Three and a half years...

...you've begged me to return to this and here I am. I was held hostage by selling my home, moving to Virginia, getting stuck in the middle of somebody else's divorce, moving back to Connecticut, the death of a cat, publishing two books (poetry), a near-death experience and who knows what else that I may have let slip under my radar and under my feet until the gods decided that I had paid enough ransom to be freed that I may return to blogging and living. I've been writing the whole time, have enjoyed the Writers' Roundtable at the Leesburg, VA Senior Center, have begun a Poets' Roundtable at the Bigelow Senior Center in Fairfield, CT and am about to get my current magnum opus ready for publishing via Createspace.com. I have reached the point where, after a life featuring more permananet addresses than the Leatherman had temporary ones, I am down to a vision of just two more before I slip off the grid although I am far from Already Gone and hope to delay that slippage for ten more years or until my age and IQ are the same, whichever comes first (assuming I haven't reached that point already).

I choose not to re-read what I wrote in earlier posts and apologize in advance in case I repeat myself, something I am at risk of since, as age advances other things retreat. So I here offer, as if beginning again, a couple of rules for writing:

1. Start well. Hook me in the first five words or I will not read further.
2. Finish as well as you start. If you don't then I will be too  pissed off to give you a second chance.

There. Now go and fill the in between with interesting stuff, details unique to the moment you are trying to consecrate in the poem. And pay attention to the sonic elements-- the music, the rhythms, the sounds that overlay the meaning with meaning. The poem must end up being felt as well as understood. The poem without that feeling is merely craft and anybody can practice that. Only a poet can elevate it to art. It's hard work.

It's good to be back; bear with me; I'll hit my stride soon.

Art, Artsy or Madness?

"That contemporary art seems to be anything an artist wants it to be can lead to a lot of confusion, most notably, the willy-nilly application of the term to anything with a creative impulse." (Italics mine)
This quote from The Christian Science Monitor brings me back to another look at my criticism of much current poetry and workshops. We tend to call anything creative "art" whether it is or not and this diminishes art. Poetry is an art and is much more than merely creative.

Workshop leaders fawn over any creative phrase, turn, even titles. Yes, such creativity is praiseworthy but the risk is that the writer and other observers are so easily led to think that this makes their work art when it qualifies for artsy, at best. Creativity can bring many of us up to mediocrity but alone cannot bring us to the level of artist. Craftsmanship can bring many of us up to mediocrity but alone cannot bring us to the level of artist. Creativity and craftsmanship together do not guarantee art but come closer.

To get to art we must add divine madness-- inspiration and inspired engagement with creativity and craft. All these come with work, lots of work, lots of hard work and this work should be bereft of the notion of art. The art will take care of itself but we and our workshop leaders are well-advised to be familiar enough with what art is to caution us not to believe that our work is art when it is not. We will thus raise our sights and better our work.

And by the way, divine madness without creativity and craft is only madness.

So long for now.

My Advice to a Young Poet

My Advice to a Young Poet
after reading “Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down” by my niece, Catherine

The difficulty, Cat, is that
your passion is as large as the ocean
and poetry demands a jar.
Pottery, not poetry—
the potter’s wheel,
the kiln of craft—
these you need.

Write sonnets to the moon,
odes to moustaches,
villanelles about ants
beneath horses’s hooves.
Go to the zoo and look
at a single animal
but look at it long,
all day today and then tomorrow
and the next.
You may learn its name in German.

Bore yourself to anger
with spelling and grammar,
rapping your knuckles
like a schoolish marm
until truth bleeds from your pen
as it does now from your heart.
And read & read & read until
you don’t sleep enough,
are too tired to defend yourself
from yourself.

Then, helpless with the beggar’s jar
in your shaking hand,
pour portions of your heart
slowly, carefully down
until you see only

the chair your mother sat in
and can tell us

it is empty.

Copyright March, 2003

Therapy as Poetry

Get this: IT ISN'T! Don't show me or anybody your poems until your poems-as-couch-sessions end. Doing this will prevent thousands of lousy poems from print and will thus save many trees-- which we need more than we need crappy poems. Confessional poetry in the right hands-- Berryman, Plath, Sexton, etc.-- can be good, even great. In the wrong hands it is nothing but a flubbed brain scan ruining perfectly good blank paper.
The world is full of stress, depression, pestilence, war, famine and pain, much of which can give birth to good poetry but, in the main, I (and everyone else really) don't care about your stress, depression, pestilence, war, famine and pain. I have enough of my own and I make it my business to make it not your business. If you're going to write yours down at least do it as a way of practicing the craft for your future poems. Aim for one good poem some day in the far future. This is a cruel art. Don't kid yourself and give me your therapy. I'd rather hear the cats yowling in the dark.
In the next post: Advice for Young Writers
So long for now.

Quick Rules for Better Writing, Part 2

Molly Peacock said once in a lecture to read fourteen poems for each one you write. Good advice. Better advice is to read one great poem fourteen times for each one you write. Study HOW it means not what it means. Why each word? Why each line break? Why each stanza break? Why write the poem? Identify the sonic elements-- meter, rhyme, assonance etc.-- all the poetic devices. Read the poem aloud. As the wine taster does, notice the mouth feel. Does the poem read better silently? Listen to the poem read by another. (Do this with your own poems.) Read it a month later, a year later-- how has it changed?

All these things will make the poem and its poetry yours to call upon as you write. Never stop learning and studying the craft and never stop reading the great ones. Everything will become part of the thought basin you call upon when you write and the larger that thought basin the better your writing will be. So step two is to read a great poem fourteen times for each one you write.

Part 3 in the next post.
So long for now.