More than five ... This month's entries were wonderful! Please take a minute to savor, enjoy and vote for the poem that strikes you!

VOTE IN THE POLL ON THE POETRY GROUP'S MAIN PAGE! (CLICK THIS LINK TO VOTE! --> JUST CLICK ON THE TITLE OF THE POEM YOU LIKE BEST! You may vote only once per day, and your vote is anonymous.

~~~~~

R & R

I am going to be Labor Day
from now on. Send out velvet boxes
for your weary arms to lay in,
palms staring into the bright.

I will open your closets, spill
your shoes from their boxes onto the carpet
and lay your barking feet
into the tissue like fat and lazy bees
curling into poppies.
Hear the buzz of their snoring toes.

Quit rubbing your eyes.
I will give them a dark glass
of wine, drop them in
and let them gaze, half-closed
upon the ruby world,
tannin on their tongues of light.

Your creaking back I will collect,
wash, fluff, fold and return
in a bag of down collected only
from dreaming geese.

From now on,
I’m your Labor Day,
your manger, your solid 24
of succour and pamper, slow whispers
and kneading fingers, soft brushes,
soft breezes,
soft palms.

Please, when I come to you,
let me take your hands in mine.
You won’t need them
for that one full,
good and indolent day.

--J. Mark Beaver

~~~~


BLISS (a prose poem)

I was wedded. My mother came the next morning and ate my breakfast. She said give me that dress, and roughed it away. It had a stain on it the size of my fist. Why didn’t you just use the poultice, she said, tucking a pack of dough into her mouth. When she left she could barely fit through the doorway but it was alright, I had my own luggage. The honeymoon was a wooden train, its lamplight lit with whiskey. Through the scrub brush we rocked, barely looking at each other except to trade the flask. We came up through a sandscape of red rock and bedded down in a cabin at the edge of a stream. It was dry but you could see where an animal had once been there, bent down to drink. I laid on the earth and my thighs became rough like rose rock, like sand stone. Rising I walked down the road alone, praying beneath every tree foamed with white blossoms.

Lately I’ve arrived at a mountaintop and the view is better. The land has deep dusks and in the house a buttery upright. Every morning there’s goose eggs and really I like how thick they are, how richly yellow. I stand at the sink and lick the yolk from the face of the plate. Down below my window is a slope undulating green, rabbits hiding in its bushes, birds flashing in the grass. So what if the cream never peaked? The bowl remains sweet, hands thrust twice deep.

--Tara McDaniel


~~~~


To the Observant Motorist Who Called Me Faggot

We have names for things we don't even understand.
The Doppler Effect, for instance. You have no idea

how it works, and neither do I, but I'm sure we both
can appreciate the way it splits

words into two clean syllables--
the fag from got, the it from fag.

I like to think of myself as a hyphen.
And as for what you think, well ...

There's only so much I can learn
from these kinds of conversations.

Maybe to you I'm a pinata--gaily colored, filled with sugar,
battered open by blindfolded children.

Maybe in your life's game of Tag,
I am, perpetually, It.

Or maybe after all, I am nothing, something
approached, named, and sublimated.

I've thought of names for you--
several, in fact--but without a name,

you become a pair of taillights fizzling just beyond 8th Avenue,
and I remain forever in your past,

which, of the three available options,
is my first and only choice.

--James Davis


~~~~


What my Brother’s first Girlfriend taught me about a Painful Death


Have you kissed her yet? I prompt. No, I want my first kiss to be special,
I’m waiting for the right moment! That’s so cute. My younger brother’s
first girlfriend, its too precious. The conversation turns from his Rachel
to the YouTube video he watched about camel spiders. He tells me they
have ten legs and only two eyes. They’re not spiders but solpugids, he
tells me. They look like spiders, they’re eyes are dead like spiders, and
the jerky sinister movements of their long thin legs are like spiders; it
doesn’t matter what he says they really are. He drifts back to Rachel. I
took her to a Halloween party and we watched a really dumb movie. We
just sat on the couch holding hands. Well that makes the movie worth it!
I say. He laughs and I smile, but he can’t see it through the phone. My
grandfather had stroke after stroke, then he died. I was there in the room
when he died. It was when the dark liquid started leaking from his
mouth, that my mother prayed he would die and stop suffering. I was
glad that my brother could not see my smile, could not see black
trickling down my chin like blood, like venom. Later I googled camel
spiders. Did you know they don’t have venom, but they have a bacteria
that makes the bite swell to insane proportions? They will chase you too,
until like my grandfather’s strokes, they grab hold of flesh; bite and
don’t let go, even after you smash it with a broom handle, even after
their guts are trailing along behind them, spilling over cracked pavement.
I don’t want to die that way. I don’t want to hold on after I begin to slop
across the floor. I don’t want to be alone when I die, I don’t want to
be alone now. But it would be just my luck to die with camel spider bites
all over me, growing like cysts, popping all over the sidewalk, oozing
black, and someone will pray that I die; and my brother will be on the
couch with Rachel, holding her hand.

-- Brieanna Thrall

~~~~

Agitprop

They made my right hand a cloud, took
my mouth away and hammered
my fingernails into diamonds.

Who am I to be dissident in your cowpatch, how
are my children to be serene
to the hum
of unspooling razor wire?

They should always come
as they come now:
in the pitch black and cotton dumb silence.
