poetically challenged

DNA has always fascinated me. In fact, I’m been so intrigued with it that I’ve written several poems about DNA. It is amazing to me to see illustrations like the one below that give us an idea about how things are working in our bodies — indeed, in every cell of our bodies.   I don’t know what it is, but somehow the mystery of it all really captures me. 

This was originally posted at my old blog sometime last year. I am transferring most of that content over to my newer blogs now.

 

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In my previous blog, I talked some about writing to a specific form as a way of getting the creative juices flowing. But the use of forms, as Lewis Turco discusses in his The Book of Forms, can also be a nice way to experiment with new ways of approaching poetry.

In his book, Turco discusses, in considering the elements of poetry, modes of writing, levels of poetry, and prosody (an organizing/structuring principle for poetry). One of the topics he discusses, and which interests me a great deal, is parenthetical prosody. He uses, to start off the section, e. e. cummings’ poem “l(a.” It is a neatly packaged little poem which experiments with the interaction of the word loneliness with the phrase a leaf falls. It is a poem that turns out to have a visual effect that nicely accompanies the interaction of the ideas of autumn and loneliness. There’s actually a whole lot that can be unpacked from this poem, though it is only made up of those 4 words.

Turco also introduces, in his section on parenthetical prosody, a poem I was not familiar with before reading about it here. He writes of Vito Hannibal Acconci’s poem “Re.” I was very taken with the poem upon reading it. I also loved Turco’s observation:

People who see ths poem for the first time are baffled by it. But the poem says visually, as well as in so many words, that “only about one-third of what one has to say can be communicated to others.” This poem, however, is a paradox because it expresses this theme completely, which contradicts the theme! The last two lines are, in fact, explicit: “I do not say all / all I say.” Acconci invented a formthat does exactly what he wanted it to do.

All of Turco’s discussion of parenthetical prosody brought to mind one of my favourite poems by one of my 3 favourite poets, Edwin Morgan’s Message Clear. I have been a big fan of Morgan for some time, and absolutely fell in love with this poem when I came across it some 6-7 years ago. While it is not, technically, based on parenthetical prosody, it uses a similar idea. It finds within the words themselves, by breaking them up into their parts, a way to express something related to, yet different (greater?) than, its original form. It is a very clever device, whichever precise form is used.

I’ve fiddled around some with various forms that are based on this same basic approach. Of course, some experiments have been more successful than others, but it has proven to be a very fun method to work through. I’ve enjoyed it a great deal because it invites the poet to find inspiration in the words themselves. In this instance, at least, it has seemed to me that the toying about with mechanics can actually be a source of inspiration. That (alongside it being fun) is hard to beat.

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This was originally posted at my old blog sometime last year. I am transferring most of that content over to my newer blogs now.

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In my previous post, I was thinking about poetic inspiration and where it comes from. It’s an important question, I think, for any of us who view ourselves as poets of one sort or another. Or, even for those who wish we could view ourselves as such.

I was impressed by one of the things Wright said in the interview I referenced in that previous blog:

“I live for these moments, but they are so rare that if I were to only wait for them, I would write two poems a year. I try to work for several hours a day to dredge up and amass material that might be useful when this mood of inspiration comes over me. But I believe it’s a terrible mistake to wait for inspiration. I seek it.” (p. 70)

That experience rings true for me. Inspiration is what I live for, as a writer, but it doesn’t necesarily come when I want it to. And it certainly doesn’t come by frequently enough for my tastes. But, that said, I can’t just sit about waiting for it to fall from the sky.

One of the things that I’ve found to be a big help is to experiment with various established poetic forms. I might work for a while on a villanelle (never written one yet that I am proud of), then for a while on a haiku, then on a newer form like the minute. In experimenting with forms and styles of poetry, I get to concentrate on the discipline of how to put together a “solid” poem, even if the content is less than inspired. It was this thought that made me decide to start the poetry challenges I start from time to time, and on which my alter ego’s posts are based.

I often rely on the tools others have made available when I am experimenting with different forms. One that I have really come to like is The Book of Forms. Now, let me be honest and say this: there are some things in the book that kind of irritate me. For one, I find a more rigid definition of poetry than what I agree with. To me, there are various forms of “poetics,” and each has its own tradition that can be of value to the poet. This text is rather insistent (much too often) that a work is only poetry if it pays strict attention to meter. OK. Say it once, if you must, but don’t keep harping on it. (Sorry, have to say that!)

That said, though, I have to move on to what is so valuable about the book. It has a wonderful index of traditional poetic forms. For such a short volume, it gives a nice exploration of the forms and their roots. I enjoy very much exploring through this book the various forms available for us to work with, a little bit about the thought behind the form, and how to begin working on it to make it my own. The book is a very useful resource in this way. And some of the explorations of the various forms have been very enlightening to me, the more I work with them.

What about the rest of you writer types? Do you find any sort of formal discipline that helps generate further inspiration, or does it all seem to get in the way for you? What methods do you use to stay fresh, even when you feel less than inspired?

This was originally posted at my
old
blog sometime last year. I am transferring most of that
content over to my newer blogs now.

