Good morning, 2008 (and some thoughts on poetics)

I guess it isn't really morning any more, but I'm still in my pj's, drinking coffee, so it's morning here. In my little world.

I've been thinking a lot about change these last few days because my life is in transition. I'm not a student anymore, but maybe I will be again soon. Between now and March, when the PhD gods tell me my fate, I'm treading water. I don't get to make many decisions right now, except what to do with my time while I wait. One thing I'm going to try to do: wallow less, live more. I like to spout off about how "comfortable" I am being alone, how "happy" solitude makes me, but last night I realized that those are just a couple of new brick walls I use to make myself feel better that there aren't more people in my life (in the real world...perhaps this is why I blog so often) or that I don't spend more time with the people who are.

Another thing I'd like to do: stop using this blog as a journal. Stop whining at the cyberworld. I started this blog because I wanted to be part of a community of writers, so I need to try to get back to that. Becoming part of the discussion. Reading and reflecting and reviewing. Confession: I don't read lit mags very often. I feel horribly guilty about this, especially when I ask the editors of those lit mags to read my work. I read the stuff that comes into my hands easily--passed on from Mary, or my classmates, or free copies picked up at book fairs (I read more online journals, but still, not enough). I prefer to read books...but as a poet who does not have a book, I'd like for people to read what I write, so I should be doing the same for others. Plus, now that I'm a BOR editor, I'm sitting on both sides of the fence. So lit mags. I promise I will read more lit mags.

Well...we all mean well on New Year's Day, but that rarely lasts, does it? I'll be back here whining in a week. But in the meantime, some thoughts on Written in Water, Written in Stone.

I'm not very good with dates/historical movements, etc., so forgive me if I get things wrong. It seems most of these essays were written long before they were published (the preface says they were printed between 1976 and 1996, but at least a few had 1971 printed below the author's name and many "felt" older) and because of that, I sometimes felt excluded from the discussion. This was partly because I didn't fully understand the historical context, partly because some essays were written so early in the women's lib movement that authors were still discussing "women's writing" as something alltogether different from "Poetry." I've always been confused by feminism (see my posts from last Febuary), but reading these essays helped me to see how, if I were born in 1960 instead of 1980, my perspective would be different.

At any rate, many, many of the male poets included in this collection became all the same guy to me: A stodgy little old man who likes to make his girl students cry, (Yes, there is a teacher (or two) in my past who helped shape this perception.) and he was yelling at me all through this book. Telling me that I don't know enough to even put pen to paper, that every interpertation I have of a given poem is wrong, and that as long as my poems are written in free verse, they are useless, temporary, and ultimately forgettable. Perhaps I'm being harsh, but there were several articles belittling the advent of free-verse, the laziness of beginning writers, and claiming that writers "today" (10-20 years ago) don't have any idea what was written before WWII. I may be exaggerating a bit, but that is the overall message I came away with. Pretty unfortunate considering where I'm at in my life and in my writing.

On the up side, there was a lot of good advice tucked in between these rants against young poets (and MFAs--I finally got to read the Donald Hall McPoem essay, and it's pretty scary). I came away thinking about lines and line breaks, stanzas, the shape of my poems, in a way that I hadn't before, as the same poets who complain about free verse discuss musicality and rhythm and what a line of poetry should represent. Many complained that contemporary poetry is nothing more than prose with line breaks (and haven't I said the same about my work?) and encouraged writers to bring music back into poetry. That's a good thing, I think, and something that I need to work on. Although I'm still not sure how to articulate it, much less do it.

Many essays also talked about personal experience and confessional poetry--a debate I know a little more about. This is the best explanation I've ever come across, from Louis Simpson's "Reflections on Narrative Poetry":

"Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, among others, were said to be confessional poets--that is, to be writing directly about their lives. But [...] the incidents they relate have been shaped so as to make a point. The protagonist is seen as on a stage. In confessional poetry, on the other hand, there is no drama. The drama is not in the poem but outside it, in a life we cannot share."

So, personal expereince + drama = good narrative poetry? Maybe an oversimplification, but it works for me.

Final thoughts: A good book, although frustrating at times. Helpful in looking at poetry as a growing, changing, evolving artform; like gawky pictures from your teenage years, a little hard to look at, but if you're careful and patient, there are a lot of lessons to learn. And here is my favorite moment. This is from Robert Francis' "Four Pot Shots at Poetry."

It Really Isn't

It isn't expensive to be a poet. A pencil and a piece of paper are all the equipment needed to get started. Homer managed with less.

A pencil or pen and a few pieces of paper. Then an envelope or two and some postage stamps.

[...]

You may fancy writing in an Italian villa or a French chateau, but the poems you write there will be no more immortal than those written in your bedroom at home.

Nor do you need very much of the most precious of all items, time. Odds and ends will do. Evenings, early mornings, noon hours. Sundays, holidays, and when you sprain your ankle.

It's quite otherwise with a painter. Paints, brushes, and canvases cost money, and a painter can't very well paint in his bedroom. [...]

No, if a poet can support himself he can support his poetry. If he can keep himself fed, his poems won't starve.

So, when you come right down to the brass tacks, a poet doesn't really need the aid, assistance, subsidy, and support that munificent philanthropy stands ready to grant him. In this, isn't he lucky?