Someone will use my body as a shield. I should
get to heaven.

If you loved me then let them
read this at dinner time,
or better,
read it to them while desert is served.
I had at least one arm to give for the cause
and then another to flag down the peacekeepers.

Let them tie me to their sails and discover new lands.
Let them read my entrails and find fission there.
Let them come up out of the dugout for the standing O.

Let me be buried with comrades, Taps and full military regalia.
Let them fly overhead in V formation with one tail missing.
Let them sprinkle my powdered feet, fertilizer
for the surrounding fields.

Anyway, we can’t eat the hay,
and when I have come back
to possess your half crazy aunt, don’t
let me catch you denigrating agitprop.
We could have done worse.

I could have been a Magi, but the stars were in a cross
position.
I could have learned to do crossword puzzles,
but I had very bad teachers.

Put the logs on his shoulders now and he will carry them back to base camp.
He will learn to eat the bodies of mice
and flying squirrels.
He’s sure to dump the bleach and quicklime in the correct hole.
He will keep your throat shut.

--Seph Rodney


~~~~

Guantanamo

used to be a beautiful word,
surprising stress on the second syllable,
pounding, intense, Latin lover
unwilling to let go of your hand,
pulling you out to the dance floor
three Ahs wide, like Arecibo,
music of the night, the spheres,
radio waves ambassadoring,
bass line thrumming Guantanamo.
Now, hard G becomes guerra,
Guernica, grief, disbelief, betrayal.
There used to be a summer sunset
in that word, which took your breath away.

-- Mary Alexandra Agner

~~~~

Excellent choices! A delight to read! Choosing one from the six, agony.

I must sincerely concur with the the statement above, from where I sit they're all winners.

all of them are excellent! but i have to choose one, it's
"To the Observant Motorist Who Called Me Faggot" by James Davis

I have to ask, what is poetry in this day and age? Certainly, the authors have used vivid language, but it is not poetry. Couldn't the authors of "BLISS" and "What my Brother’s first Girlfriend taught me about a Painful Death" have, at least, organized their poems in such a way so that it looks like poetry?
I'm not insulting these authors; I'm just wondering what poetry has come to these days. Perhaps some of the published poets here could give me some answers?

Poetry is lyrical language that evokes, through imagery and allusion, the higher senses. Verse can be lyrical poetry, but not all lyrical poetry is verse. You may be referring to verse . . . rhyme-schemes, set prescriptions of meter and feet, and similar line-lengths--i.e., how a poem looks on the page as well as how it sounds. "Prosety" fits in the cross-category of prose/poem. I have to say that the definition of poem, vs., say, prose, is the line break. However, the above "prose poems" are quite good, quite good indeed.

Trish

Perhaps you should read some contemporary poetry. I suggest browsing around at
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ and http://poets.org/ Both sites have a wide range of poetry, including a lot of contemporary work.

Poetry is a product of its own age. It changes and develops, as do we all. This does not demean the poetry that went before. Contemporary poetry is neither bettor nor worse than the poetry that preceded it.

It merely means that poetry speaks to the age in which it is written. It will carry that age encoded within itself like a kind of DNA. Poetry written in the style of an age other than the one in which the poet is writing will almost always ring false.

Prose poetry? These are the top two results for 'prose', on Dictionary.com:

1.the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.
2.matter-of-fact, commonplace, or dull expression, quality, discourse, etc.

That's exactly the opposite of what poetry is...

I grew up reading Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Wordsworth. And Shakespeare. Now those guys write poetry.

Ruth, I guess I have to agree with the poetry/age thing. Now my new question is: what is happening to this age? Are people so simple-minded that they cannot get a good rhythm or find words to rhyme? Or is it that the people in previous ages were just better thinkers?

Another thing that bothers me: there isn't much variety in the list of candidates for the contest. I, personally, would like to see some more rhyme and rhythm.

It has little to do with whether contemporary poets are not as good as their predecessors.

In the history of poetry through the ages and throughout the world, end rhymes and regular meter are not the norm. They mostly came into play in the English poetry of the last 2 or 3 centuries. So it's unreasonable to expect that all poetry should conform to this idea.

Prose poems are relatively new. It's a way to write something that is not a section of a novel, not a short story, not just a chunk of prose, but is prose that deals with the concerns of poetry. Think of it as poetry without line breaks.

As for rhyme and rhythm (why is it that spelling that word always flummoxes me?) there is often much rhyme and rhythm in contemporary poetry. It's just not end-rhyme and a regular meter. I assure you that contemporary poets pay a lot of attention to the sounds of words, and the rhythm of a line.

I suspect that the reason there's not much in the way of end-rhyme or regular meter in our finalists is because most people using them today are writing amateurish poetry of dubious quality.

But why are they prose poems? According to the dictionary, prose is very different from poetry. The definition clearly stated: "as distinguished from poetry or verse". Saying "prose poetry" appears to be an oxymoron.

I've said a couple of the poems I've seen on this group out loud, and I cannot feel a rhythm. Perhaps I'm reciting them wrong?

They are prose poems because that's what they're called. They're bits of poetry written without line breaks is the simplest way to think of them. If you go to a dictionary specializing in poetic forms you'd no doubt find them.

There is always a rhythm to a line in poetry. We notice it most when a poem is written to a regular meter, de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM.

Contemporary poets do pay attention to rhythm, but each line mostly does not exactly duplicate the rhythm of the surrounding lines.

