaces about what happens and how in the poem; what metaphors are used and how they are working together; how the sounds of the words echo each other and echo the sense of the line, and any additional ideas this study process creates. This is a messy but fruitful project. I end up with many pages of notes.

Sometimes I learn something new about how to write, the importance of enjambment for example, the uniqueness of where the poetic line ends, or keeps hanging until the next line.

Sometimes this process leads me to a poem of my own. This poem "Brother" is loosely based on Ted Kooser's poem "Mother" from Delights and Shadows.

Brother

(after Ted Kooser's poem "Mother" from Delights and Shadows)

Late August already, and the mountain ash

sways, weighted with fruit, clusters of orange.

Colour so bright, it stops my breath.

You have been gone thirty years today

and have missed my two marriages and one long

divorce. I sat in that smothering house,

restrained inside my own ribs, until the memory

of your words pulled me out

gasping.

Late goldfinches exchange ragged feathers

for fearless wings. Hydrangeas bloom.

Sturdy white blossoms deepen dusky pink.

This season bursts into the one coming

and the air is delicious.

This poem was published in The Nashwaak Review, Volume 34/35, the Summer/ Fall Issue of 2015. Thanks to TNR for this opportunity and permission to share.

For additional information on Ted Kooser, click here. For a copy of Delights and Shadows, click on the title.

The photos and poems on my blog are copyright 2014-2016 Carol Steel, unless otherwise noted.

Saucer Magnolia

 

 

Saucer Magnolia

All day each blossom opens
from a bare branch no bigger
than the handle of a teacup,
bursts out of a dark pink bud
and, it has in turn burst
from a fuzzy cocoon, once tight and brown.
Yet, from cups and saucers,
the cream and rose
pour out again and again.












This poem is after Ted Kooser's poem  "Screech Owl" from Delights & Shadows.  The photos are mine.  Words in colour will take you to another website with additional information, if you click on them.

Writing Poetry

Writing Poetry

I’m reading a book by Ted Kooser called The Poetry Home Repair Manual, in which he explains how metaphors work in writing poetry.  He explains how metaphors work in plain terms, with examples.  It's helpful.  

I know a metaphor sets up precise identities between the two halves of a comparison, but I have had limited success with writing poetry in which I make this flow go smoothly between the two halves.  My flow is usually lumpy like porridge that hasn't been stirred enough.  But, I am practising with metaphor, to gain competence and grace in my writing skills.  Practising every day.

About metaphor, Ted Kooser says (and he should know…he’s the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2004-2006):  “To make such a comparison have its strongest effect, the poet must work only with those aspects of each half that find some kind of reflection in the other half.”

There must be follow through.  Kooser says that this means that once the comparison is set up the poet must try to extract everything he or she can from it.  Press the porridge?

This is easy for me to comprehend but not so easy to re-create.

For a practise exercise, I have taken Ted Kooser’s poem “Etude” from Weather Central as a model and have played with his form and many of his words.  I changed the metaphor that runs through the poem. 

But darn it, while some of it works, it doesn’t all work.  The porridge still has lumps.

Learning to write poetry is inspiration and talent but it is also learning the craft, becoming an apprentice to the tools of the trade.  Metaphor is a tool I need to become skillful using.  I need to become smooth enough to create gourmet porridge or even something wonderful like cheesecake.

So, with apologies to the master of metaphor, Ted Kooser and to his poem “Etude”, I’ve written this version.

The Wound

I’ve been watching an injured fingernail

grow out for weeks, easing the damage

upward and out with the patience

of a detective pushing toward healing a mystery.

Let’s say he holds down an everyday job

in a station.  His dented face fits in.  Each one

alike.  Long days handling his files, clawing,

scratching the surface of truth.  At the edge

of each insight, some new thing appears.

No one has seen him there, fingering premonitions

about sly schemes.  His hand is poised

to pluck truth out of confusion.

He would regenerate the whole truth if he could,

complete, unscathed and renewed.

The metaphorical bridge between the nail healing and the detective searching has weakness, words that don’t quite capture the link and parallel as I would have liked.  Yes, lumps...but then, I am learning.

And maybe the next one will be better.

I’ll work at it and share how I’m doing…sometimes.

Thank you, Ted Kooser for this lesson.  And sorry for mucking about with your words and making lumpy porridge.  But I have to learn, don't I?

Words in red will link you to another site with more information, if you click on them.