Writing Poetry is Not for Sissies

Writing Poetry is Not for Sissies

To write clearly

                with simple words

                                is a chore.

 

My pencil wants

                to write words

                                that dance

 

with alliteration

                and adjectives

                                (those dreadful things.)

 

I have to beat my poems

                to teach them

                                to behave, flail them

 

free of adverbs

                and of clichés;

                                clean their teeth

 

of flowery phrases

                they sneak when

                                I’m not watching.

 

My husband asks,

                “What are you

                                doing?”

 

And I have to confess.

                “I’m beating a poem

                                to death.”

 

He laughs, but it’s true

                and I’m not done

                                yet.

Write a Little Every Day

Write a Little Every Day

“Write a little every day, without hope, without despair,” said Isak Dinesen.  The name Isak Dinesen is the pseudonym for Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (1885-1962), a Danish author who wrote Out of Africa and Babette’s Feast.

I do write every day.  I write between five hundred and twenty-five hundred words.  That’s not too challenging.  The “without hope, without despair” part is difficult.  I don’t always accomplish that.

I think my writing is improving.  I learn and use new skills. I try fresh methods and practise without fail.  Yet, there are times when I feel…well, if not despair, then…disappointment because it can be a challenge to see any progress.

I look back through my first blog entries, those from last year.  There are differences.  Reviewing them shows me that I have learned to let go of using adjectives everywhere.  But, I’ve learned that a well-chosen adjective around a noun can be useful in limiting the number of associations which can arise in a reader’s mind.  I’ve learned to beat the bushes of any piece I write to flush out the adverbs and then to cull them.  I’ve learned that both adjectives and adverbs saturating the page make the reader tired and confused and limit the reader’s imagination.

The best posts I’ve written are those in which I’ve been honest, shared emotions and refrained from quoting others again and again, in attempts to shore up my insecurities.  My best posts connect with the reader in direct ways, show new ways of seeing, understanding and enjoying the world.  The best are written from my heart; then refined by my head through careful revisions.

Sometimes, most times, it is helpful for me to write a piece; to leave it alone long enough so that it begins to feel unfamiliar.  Not mine.  That helps me to be objective, to see my writing for what it is.  And this helps me to revise without remorse, to hack out the parts that need to go.

What else?  I read every day.  There are stacks of books on the kitchen table, beside my bed and on my desk.  I read poetry, short stories and novels.  I read my thesaurus and my dictionary.  I research about my writing and my topics, at the library, on the Internet and with other writers.  I listen to published (and hoping to be published) writers reading from and talking about their work.   I follow writing courses when I can afford to do so, which is not as often as I would like and not often enough.  All help me to expand what I know and what and how I am writing.  Still, it is slow going.

In my daily 500 to 2500 words, there are ups and downs.  Some days I’m tired, forget the guidelines, and just want to get something, anything down on paper.   Other days, the magic is there and words flow--not perfect, but better.  And, once in a while after studying and writing and revising and writing, again and again, a piece will yield a sentence so lovely that I wonder, is this mine?  Or an image so ethereal and strange that I wonder, where did this come from?  And I recognize intuitively that something unique and new has been created.

These luminous moments keep me going with hope, and for a time, keep me going without disappointment or despair.

And so, I write…

And so, I learn…



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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?

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Driven by Poetry

Driven by Poetry

Poetry, my master,

demands unpaid service and

forces me—pay attention.

Words insist, images tumble,

persistent like dust balls on

hardwood floors, and sure as song.

Words wail, want, need, spill onto

the page from my black pencil,

rasping with rhythmic rumble.

Fingers cramp and dreams speak in

code,  clarity in my chest,

yet thinking in tongues.  My task,

to translate to the pale page

a vision, a truth, a tale

or some ordinary thing.

From it spin

…shimmering…

gold.

Photo is mine.

Landscape of Words

Today was special.  Today was a celebration.  It was a celebration of one year ago, when I had stepped through a door I had kept closed all my life. 

One year ago, I began to write a blog, and put my writing out into the world.

Opening this door opened me to my vulnerabilities.  What if no one wanted to read my blog?  What if they read it and despised it?  Or worse, dismissed it as mediocre and trivial?  I was haunted by “What if?”

Hugging my insecurities, I walked into this liminal space and began to write.   Began?   No, that is not true.  I had been writing since I was eight--journals, stories and poetry.  The space I had entered was the mystery of exposing my words and thoughts to readers.

The year of blogging reminded me of the essentials of writing: opening lines, engaging the reader, showing instead of telling.   I battled my urges to pepper everything with adjectives and adverbs.  I struggled to use fewer words.  Reading through the blog entries, I recognized that I had to learn and re-learn these elements.  The war with my words was constant.

As I honed my skills, I felt naked in front of a crowd of readers.  Though I knew a score of my readers, the rest were strangers.  They were readers who followed the blog privately, who showed up in stats as numbers and countries.   Why were the numbers important?  People were reading my blog.  But, it was like standing blindfolded, reading to unseen listeners, whose numbers and positions varied according to the day.  A mystery.

Blogging made me examine the roles I had: woman, wife, mother, step-mother, grandmother, friend, lover, gardener, retired person, volunteer, writer – yes, writer.  What could I learn from these and the other roles I had played in my life?  I squeezed my self-concepts to wring out the opinions and perceptions that weren’t valid, that were cultural baggage.  As much as possible, I flushed those.  What was left?  What was I about?  What was my purpose?

I found intensity.  When I cooked, I noted smells, tastes and sounds, fed my body and nourished my mind with textures and images.  When I gardened, I touched the soil, yanked weeds, planted new life.  The physical experiences gave way to emotional responses, each informed the other.  When I made love, I revelled in the joy and reflected on the spiritual connections in loving.  I focused.  I observed.  I gained a clear point of view from which to write.  Embraced what was mine.

I searched for ways to connect with readers, to find words to tell my truth so that it touched the “Ah, yes!” in the truth of others.  I wanted to connect, to find places where we were the same, all part of the human family.

Writing forced me to observe, and to study what I observed.  Writing gave me the tools to talk about it. 

What were my values?  How did I spend my time?  Was that activity achieving what I wanted?  Needed?  What drew me closer to discoveries of myself?   What enabled me to see that self in others?

Answers came.  If I wanted to be a writer, I had to write.  If I wanted to touch readers, I had to tell the truth, to be open and bare, to be vulnerable.  If I wanted to hone my skills, I had to start where I was, be who I was, and I had to work.  I had to accept and befriend my insecurities.  If not, the door would have remained closed.

Yesterday, my mother responded to a question from her cousin.  “What’s Carol doing these days?”

Mum’s answer: 

“She’s learning to write.”

Yes, I’m learning to write.  I’ve been learning all my life.  The journey through this landscape of words is endless, so today I celebrated.