It's often kind of a seat-of-the-pants feeling. I think this line is too short and abrupt, it needs to flow longer and more smoothly or I want an unstressed syllable on the end of this line so it ends more gently. Stuff like that.

Ivy wrote: "But why are they prose poems? According to the dictionary, prose is very different from poetry. The definition clearly stated: "as distinguished from poetry or verse". Saying "prose poetry" appe..."

I completely agree Ivy. Pressing Enter at the arbitrary end of a string of text - sometimes, it seems, simply make the lines the same length - does not make prose into prose poetry.

An articulate person could actually think in what some are calling prose poems.

I am greatly saddened by Ruth's comment - message 9 -to the effect that "because most people using them [rhymes:] today are writing amateurish poetry of dubious quality" Does it therefore become necessary to write non-rhyming poetry to avoid being quickly labelled amateurish? What does rhyming poetry have to have to make it 'professional' I wonder? Prehaps Ruth can answer this one.

Malcolm

Hi Ivy,

I hate to jump into this conversation because there are a lot of people in this group who believe anything that rhymes is poetry or that anyone who claims to be a poet therefore is one. This, of course, is nonsense but some people will always believe it. Poetry is an art and, like other types of art, has many forms or schools of thought. It is alive and evolves from culture to culture, but also like other art genres, there are standards to be studied and worked within. While there is no one perfect definition of poetry or even its standards, a concensus has been built over thousands of years by writers and readers as to what constitutes a poem that may rise to the level of art. There are any number of great books written on the subject of American poetry by such wonderful poets as Denise Levertov, Adreinne Rich, Robert Bly, Robert Haas, Jack Myers, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Heather McHugh, and Stephen Dobyns, among many others. One very important book is called In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams. Most of the sing-songy poems you read in this group are by people who've never really studied poetry, which is very hard work, and none of these poems has any chance to ever be called "art" by any cultural or critical standards in literary history. That's okay if all you want to do is brag to your friends that you're a "poet" while good readers of poetry laugh at your efforts. It's all a matter of choice and it's a free country. If, on the other hand, you're a person who wants to TRY and make art, then you must work hard, learn to observe and experience life, listen to people who know more than you do, read and read and read.

As for prose poems, there is still a large debate in many qualified arenas as to whether or not they are legitimate poems that will serve as lasting reminders of the art of contemporary poetry. Personally, I believe they will. Prose poems use poetic tools, including imagery, metaphor, alliteration, rhythm, slant rhyme, etc. - mostly all of them except for line breaks and the reason for that is because in the conversational tone, the sound of the poem isn't necessarily benefitted by them. One of the most important aspects of any good poem is the use of concrete imagery to connect through the senses with the reader and create a strong emotional bond, even if the reader has not experienced the event in person. Here is a famous prose poem by Carolyn Forche that does just that. She was a journalist covering the Latin American atrocities in the 1980's supported by our own government. It's impossible for me to understand how you can't feel something when you read it.


The Colonel


What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on
its black cord over the house. On the television
was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles
were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his
hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings
like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of
lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes,
salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed
the country. There was a brief commercial in
Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk of how difficult it had become to govern.
The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel
told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the
table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to
bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on
the table. They were like dried peach halves. There
is no other way to say this. He took one of them in
his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a
water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of
fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone,
tell your people they can go f--- themselves. He
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held
the last of his wine in the air. Something for your
poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor
caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on
the floor were pressed to the ground.

Ivy wrote: "But why are they prose poems? According to the dictionary, prose is very different from poetry. The definition clearly stated: "as distinguished from poetry or verse". Saying "prose poetry" appe..."

A further thought Ivy. The Description for this group is "No pretensions: just poetry". Perhaps there is a need to have a 'Rhyming Poetry Group' as distinct from the 'Non-rhyming Poems and Prose Poems Group" How absurd would that be...?

Malcolm

Malcolm wrote: "Ivy wrote: "But why are they prose poems? According to the dictionary, prose is very different from poetry. The definition clearly stated: "as distinguished from poetry or verse". Saying "prose ..."


A further thought Ivy. The Description for this group is "No pretensions: just poetry". Perhaps there is a need to have a 'Rhyming Poetry Group' as distinct from the 'Non-rhyming Poems and Prose Poems Group" How absurd would that be...?

LOL! Correct, Malcolm! Poets, as a group, are notorious rule-breakers. The minute someone says "rule," a poet will set out to break it (i.e: the Dada Poets, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson). A quick study of the history of poetry and verse will deliver the lines that have been drawn, erased, and re-drawn over just the past 1 1/2 centuries.

Jim wrote: "Hi Ivy,

I hate to jump into this conversation because there are a lot of people in this group who believe anything that rhymes is poetry or that anyone who claims to be a poet therefore is one. ..."

Sorry Jim, if feeling something from reading a particular set of words defines poetry then I, like many other people have probably read many novel length 'poems'.

I am in complete agreement with you about the use of "imagery, metaphor, alliteration, rhythm, slant rhyme, etc." and I think that poetry should have these - particularly metaphor - in abundance; but what defines these as poetic tools rather than writing tools? What is it, for example, that you think happens to someone who writes a poem (and I dont mean 'a Poet') that does not happen to that same person when they write prose? Is it, as you seem to suggest, simply that one is "hard"?

Malcolm

..Bound to fail those who hail they've reach the goal
..........Therefore let the ineffable in soul.........

