My Poetry Year: Entry #11

In which Your Humble Blogger marks the start of National Poetry Month by not posting any poems:

Oh, glorious sense of timing! I've wanted to do another picture-heavy process post (hey, some alliteration, at least!) for a while; it just happens that today's the best day in my stretch of planned posts to do it.

And that today is April Fool's. No pranks here, I promise. I'm not good at pulling them off.

What I am good at is finding things in the bargain book bins at bookstores that make me happy. I imagine that some people carry with them an image of the writer who, when it was time to begin working at the craft for the day, took a gorgeously bound tome from the shelf or assembled a ream of high-quality paper and, fountain pen in hand, effortlessly began to etch h words onto the page. Alternatively, for some, the image of the daily writer may still be that of Doogie Howser.

This is what I write poetry in:



A couple bucks at Borders bought me this little goodie, a 256-page wonder with an elastic band to keep it shut and a silicone cover, excellent for people like me who tend to spill their beverages.

Also less than glamorous? I write poetry in pencil:



As romantic as the notion of poetry as a fleeting expression of the self may be... I type most of my poems up some time after I write them and save them to a memory card.

My notebook isn't the only bargain book I've found that's made me happy, not by far. This was spotted at the used bookstore not long ago:


And another impressive title:

I love books.

My Poetry Year: Entry #10

In which Your Humble Blogger indulges her desire for a short little laugh with a wink and a nod and a quicky haiku:

"Secret Tryst with a Love"

This verse was written
At noon, the book in my lap,
While Photoshop stalled.

* * *

I don't believe for a second that it exactly matches the spirit of haiku or that it qualifies as one for any reason beyond the number of syllables. Sometimes, though, you just have to have fun.

My Poetry Year: Entry #9

In which Your Humble Blogger takes a giant step backward and runs into the always-open arms of formalism, to lousy effect:

"The Vulture"

The muse has a deal, if you want to make it:
Write death, and your subject will always be known.
But what kind of vulture are you if you take it?
What kind of artist are you if you don't?

* * *

Ah, mother@#$*er. Why did I do that? It seemed I was finally getting somewhere by writing according to syllables, and then, what do I do to follow it up? I put out this cutesy little snippet of thought that attempted to be smarmy and witty and didn't pull it off so cleanly.

I do remember what influenced the idea behind this poem: At the time, it seemed that a lot of the published poems I was reading focused on death. "So," my cynical brain said, "writing about death gets you published, eh? Way to make the misfortune of the deceased work for ya, poets of the world!" I don't think I really feel that way; there are a lot of legitimately touching and startling works about death out there. I just get cranky, knowing that I'm not yet at the skill level I want to be, and sometimes, it comes out. Unfortunately for those of you who might read this, it sometimes comes out in the form of sub-par poetry.

My Poetry Year: Entry #8

In which Your Humble Blogger finally starts to feel that there may yet be some hope for progress in her art:

"Certainty"

For miles the train, in its old, churning rut,
Has stuttered along, rhythmically grinding
A thin steel sheen onto the rusted rails.
The cars rock as they're led in line between
Stone shelves full of bottles, bottle caps, cans,
All the stuff of life. There is no hurry,
Except for the man who dimly answers
His phone with the necessary questions --
When? What hospital? How did it happen --
Whose dark face wears the rails' hardness and dull
Reflection, who sits still by the window,
Reminded that the train will always come,
If not on the schedule we expected.

* * *

I once heard that writing in form, you know, using meters and rhyme and all that, is something that young or beginning poets do. Only when a writer trusts that the language at her disposal is substantial does she have to confidence to let it out to play in the realm of free verse.

Maybe there's some truth to that, maybe not as much -- there are some fantastic new formalists out there -- but it seemed to apply to what I had been doing. And I wanted to try free verse so badly. Actually, I did try it. And it was horrible:

...At four in the morning, comfort is
A tentative thing. The way the walls meet
Makes me understand the spider
In the corner. Even coffee cups are nestled,
One inside another. Everything is embraced....

Ah, gawd, I can't even post the whole thing! It's terrible! I had forgotten how bad it was until I typed the beginning just now! I think, just by looking at it, I tainted whatever I might have written for the next week!

So I wanted to feel a bit more liberated when I wrote, but free verse and I weren't ready to be together yet. What could I do for a compromise? I don't remember how the idea came to me, but somehow it did: Instead of trying to force a certain meter and a rhyme on top of that, what if I just used a set number of syllables per line?

I don't remember how the idea came to me, but I do remember the choir of angels that appeared.

So I took an event that I actually did witness on the train one day, framed some thoughts around it, and wrote it all down to the tune of ten syllables per line (with a little bit of fudging of the pronunciation). And that's how "Certainty" came about. It's not as precious as I once considered it, and I'm happy that I think I use language better now, but I'm still proud of the first time I managed to narrate an event in poetic form with some degree of success.

