Yearly Archives: 2020

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The Long and Short of Big and Small Poems

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Unless you are talking haiku or senryū, short poems are scary. When you write them, you reread your work and feel a bit like an Italian grandmother looking at her skinny grandson, all skin and bones. Naturally, you want to put some meat on this weak thing. Feed it pasta and bread. Give it the nourishment of more words.

But sometimes, short poems are fine. You just have to trust them. I often arrive at my shortest poems by finally throwing out swaths of the larger poem it once was. Lines, stanzas, all deleted in the name of brevity because, paradoxically, what’s left does as much or more.

Brevity, when it works, is a powerful little shot. When it works. Sure, there’s always the danger of readers wanting more. These readers are not content with Hemingway’s iceberg theory applied to poetry (only show a little, let the reader infer the rest). But you are the ultimate arbiter. This is your skinny grandson, no?

Of course, long poems can be scary, too. “Howl” and “Leaves of Grass” notwithstanding, some readers wade in and start to drown in words. Is all of this necessary, they ask? Does the poet lack discipline?

Some beginning poets shy away from both the long and the short of it. They seek the safety of the middle, and their shortest efforts often begin in the 14-line realm of the sonnet.

Why, though? Short poems can be fun, and some topics work just fine with a brief snapshot of verse. And, for a stream-of-consciousness type work, what better than a meandering poem with voice?

As an example of a short poem that gets over the hill on its own, check out the following from Aracelis Girmay. It is called “Ars Poetica,” a popular title meaning “The Art of Poetry” which, thank the Muses, you are as free to define as the next poet.

 

Ars Poetica
Aracelis Girmay

May the poems be
the little snail’s trail.

Everywhere I go,
every inch: quiet record

of the foot’s silver prayer.
                    I lived once.
                     Thank you.
                    It was here.

Writer’s Weigh In With Resolutions

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resolution

I emailed all the poets and writers (as a certain magazine calls them) I know (and really don’t, but I needed a lot of responses to make up a post) and asked what their writerly resolutions were. If they’re anything like mine, they’re an amusing mix of wishful thinking, good intentions, and, in some cases, playful sarcasm. (Wait. Can sarcasm be playful?)

In no particular order, from the expected to the un-, here are those responses that returned to roost in my inbox:

  • “Mine was to write for two hours first thing each morning before checking my Inbox. Then I checked my Inbox first thing this morning and am responding to this. Does this count as writing (she asks sheepishly)?” — T.H.
  • “To absolutely refuse to submit to magazines that charge reading fees and to reward those who don’t by submitting my best stuff. If more writers did this, fewer magazines would charge the fees. The fact that more and more are doing it tells me that many writers are ponying up. Why?” — B.C.
  • “Read more poetry to better inform my own poetry.” — O.L.
  • “Save money for an M.F.A. program. Do you have any, by the way?” — R.W.
  • “I’m thinking too many weird thoughts, like how sad fish heads look on plates at a restaurant. How can I write when I’m feeling sorry for dead fish eyeing the mouths that are about to consume them?” — K.T.
  • “Stop saying yes to so many fellow writers asking me to read their stuff. I need time for my own stuff, but I’m too busy being Joan of Arc to everybody else.” — V.C.
  • “Get better paying part-time work.” — T.D.
  • “Be more honest with myself. I like to kid myself, I do. I’ve told myself it’s essential to writing success, but after two years of talking the talk more than walking the walk, maybe not. I’m playing Billy Joel (“Honesty”) right now. It’s such a lonely word!” — A.A.
  • “Dump my fellow writer friends who are too competitive and jealous while calling other writers competitive and jealous. Some writers are more talented at gossip and back-stabbing and putting words in other people’s mouths than they are at writing. Delete. Dump. Move on, are my resolutions! (Does this sound angry? Good.)” — R.E.
  • “Pray more.” — I.L.
  • “I want to pay less attention to the news. It distracts and upsets me, which is horrible for writing and creativity. It’s not easy being an American these days.” — K. E.
  • “Work on writing plot! I suck at writing plots!” — N.
  • “Actually follow the stupid old advice about carrying a small pad and pencil around so I can write ideas when I think of them vs. just forget them.” — O.B.
  • “Stop looking at Submittable so much! Stop submitting so many simultaneous submissions so much! Stop saying, “I need some good news!” so much! (Though it’s true, I do. Do you have any spare good news lying around, Ken?)” — R.B.
  • “Put my writing on the Keto Diet. I am way too wordy. I’ll call all the words I delete carbs or something. You like it?” — M.N.
  • “You still owe me $50. My resolution is to collect it by Feb. 1st.” — J.L.
  • “I want to be kinder and gentler on myself. Writers take rejections too much to heart. A lot of them give up, and I’ve often felt myself wanting to give up, but they have to repeat after me: It’s part of the game and all writers, even the very best, go through it.” — G.O.
  • “Turn off my phone! Delete my social media accounts! They are sucking the living daylight hours out of me! Help!” — C.S.
  • “Experiment more. Take more chances. Avoid telling myself I can’t write about certain topics. Write what I’d want to read because I know many other people like to read the same things.” — T.D.
  • “Read across the genres instead of just the genre I’m working on. Stop reading silly free-verse blogs (smiley face).” — H.H.
  • “Stop paying my cable TV bill. That will eliminate the expensive distraction known as a TV.” — A.T.
  • “Read Ulysses. I’ve been putting it off for 17 years.” — S.D.

 

 

What If…?

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A lot of good poetry comes from a simple question that’s been in your toolbox since childhood: “What if…?