Jerin1701 wrote: "..Bound to fail those who hail they've reach the goal
..........Therefore let the ineffable in soul........."

Rumi by any chance Jerin?

Ivy,

I quite understand your passionately held opinion, and all the confusion here. I once shared it. Having studied what was used to be called "The Well-Made Poem" in high school and college, I, too, was surprised to discover 30 years later that postmodern American poetry had thrown out all those rules -- or rather steamed and bent them, like a piece of bentwood furniture, to create beauty in new and different forms. It took some study and much reading of contemporary poetry to grasp the subtleties of what does/does not constitute "a poem" in modern times, let alone the nuances of this very specific form called a "prose poem."

As others have pointed out, there are many fine treatises on the topic of contemporary poetry. However, The Academy of American Poets' authoritative and informative website, poets.org , offers an excellent definition of the literary term, "prose poem," (not to be confused with the term "prose") and a brief history of the origin of the Prose Poem form, which was first developed by the French Symbolist poets, especially Charles Baudelaire. An excerpt from the website:

"Though the name of the form may appear to be a contradiction, the prose poem essentially appears as prose, but reads like poetry. In the first issue of The Prose Poem: An International Journal, editor Peter Johnson explained, 'Just as black humor straddles the fine line between comedy and tragedy, so the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels.'

While it lacks the line breaks associated with poetry, the prose poem maintains a poetic quality, often utilizing techniques common to poetry, such as fragmentation, compression, repetition, and rhyme. The prose poem can range in length from a few lines to several pages long, and it may explore a limitless array of styles and subjects.... (and) marked a significant departure from the strict separation between the genres of prose and poetry at the time."

Read the rest of the article at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMI...

I hope this helps.

Blessings,
Christina

Malcolm wrote: "Jim wrote: "Hi Ivy,

I hate to jump into this conversation because there are a lot of people in this group who believe anything that rhymes is poetry or that anyone who claims to be a poet theref..."\

I think you missed my point, Malcolm. Prose and poetry are both difficult to write WELL. But, I wouldn't call Guernica a sculpture and neither would I call The Thinker a painting. Yet, I might call them both art. Being different in ways to acomplish things doesn't necessarily mean one is inferior to the other. And, by the way, anything written whether claiming to be literary prose or poetry that contains no emotional substance whatsoever, lacks the opportunity to MOVE a reader in any way other than his/her intellect. One of the primary artistic claims of poetry is that it speaks to readers with resonance, or with different layers of meaning rather than the information level only. Many great novels, though not all, focus more on character and narrative rather than metaphorical lyricism, though they might contain aspects of both just as a poem might. I think most poets you might read or talk to would hope that what they write does more than just make someone think. A good newspaper article often makes one think, but I wouldn't class most of the journalists I read as poets and I don't think they would call themselves that either.

Actually that's an original of mine , master Malcolm, though yet... yeah! I am heavily influenced by Rumi......

“because most people using them [rhymes:] today are writing amateurish poetry of dubious quality" Does it therefore become necessary to write non-rhyming poetry to avoid being quickly labelled amateurish? What does rhyming poetry have to have to make it 'professional' I wonder? Prehaps Ruth can answer this one.

I was trying to be polite by making an overbroad statement to avoid specifically labeling many of poems being posted in this group as amateurish and of dubious quality. Jim has said it more bluntly. Most of the sing-songy poems you read in this group are by people who've never really studied poetry, which is very hard work, and none of these poems has any chance to ever be called "art" by any cultural or critical standards in literary history.

They are not alone. There are a lot of people out there writing poetry to whom the word poetry denotes rhyme and regular meter, and only rhyme and regular meter.

These writers focus so exclusively on rhyme and regular meter that they forget (or are ignorant of) the more important fundamentals of poetry, such as layered meaning, imagery, metaphor, simile, double-entendre, enjambment, off-rhyme, slant rhyme, alliteration, concentration of language, evocation, metynomy, ambiguity, symbolism… To name just some.

One is not required to write non-rhyming poetry to avoid being labeled amateurish. (In fact, there are plenty of amateurish non-rhyming poems out there.) And there are contemporary poets using rhyme, and using it well.

But rhyme and regular meter are just one tool in the pack of devices the poet has at hand. It is not the be-all and end-all of poetry. It cannot rescue a poem that ignores the other fundamentals of poetry.

Poetry evolves. So do dictionaries. Incidentally, mine (Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 1993) *does* have a definition for "prose poem": a composition in prose that has some of the properties of a poem.

I'd also say that yes -- a lot of novels *do* embody qualities of poetry, just like some poems are prose-like. It's hard for some of us to get away from wanting to categorize everything, but it may be useful to remember that there's a lot of gray area and these categories are largely marketing terms. Debating categories is great, but there may not be one solid answer.

Incredible batch of poems selected this month -- can't we put them all in the newsletter? Oh please?

I do not want to discourage the many poets posting their poems here, many of whom I suspect are very young. I am thrilled that there are so many people interested in writing poetry. It’s wonderful. Poetry always needs new poets. I want to encourage you to keep writing, it’s one of the ways you learn. But you also need to read, read, read. No one can create poetry in a vacuum. You need to know what’s out there. And why. Visit the two websites I recommended to Ivy. Take a class. Enroll in a workshop, either in person or online. Learn about some of the attributes of poetry Jim and I have written about. Write every day. Read every day. Revise, revise, revise. Hang in there. It’s what I’m doing.