 

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In a discussion that got started over here recently, I mentioned to skouba and bornsandy some things about an interview with Franz Wright that I recently read. That interview, which appeared in the latest issue of Image magazine, has been swimming about in my head ever since I read it. I think it is needing some input from this community, if it is ever to settle down in there.

Wright talks, in the interview, about a “blessed state of consciousness” (p.70) that he all too rarely attains (or perhaps is visited by), and in which he can truly say that he is a poet. He describes in vivid terms the first time he had this experience, when he was a young teenager, and speaks of the rest of his life as an attempt to duplicate that experience. He describes the state he enjoyed (and from time to time does enjoy) in these words:

“I don’t know where it comes from. I never have. It’s almost as if a physiological change comes over me. Then I am articulate and perceptive to a degree that I simply am not most of the time, in my normal state of mind. I try to write every day. To me, ninety-nine percent of the time that means a confrontation with how stupid I am. When this mood comes over me in which I do my best work, I feel a sense of brilliance and ease. I live for these moments, but they are so rare that if I were to only wait for them, I would write two poems a year. I try to work for several hours a day to dredge up and amass material that might be useful when this mood of inspiration comes over me. But I believe it’s a terrible mistake to wait for inspiration. I seek it.” (p. 70)

He says he in his earlier days, like many others, tried to use drugs, sex, and just about anything else as a shortcut to attaining that blessed state. (This reminded me of a discussion we had long, long ago over here.) For Franz Wright, none of the shortcuts quite worked. Instead, those moments of inspiration were given him by grace. He says:

“I don’t know what I’m doing when I write. I never know. Maybe at the last moment I know. But I’m listening. Writing is listening. [....] I have always been able to tell whether something I am writing is genuinely an expression of revelation or if it’s just me exercising my intellect. I can feel the difference, see it and taste it, but I don’t know how I can do that. Writing isn’t something I can try to do. It’s something that happens to me and that I can prepare myself for.” (p. 77)

This seems to be much like what Seth mentioned in that same comment thread where I first brought up this interview with Wright. I loved his thoughts there so much that I have to state them again here. Seth writes:

“I read somewhere that the hand moves at a speed closer to the heart’s, whereas the head is too fast. I guess that’s why writing brings things to our attention that our minds are racing too much to notice.”

I’ve said before that I see writing as part inspiration, part imagination, and part discipline. I may have left out an important element in that. There is a large part, also, that is silent. “Writing is listening.” Indeed.

Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms provides a wonderful introduction to the poetic process. He introduces traditional poetic forms, and discusses what goes into the making of a poem. The book is mostly made up, though, of a large index of traditional forms and their descriptions.

Even though I think Turco is a little too insistent on traditional forms being the only good forms of poetry, I still find his book a useful resource, and it is one that I often find myself picking up to peruse yet again. It’s been a very valuable tool for me in my writing process.

In the 2007 edition of The Poet’s Market, Cathy Smith Bowers has a featured article about a short poetry form called “the minute.”

The minute is both a syllable-based structure and a rhymed form. The syllable count is separated into 3 stanzas of 8-4-4-4. The rhyme structure is a-a-b-b c-c-d-d e-e-f-f. The syllable count creates a poem of 60 syllables, thus the name “the minute.”

The minute is designed to be English poetry’s answer to the haiku. It’s syllable and rhyme count is part of what creates the haiku-like feel. But additionally important is the minute’s intent of packing a picture of one moment in time into a short poetic verse.

I’ve written before about my attempts to experiment with forms and structures in my writing process. Recently, I’ve begun an experiment that might be a little closer to my friend’s normal writing process than to my own. I’ve got a rather elaborate structure in my mind to which I want to fit a particular idea that I’ve been toying with.

What I am finding is that writing in this way slows the process down tremendously. This form I am currently working with is much more elaborate, and the poem is longer, than what I usually do. That is slowing me down, and that is a good thing. I am forced to think, this way, more carefully about exactly how I want to say what I want to say, and how to fit it effectively into the formation.

This is eye-opening to me, showing that there is so much more to it than merely being clever with words. There’s the equally important side of it, that of being disciplined with words.

I have a friend who is a very accomplished poet, having won awards in both Chinese and English poetry. He has told me before that for him, the structure of the poem comes first, and that dovetails with an idea/concept; and only later do the words begin to formulate.

That is very different from my own writing process. For me, it is often the idea that comes first, or snippets of phrases and words. Sometimes I even intentionally do things to make the poetry grow out of the words, like this or this.

In another place, I’ve been giving thought to writing to form, and how it shapes the poetic endeavour. I have used this method quite a bit as a means to develop my own practice of poetry. Like playing games, I find writing to a specific form a good way to push oneself to think poetically, so to speak. It is part of the discipline I see needed for poetry, to hold us over on those days when inspiration seems in short supply. I wonder, even as I do this very thing, how to avoid formulaic writing when writing to form. It seems to me that this must come about through the steady practice of a form, which should grow into the manipulation of that form. Merely sticking to a form is likely to end in little more than the formulaic. But steady probing and exploration can often yield some very fun experiments. And once in a while, one might even hope to see some good poetry emerge from it all. Magazine Publishers Database