There’s no end to playing this game, sometimes playful and sometimes serious. I often wonder, for instance, what if women ruled the world? Would it be safer? Saner?

My answer always seems to be yes, that the world would suffer much less ego and stupidity because of the switch, but you can’t be sure until the answer is test-driven. I’m heading to the dealership now.

Kevin Young plays the game in his poem “Negative.” He takes the concept of black and white and reverses it in interesting ways. The results—which tell us something about race—are striking, and one thing you always like to see from your poetry is “striking.” See if you agree:

 

Negative
Kevin Young

Wake to find everything black
what was white, all the vice
versa—white maids on TV, black

sitcoms that star white dwarfs
cute as pearl buttons. Black Presidents,
Black Houses. White horse

candidates. All bleach burns
clothes black. Drive roads
white as you are, white songs

on the radio stolen by black bands
like secret pancake recipes, white back-up
singers, ball-players & boxers all

white as tar. Feathers on chickens
dark as everything, boiling in the pot
that called the kettle honky. Even

whites of the eye turn dark, pupils
clear & changing as a cat’s.
Is this what we’ve wanted

& waited for? to see snow
covering everything black
as Christmas, dark pages written

white upon? All our eclipses bright,
dark stars shooting across pale
sky, glowing like ash in fire, shower

every skin. Only money keeps
green, still grows & burns like grass
under dark daylight.

 

As a writing prompt, it’s both simple and audacious. You can even make a list to choose from before diving in. Go ahead. Pick up a pencil and pull out some paper: “What if…?”

To Bee or Not To Bee

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The January 2020 issue of Poetry opens with three Christian Wiman poems, the third, “Even Bees Know What Zero Is,” being a prime example of what Tony Hoagland heralded as voice breaking all the rules because it can.

This is poetry dotted with throwaway phrases like “Which reminds me,” “come to think of it,” and “by the way.” Your high school poetry teacher would have fits, but hey, if an established poet (and one-time editor of Poetry magazine, for you conspiracy theorists) can play fast and loose with language (not to mention libraries and the Dewey Decimal system), you can too.

It all ends with a playful series of metaphors and a play on the poet’s name. This after a conversational style studded with all manner of sound devices. It’s the type of poem that beguiles some and horrifies others, depending on your poetic affiliation. See where you fall:

 

Even Bees Know What Zero Is
Christian Wiman

That’s enough memories, thank you, I’m stuffed.
I’ll need a memory vomitorium if this goes on.
How much attention can one man have?
Which reminds me: once I let the gas go on flowing
after my car was full and watched it spill its smell
(and potential hell) all over the ground around me.
I had to pay for that, and in currency quite other than attention.
I’ve had my fill of truth, too, come to think of it.
It’s all smeary in me, I’m like a waterlogged Bible:
enough with the aborted prophecies and garbled laws,
ancient texts holey as a teen’s jeans, begone begats!
Live long enough, and you can’t tell what’s resignation, what resolve.
That’s the bad news. The good news? You don’t give a shit.
My life. It’s like a library that closes for a long, long time
—a lifetime, some of the disgrunts mutter—
and when it opens opens only to an improved confusion:
theology where poetry should be, psychology crammed with math.
And I’m all the regulars, searching for their sections
and I’m the detonated disciplines, too.
But most of all I’m the squat, smocked, bingo-winged woman
growing more granitic and less placable by the hour
as citizen after citizen blurts some version of
“What the hell!” or “I though you’d all died!”
and the little stamp she stamps on the flyleaf
to tell you when your next generic mystery is due
that thing goes stamp right on my very soul.
Which is one more thing I’m done with, by the way,
the whole concept of soul. Even bees know what zero is,
scientists have learned, which means bees know my soul.
I’m done, I tell you, I’m due, I’m Oblivion’s datebook.
I’m a sunburned earthworm, a mongoose’s milk tooth,
a pleasure tariff, yesterday’s headcheese, spiritual gristle.
I’m the Apocalypse’s popsicle. I’m a licked Christian.

Resolved: I’ll Read These Three Books First

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2020

Another day, another decade. Let’s hope we can see more clearly, it being 2020 and all. Vision, should be the theme. We all need a vision. Then practical ways to achieve them.

Me, I’m starting philosophical this year. First, the newest translation of Sun-Tzu’s Art of War because it’s as much about life as war. Nobody told me as much until I recently read an essay about it. So now I need to read a book about war and filter out all the war parts. Don’t worry. I have experience. I read Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Then I’ll be reading my first Alan Watts. The Wisdom of Insecurity. Given goings on in the world these past three years, I’ve been feeling more and more insecure, so I figure I’d better nip that in the bud and mine some wisdom while I’m in the cave of my discontent.

Watts’ book comes highly recommended. It is also informed by Buddhism, and I’ve been finding Buddhism more and more informative of late. To start, the Four Noble Truths.

And why not? Truth is in trouble these days, as is being noble in any way. One needs to fight back, make these ideas part of one’s vision.

Finally, the third book I’ll kick off the new, visionary year with will be quite old. How old? This old, to be exact. That’s right. Stoicism via Seneca. It seems this philosophy and this philosopher’s time has come, so I’ll begin by digging a little deeper and shielding myself from the insecurity and wars that 2020 might bring (but hopefully will not).

It’s a start, anyway. After that, I’ll map out new reading plans, but January resolutions are always easiest if they involve reading and the magic number of three.

Don’t believe me? Give it a go yourself. Pick your first three books of the year. Buy or borrow them from the library, then show yourself how easy these New Year’s resolutions are to keep.

Trust me. You’ll look back with 2020 vision and be glad you did.