I'm enjoying this conversation very much, I'm happy that it came about. I have two cents to put forth, the first cent being that, ultimately, I think it's okay not to enjoy prose poetry and to prefer to read traditional verse. It reminds me a little of my husband who loves to read novels but generally sticks to the classics and some contemporary novels written prior to the 1960s and 70s. I, on the other hand, love contemporary novels--and not only that, I jump at not just the new thing, but the new-new-new thing. Granted, the new-new-new thing doesn't always turn out , but sometimes it does and the reason why I like that is the writing quickens something, makes me excited. That's not true for everybody. If you like rhyming or any kind of formal (form) verse, there are lots of contemporary poets who still do this in some of their work--Ed Hirsch jumps to mind. And though I don't personally know a lot about contemp. literary journals that primarily publish formal verse, they do indeed exist, just as other journals love to publish free verse and prose poems.
My second cent is, if you like formal verse but you're curious to know more about the prose poem as a form--where it came from, what it is, where it is going--there are several books on the subject (I don't know much about web resources). One such book is "The American Prose Poem" by Michel Delville (University Press of Florida, 1998).

Jim, I have to question: though the people writing "sing-songy" poems haven't gone the lengths to study poetry fully, have they not worked extremely carefully to fit in every single word and rhyme? It's not a piece of cake to write ANY poem, "prose" or not. I cannot see how you think that "prose" poems have more chance of 'going down in literary history' more than a 'sing-songy' poem that's actually enjoyable to say out loud. When I read a "prose" poem, it just sounds like I'm telling a story with many descriptive words; I can't feel rhythm, I don't hear a rhyme.

A question: do you take a break at the end of line? I'm terribly confused as to the fact of why there are jumps in the middle of the line, or none whatsoever.

Ivy -- I've read a lot of amateurish rhymed poetry, and one of the hallmarks of such poetry is carelessly constructed rhymes (not to mention sloppy meter). For example, a writer will repeat the same word or use a word that doesn't really rhyme, or will switch word order to put a rhyming word at the end of a line even though that makes the language very awkward.

A couple people have brought up whether prose poems have a rhythm. They do, just like any free verse, but it's not necessarily a strict repeating pattern like you'd find in something like iambic pentameter. It's sort of like jazz improvisation as opposed to a neatly constructed waltz.

Many amateurish poems fail because they use rhyme poorly, the most common failing being that the words are twisted out of order so that the rhyming word can be at the end of a line.

Ex: The plate was filled with apples red.

Even more amateurish poems fail because they concentrate only on rhyme and meter, and ignore the things that make poetry what it is, some of which I mentioned in my previous note, i.e. layered meaning, imagery, metaphor, simile, double-entendre, enjambment, off-rhyme, slant rhyme, alliteration, concentration of language, evocation, metynomy, ambiguity, symbolism…

I'd like to address Jim and Ruth particulary, but anyone who is writing poetry today.

I received an e-mail today from Kim Addonizio, a wonderful poet (who teaches in Oakland, CA, by the way and is starting a workshop in her home June 20th--July 15th).

She sent along notes that "were taken by Susan Browne at a workshop she did years ago with poet Jack Gilbert. These are a few of the things he said" below and should hold weight and be of important consideration for any poet.

These are inspiring words, poets, for whatever kind of poem you are writing, prose or not. Enjoy!


Enter poetry like a lover.

Poetry occurs between one word and the next. The energy comes from what words you put by each other. They have overtones and create an energy field, things chiming as you go.

The first line is very important; establishes the ambience. How it will be received.

Poetry is a living object.

The body doesn’t understand language. So image it, see it, concrete detail, felt knowledge. Hopkins is not telling you about God, he is dancing you into an experience with God. Poetry makes the truth experience in us. Concreteness makes a poem work.

Tell me something about love that matters.

To capture the particularity of a feeling is exciting.

Marriages die. Unfortunately they continue, but they die.

Get stark, primal energy into the poem.

Giving shape to suffering is healing.

In revising your poem, make it twice as long; you have to get into territory you don’t know .

Read great poets and forget about ideas and get a language transfusion.

Steal the engine, not the hubcaps. Notice the strategies of poems.

Something needs to happen in the language besides the decoration.

Don’t let the idea lead you through the poem by the hand. Keep the mystery.

Good poetry is truly caused by something.

Making the invisible seen. Poets are “bees of the invisible.” (Rilke)

See six things everyday. Everybody has opinions, but can you see?

The woman wanted to write about her baby. Look at the baby’s fingernails.

Be available to seeing, not just willing to see. You don’t look at sugar; you wait to see sugar.

We see habitually by our own refraction. Knife in the water. You don’t see the knife; you see the refraction.

Real surrealism has to have truth in it.

Does the poem keep its energy all the way through? What are moments in the poem that really need to be there and those that don’t?

Get away from writing cleverly and write from a deeper place.

Poetry isn’t sane. Prose is. Poetry uses another part of the brain.

Sparkle and intensity of the language, fresh images.

Change up the sentence structure. Opens a window in your mind.

Unearned feeling or image falls into sentimentality. Write on the edge of sentiment without tipping over.

Take the normal and introduce something strange. But if everything is crazy, nothing is crazy.

The fear of sentiment is the greatest cowardice of the 20th century, it is impoverishing us and our poetry.