Note #1: I thought I was all brilliant for having come up with this idea of writing with a set number of syllables per line; my ego got popped right quickly. In his lovely book The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Ted Kooser, the former U.S. Poet Laureate, mentions that entire books of poetry have been written in syllabics, which is the technical term for what I did. Down, ego, down!

Note #2: Writing by syllables is still my default approach when I'm not sure how to begin a poem. It seems to provide both challenge and comfort.

My Poetry Year: Entry #7

In which Your Humble Blogger has one more rhyming poem to share before things take a strange turn toward a world less driven by form:

"Lights"

If you are out late on a walk
And suddenly the grey cement
No longer looks as pale as chalk
And shadows from the trees fall, bent
So that they touch the shadowed grass,
You might wish for headlights to pass
Across the way -- you're safe at last.

You might think of the fastened strings
Of colored stars -- no, they were just
Electric baubles, wind-rocked things
You saw five houses down. They must
Have been hanging since months before.
They shouldn't be there anymore.
So who are they still shining for?

They're left for you. It might seem wrong
To find out that you're more at ease
In packaged light that's shipped along
Stiff wires than light that slips past trees.
That incandescent glow you've known
Reminds you, though, you're not alone.
Christmas lights gleam, cars rest their chrome --
The lights tell you you're almost home.

* * *

I like this more for the form I came up with than for the language I used to fit the thought into the form. Written after a nighttime walk that took me past a house with its Christmas lights still up and glowing in April.

[Edit: Hmm, seems that Blogger's insta-formatting won't allow me to indent the last three lines of the first two stanzas and the last four of the third stanza, as they should be. Curse you, technology! *shakes angry fist*]

My Poetry Year: Entry #6

In which Your Humble Blogger writes a poem as a gift for an author she respects -- and gets a gift back in turn:

"The Secret"

It isn't that while others aged, white Merlin became young.
It's that he loved good stories, and throughout his life, he learned
As many as he could. He bound them to his breast and tongue.
He kept his bookshelves full -- and seemed to keep the hourglass turned.

* * *

Ah, C2E2, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. It took place for the second time this past weekend; the first one was last year, in April. There's a certain kind of energy that comes from visiting with artists and writers who put so much of themselves into creating images and telling stories. I think that, if you're a creative type, it would be hard to go to a convention and not want to do something.

At last year's C2E2, I had the pleasure of talking at length with one of my favorite writers, Peter Beagle, who's best known for The Last Unicorn. Peter Beagle is a big fan of the old stuff, especially classic poetry, and he can recite entire multi-page poems off the top of his head. Which he did, spontaneously, at C2E2, causing my jaw to drop rapidly and seek a nice spot on the floor.

So Mr. Beagle's a pretty nifty guy, and at the time of C2E2, he was finishing up his 52/50 Project, which involved him writing one song lyric a week for a year and sending them out to subscribers. I mentioned that his pursuit of this goal was one of the things that inspired me to get back into poetry and try to engage in writing it with some regularity. He seemed to appreciate the thought. So what did Geeky Fangirl Me decide to do, having heard him mention that his birthday was coming up? Why, I decided to write him a poem! The day after C2E2, I wrote what you read above, and later, I e-mailed it to Connor Cochran, his kind gentleman of a publisher, asking him to pass it along.

And then, Peter Beagle sent me an e-mail. On his birthday, no less.

I wish I could share it here, but it seems weird to repost someone's personal message without his permission. But I got a message back: He liked it, enough that he had printed it out and forwarded it to friends.

Funny. People are supposed to get the gifts on their birthdays, not give them!

Squee!

My Poetry Year: Entry #5

In which Your Humble Blogger writes a couple of short, goofy blowoff poems making fun of romance novels, bargain books, and, ultimately, herself:

"Upon Reading a Trashy Romance Novel"

Her head eddied with tidal thoughts, her bosom with romance,
She smiled past his confused eyes and said, fumbling with his pants,
"You'll be the planet to my star. I'll pull you close, into my heart,"
Not once aware that lines like that keep stellar bodies far apart.

* * *

I remember that it was my birthday, and I wanted to be sure to write something, even though I had spent most of the day out hiking (and subsequently checking Wes' neck for ticks). For a while, the only metaphor or image occurring to me was the one you see in the third line there. And that? That was a bad metaphor. But once I was able to admit that it was lousy and say exactly how cheesy it sounded, well, then I had an idea I could play with!

The following poem was written the next day, after a trip to Barnes and Noble, where I found in the bargain bin the book that gave this poem its title:

"One Hundred Poems to Touch Your Soul"

Sexual harassment laws
Flay men who'd grab our breasts.
Bouncers will bounce them out;
Our girlfriends scar the rest.

What, then, makes bookstores think
That I would buy and keep
A bargain book that hopes
To touch me twice as deep?

* * *

Please, stay with me. It gets a little better, at least I think it does. I promise.