One of the functions of poetry is to teach people feeling,to reawaken feeling.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

A note for Ivy...
A prose poem is very "blocky" looking in appearance, going from margin to margin. It is justified and single-spaced. It's the content that's important: use of language, word choice and juxtaposition, as well as metaphor, vivid imagery and all the techniques of poetry you'd like to incorporate: internal rhyme, alliteration, slant rhyme, meter, rhythm, etc. It's kind of like a poem of "no-holds barred," no restrictions or restraints...go for it!

Ivy wrote: "Jim, I have to question: though the people writing "sing-songy" poems haven't gone the lengths to study poetry fully, have they not worked extremely carefully to fit in every single word and rhyme..."

Sorry if I confused you Ivy. What I was implying, or trying to, is that there is a difference between simply rhyming words and attempting to do all the things a good poem might do within a particular rhyme scheme or traditional English form. Take a look at some sestinas or some form of sonnet (i.e. Shakespearean, Petrarchian, Spensarian) and notice the care the authors take to make the poem artful and meaningful while keeping to the form. When you sacrifice all the other qualities simply to make words rhyme at the end of each line, as many people do who don't understand the use of forms, the work becomes about the rhyme and not much else. That's a very shallow effort. I didn't mean that a prose poem is any better than a form poem or will last longer or be read by more people. Any type of poem that is done well and that has balanced all the things we've talked about has a chance to last as art. Also, don't make the mistake of believing that prose poets just throw things together. Any good poet revises constantly and labors over every word and punctuation mark, even the title of poems which can convey specific meaning for the reader. As for the idea that free verse poets (a term I don't like for this very reason) just break lines on a whim, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of these poets are better labeled, if they must be labeled at all, as organic poets. The form of the poem follows the content of it and each poem is grown into a different form based on its individual content. If you want to know more about line breaks in non-rhyming poetry there are many books to read about it. You might also look at what's been written about Allen Ginsberg's "breath units" and the Variable foot philosophy of William Carlos Williams. For the present, just write what comes natural. Get it down on paper without worrying about a lot of these things. Then begin to consider them little by little with each revision.

Though I love this group, never before have I loved it so much. "Each one teach one" is the philosophy of this discussion thread, and each has so much to give (and remember, by asking questions and drawing out answers, the questioner is helping us learn, too).

Thank you, Nina, for sharing that!

Trish

Nina wrote: "I'd like to address Jim and Ruth particulary, but anyone who is writing poetry today.

I received an e-mail today from Kim Addonizio, a wonderful poet (who teaches in Oakland, CA, by the way an..."

Jim wrote: "Ivy wrote: "Jim, I have to question: though the people writing "sing-songy" poems haven't gone the lengths to study poetry fully, have they not worked extremely carefully to fit in every single wo..."

An addition to Nina's comments - Kim Addonizio, along with Dorrianne Laux, has a great book that might help you a lot with your questions, Ivy. It's called The Poet's Companion. I used it for years at various universities when teaching poetry workshops and my students loved it. Also, read Jack Gilbert's collection - The Great Fires - or any of his poetry collections. He's a wonderful writer and poet.

Thanks, Nina. That was a lovely post.

And Jim, I own the Addonizio/Laux book and agree with your assesment of it. I also like Francis Mayes, The Discovery of Poetry.

Right now I'm reading Robert Haas's Even Now. It's a compilation from a regular newspaper column he wrote while he was Poet Laureate. Each week he presented a poem from a different poet, with a short introduction and/or explication. Because these were written for the general newspaper reader, they are clear, well-written and not at all intimidating.

The Poet's Companion (good choice, Jim!) is a brilliant book that one will return to (I know I do) again and again.

May I also suggest--for those seriously interested in meter, rhyme, rhythm, and form (loose or rigid), but in easy-to-comprehend text--Mary Oliver's Rules for the Dance. Beautifully written . . . a wonderful book for anyone interested in poetry--on any level.

Of course, Billy Collins compiled a delightful collection in Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. Many forms (and "not-forms") of poetry line its pages. At the start of each semester, I give, as a hand-out, a copy of Wayman's "Did I Miss Anything?" to the students in each class I teach. No one dares ask me that question the duration of the semester. :)

Trish

The sad thing for me is that a lot more people claim to write poetry (good or bad) than read it. Check your book shelves and count the number of poetry books you have read. So the words of Ruth should be carved in stone: Read! Read! Read! Then Read some more!

As for rhyme and all those western ideas of what poetry is, there are other forms in the big wide world. I spent 7 years studying and writing haiku and believe me it is as much a form of poetry as Shakespeare's sonnets and requires years of study. And it is not as simple as school teachers would have you believe.

Thanks, Jim, for the Forche poem.

Harley wrote: "The sad thing for me is that a lot more people claim to write poetry (good or bad) than read it. Check your book shelves and count the number of poetry books you have read. So the words of Ruth s..."

Harley, absolutely!!! Good follow-up. While I hate to discourage any poet, I urge any "complainers" to check out others' works, see what is published (and, likewise, what is not). Being "new" to poetry should not discourage but encourage. And encouragement comes from research and reading--as it always should. :)
tlj

To write true poetry.... Could we please go beyond poetry?

" There lives more life in one of Your fair eyes..
"Than all Your poets can in praise devise

This is a great discussion!

Glad to see people talking up The Poet's Companion: I'm teaching with it next fall and haven't gotten around to reading it yet! I'm so convinced of Kim Addonizio's brilliance, I didn't feel as if I needed to see the book in advance.

Allow me to interrupt this lively, fruitful discussion to thank everyone who voted for "Observant Motorist": it's an honor to have been considered among such a fabulous group of poems (prose- or otherwise). J. Mark, Tara, Brieanna, Seph, Mary: y'all got skills. Can't wait to read more of your poesy. Holla.

My vote goes for "BLISS (a prose poem)" by Tara McDaniel. Beautiful narration and images. Hemingway did not name his novel "Old Man and the Sea" a poem.Nothing is wrong to write a beautiful prose. A poetry is art and could be perceived by loving heart only. Analyzing it will help you to become a professor but not a poet.

From Yesenin

Being a poet means self-grilling
Always telling the truth to others.
With a bleeding heart, hurt feelings,
Caressing the souls of others.

To be a poet means to sing the breezy
Spaces, and their beauty to acknowledge.
For the nightingale to sing is easy,
She doesn’t require any knowledge.

To copy others--the parrot’s effort--
Is less useful than a fly’s buzz.
The world needs a powerful, fresh song’s word,
Pronounced clearly, even as a frog does.

Mohammed cheated us in his Koran
When prohibiting wine drinking.
I would rather follow the Torah--
To be merry, I’ll be drinking and singing.

When a poet comes to see his sweetheart,
And finds her with another sleeping,
He would not drive a knife into her poor heart.
But wine will save his heart from weeping.

If he finds the green monster is still a bother,
He will whistle on his way home, sad and lonely:
“So what! I’ll die on a road, rather.
This is known. She is not the only.”

Gregory wrote: "My vote goes for "BLISS (a prose poem)" by Tara McDaniel. "

Why Gregory, what happened to all your fervent declarations that all poems MUST rhyme????

Thank you Jim. The Colonel was a brilliant example of breathtakingly effective prose poetry.

Ruth, have you read any older poetry, by the famous poets? I'm really starting to wonder, with you saying that it is amateurish to move words around so they rhyme...

From 'Sea Memories', by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

"Is haunting my memory still:
A boys will is the wind's will,..."

From 'Lady Clare', by Alfred Tennyson:

"I trow they did not part in scorn;
Lovers long betroth'd were they;
They two will wed the morrow morn;
God's blessing on the day!"

From 'The Dorchester Giant', by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

"There was a giant in times of old,
A mighty one was he;
He had a wife, but she was a scold,
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold;
And he had children three."

Those poets are widely known, and look how they moved some of those words around to make it rhyme. They are certainly NOT 'amateurs'. And, there are many, many more poems that have this.
I suppose most of you also thing using "o'er" is a horrible thing too, since it substitutes "over" so that you can fit it into a certain meter.

I have another question: have the people here who write prose poetry actually tried to write a rhyming poem that has the qualities you've deemed a 'must'? If so, I would love to read it.

Ivy wrote: "Ruth, have you read any older poetry, by the famous poets? I'm really starting to wonder, with you saying that it is amateurish to move words around so they rhyme...

From 'Sea Memories', by Henry..."

Ivy, You seemed to be convinced that creating a poem simply involves making words rhyme. It's hard to believe you've missed what everyone has been adding to the discussion regarding what makes ARTFUL poetry. The poems you quote are two hundred years old when the ONLY way acceptable for poets to write in the English language was by using structured forms. There are many ways to write poems now, INCLUDING structured and traditional forms. Just rhyming words doesn't mean you're structuring your poem in one way or another or that it actually contains worthwhile meaning to anyone other than yourself. It means you've read a lot of Hallmark cards. It's amateurish not to be willing to listen to other people and accept their generous encouragement and advice. Also, the poets you mention are widely known because of their historical value in establishing the early foundations of a prosody for the English language. They were valuable poets and made a great contribution to the world of poetry. However, so did many non-rhyming poets from ancient cultures before them and many non-rhyming poets who came after them. Students read about these old English poets in school for historical and literary reasons. That's why they're still famous and well-known. Part of learning to be a poet is opening your mind and heart to new possibilities and unique experiences and fresh ways to use your language. Try not to let your own mind limit you.

Here is a modern example of a formed poem by the famous British poet, Phillip Larkin. I have not seen any rhyming poems on this site that come anywhere close to the depth and resonance of this one. He does not move meaning around to make words rhyme. They rhyme because he puts the best words in the best order according to his vision in the poem.

Aubade
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

I too, am a little disturbed by this apparent downplaying of the process of writing poetry with lines that rhyme. I can understand people's doubt about ending a line in a rhymm 'just for the sake of it' and without, at the same time taking account of what meaning is conveyed by the other words in the line and their precise arrangement. An earlier comment - I think it might have been Jim's - acknowledged the effort and study involved in writing poetry - any kind of poetry - well.
Can I offer the following poem that I wrote when I was quite young, to allow people to comment on what specifically is wrong with it? In that way perhaps those of us who are struggling might become clearer about the function of rhyme and the extent to which it allows us (forces us perhaps) to look for, and if we are fortunate or persistent, uncover evidence of realtionships that might otherwise remain hidden.

---------------------------------------------

SWEET LADY DRAGON

Sweet Lady Dragon, you guard your treasure well,
Safe above the world in that high place where you dwell;
A challenge to all heroes, from near and from far -
The treasure that you guard is the treasure that you are.

Though many of the bravest approach your mountain realm,
The power of your presence is sure to overwhelm
All but the most determined, whose quest has made him wise
Enough to answer the riddle you pose and claim the golden prize.

Like others far more brave than he, he’d willingly risk death;
But trembles when he comes in range of your warm and fragrant breath;
Then suddenly feels more confident when remembering the dove,
Who whispered softly to him that the answer’s always love.

---------------------------------------------

Malcolm

Malcolm wrote: "I too, am a little disturbed by this apparent downplaying of the process of writing poetry with lines that rhyme. I can understand people's doubt about ending a line in a rhymm 'just for the sake o..."

Hi Malcolm,

I guess I'm a little disturbed by people thinking in terms of right and wrong. When I discuss poetry, I don't think in terms of right and wrong. I start from the premise that no one has ever written a perfect poem. W.H. Auden was revising some of his most famous published poems on his death bed. If he needed to do that, then we all probably do. When a person posts a poem and asks for advice, I try to think how I, as a reader, can help that person make his/her poem better. Where do I see weaknesses that the writer can improve on and still maintain a personal vision of the poem. As a poetry editor for a magazine, I read thousands of poems every year and find the people who send them in generally fall into two catagories - those that want to make good poems better and those that are looking for a pat on the back. The latter will never improve their writing.

In regards to your poem specifically. There is nothing wrong with it. It's well written. But, first of all, I suspect there's a cultural divide between you as a writer and me as a reader. American idiomatic poetry and British formal poetry are separated by an ocean, literally and metaphorically. If I were working with you in a poetry workshop and you were in America, I would tell you that you probably don't have enough conflict and concrete detail for an intelligent American reader to be more than lightly interested. There isn't much for me to connect with on a personal level. I would ask questions that matter to me as a reader, questions raised in my mind when I read the poem, such as where's this high place? What's it look like? What's the significance of her being there? What is meant by heroes, what have they done heroically? How do we learn wisdom from a quest when we as readers have no idea what the hero went through to earn his? What's the riddle? Ultimately, I would ask myself what I'm supposed to take away from the poem other than "shy guy tries to get jiggy with beautiful, unattainable female" and that's really not anything new for me to discover. Robert Frost said, "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader." I would ask you as a writer - when you revise, how can you discover something in this poem about the human condition and pass it on to me. Ezra Pound said, "one moves the reader only by clarity." Concrete images provide clarity. I would ask you to help me interact with your poem on an emotional level and to engage it viscerally. Give me some images to replace abstractions - show me bravery, show me a presence, what is it that love answers - really. In England, this poem might be publishable or even already published. It would have a lot of difficulty as written finding a home in a reputable and respected literary magazines here in the states - not because it's badly written, it isn't. It just isn't overly stimulating and interesting to the very small poetry reading audience who would buy those high quality journals. And, when I write, I'm hoping to publish in the best places I can, though it doesn't always happen. But sometimes, people even pay me money for poems. I would think that a person who writes as seriously as you seem to would be after that same kind of credibilty among peers. Look at the Phillip Larkin poem I posted. He rhymes and the poem is beautiful. But, he also draws me in to intellectually and emotionally deal with a very difficult subject and allows me to leave the poem wondering and re-examining how I'm to face paradoxically something I'm trying to avoid facing. Note how the last line is a specific image of a postman going door to door as a reminder to us that death is an ordinary, unstoppable, everyday occurence and so we must somehow learn to deal with it that way.

Ivy, of course I've read lots of older poets, Ivy. I cut my poetry teeth on Longfellow when I was only a kid. Those older poets were writing in the forms of their time, and adhering to the idea of poetry in their time. They were wonderful poets---a zillion years ago. Anybody who apes their way of writing today is going to come off looking like a fool.

I'm going to copy and paste in here something I said way back in message 7. Apparently you missed it.

Poetry is a product of its own age. It changes and develops, as do we all. This does not demean the poetry that went before. Contemporary poetry is neither bettor nor worse than the poetry that preceded it. It's just different.

Poetry speaks to and of the age in which it is written. It will carry that age encoded within itself like a kind of DNA. Poetry written in the style of an age other than the one in which the poet is writing will almost always ring false.

I also recommend that you read carefully Jim's posts 30, 44 and 46. He's making some very important points. These are things that anyone who attempts to write poetry should pay attention to.

What you're calling "rhyming" is what a poetry lexicon would call "end rhymes." Poetry isn't about end rhymes. It's about all those things that Jim and I have talked about over and over and over. End rhymes are just one of the many, many devices a poet can use to address the real concerns of poetry.

And yes, any modern poet using the contraction "o'er" would most likely be laughed off the stage, as if he/she were wearing pantaloons.

With all due respect, madam Ruth, but I don't think master Shakespeare himself would ever give a damn about what the modern comfy corporate controlled contemporary poets thinks about his very own contraction 'o'er'............ Well... for one thing he's dead....

With all due respect, if you read more carefully you will find that I didn't say there was anything wrong with Shakespeare's using "o'er." He was using the language and conventions of his day.

What I said was And yes, any modern poet using the contraction "o'er" would most likely be laughed off the stage, as if he/she were wearing pantaloons. It's silly for anyone to try to write with Shakespeare's language today. We are not contemporaries of Shakespeare and the English we use is far different.

Bravo, Jerin! I agree with you but with one thing - Shakespeare is not dead. His soul is immortal.