Monthly Archives: August 2017

7 posts

Cold Comfort: Poems That Make the Big-Time

humor poetry publishing reading poetry submitting poetry

angeldevil

Reading published poems–especially poems published in the heavyweight division, where you find periodicals like The New Yorker–can be both frustrating and edifying. Before I count the ways, let me share a poem published in the The New Yorker’s Aug. 28th issue:

SON by Craig Morgan Teicher

I don’t even know where my father lives.
I know his number, and whenever
I call he answers and gives
the usual update about getting together
with the stepkids and their kids,
about the latest minor crises
with his health, about what he did
with Maryanne for their anniversary.
He lives somewhere in Connecticut,
near where he lived before.
It’s been easy not to go there, but
I know I should–there won’t always be more
time. There will always be less.
I don’t even know my father’s address.

Here’s the conversation in my head–or shall I say, between my shoulders. You know, the one between the kind angel on the right and the surly devil on the left.

KA: Wow. Heartwarming sonnet. For me, the key line is “I know I should–there won’t always be more time.” It’s a message that resonates for all of us.

SD: Clichés resonate, too. That doesn’t mean they deserve a precious three inches in The New Yorker.

KA: Finally, a poem that doesn’t leave your average reader scratching his head! It’s poems like this that can bring poetry back into the mainstream.

SD: Still, a little heft counts for something. This is prosaic, mundane, drab. Editors of lesser magazines would have given it the boilerplate rejection letter upon one reading.

KA: Did you give it a chance? Did you read it more than once? Did you note its form and rhyme? Good poetry merits more than one reading, as you know.

SD: Please. Don’t patronize me just because your shoulder is right. Rereading poetry offers its rewards, but only if there is a challenge or special beauty in the words, not if your father lives in Somewhere, Connecticut.

KA: So you’re jealous, in other words. One of the Seven Deadly Sins.

SD: I’m inspired, actually. One of the Seven Deadly Hopes. If “Son” passes muster in a big glossy like this, then surely I, too, might make a big splash in the Big Apple.

KA: I won’t begrudge you that, though I believe they closed their submissions page on July 3rd and will not open it again until the fall.

SD: Never say the word “fall” around a devil.

KA: Pardonez and moi, Sir, but it gives you that much more time to revise whatever it is you’re working on.

SD: A Shakespearean sonnet called “Daughter,” if you must know. Rhyming more or probably less. The magic number is 14. All other sonnet rules fall into the “As You Like It” department.

KA: Good luck, Son. And don’t forget to abab cdcd efef gg visit your Father! If you can match “Son,” you deserve to be published!

In Which I Critique a Book of Critiques

poetry poetry books poetry criticism

hix

The following is my Goodreads review of H. L. Hix’s Wild and Whirling Words: A Poetic Conversation. As it is instructive and a cautionary tale, I thought I would share it with the WordPress community as well:

Like writing workshop on steroids, this, as 33 poets critique each other’s work and the result isn’t always pretty. Hix’s method was to strip the author’s name from the poem and randomly select six poets to respond not only to each poem but to each other’s takes on each poem.

It’s hard to believe that this book might appeal to any but those who read poetry and those who write poetry (what many would call “the same thing”), but maybe. There’s much to be learned here, too, especially about the mysterious world of poetry. Is there “good” poetry and “bad” poetry, for instance? This book gives that notion pause.

How? Well, in many cases, a poem is lauded by one fellow poet and ripped to shreds by another. The number of times this happens is mind boggling, giving poets like me some measure of comfort when it comes to rejections from poetry journals. Meaning? So much depends on the personality and tastes of the reader, whether he or she is an editor or a fellow Goodreads poster or your spouse. Did I say comfort? Cold comfort, then.

Example, in response to a poem called “Smithereens”:

CRITIC #1: “A death wish? I don’t think so. But a poem perched on the fine line between life and death, consciousness and its absence. Obliquely I’m reminded of Emily Dickinson’s poem 465, “I heard a Fly buzz–when I died–.” This poem invites me back through its precision and mystery, its dashing and reformations. I feel, as I often do with the very best poems, just on the edge of understanding.”

CRITIC #2: “The run-on sentences and ungainly imagery (‘snow flops’) give this poem a distinct first-draft quality. Nor is the process particularly illuminating; after all, everyone dies and reenters the physical world. This poem approaches transcendence, but I need more.”

You see what I mean. One expert compares the poem to Emily Dickinson’s best work, and the next compares it to a first draft. Ouch! On the other hand, the excerpts above provide a taste of one of the book’s strengths. These two quotes are SMALL compared to most of the critiques. If you are a writer who has been frustrated with the brevity or the poor quality of critiques you’ve requested from fellow writers, this book shows how it should be done. Would I offer my work up as chum to this kind of shark tank? Boy, howdy, YES! The various responses would give grist for the revision mill in a big way.

I guess the worst take-away for me is that this book explains why so many lay readers, of which GR is representative, shy away from poetry in general. For them, the genre of poetry is often too crazy-ass confusing or oblique–everything their high school teachers made it– so it is best left to those who write poems because those who write poems are inevitably those who read poems. This is true of “modern” poetry, at least. I know some lay readers are happy to read older, more classic authors such as Frost comma Robert, hallowed be his name.

And me? If you say “J’accuse!” then I say “Mea culpa.” I liked precious few of these poems myself–and understood even fewer. Me, a practitioner of the trade! Still, it was interesting to hear the poet/critics carp. They spoke the language of poetry–in tongues, in other words. More than once I heard criticism of too many prepositional phrases, for instance. Note to self: Watch the prepositional phrases. And meter! Lots of talk about blank verse and beats and stresses.

Hoo, boy. Meter drives me crazy. I haven’t even invested in one of them bad-boys yet. Maybe it’s time to see Lovely Rita, Meter Maid, eh?

Pray for me.

A Rare Total Eclipse of the Library

poetry

library

Recently I renewed a few inter-library loan books, expecting to see the usual–a two-week bump in reading time. Instead, it was like Christmas morning. My renewal gave me a whopping 7-week extension!

Knowing technology and its sketchy reputation, I figured it was a ghost in the machine, a mistake sure to be caught and corrected by the library authorities-that-be, but a look at my library’s web site told me otherwise. The library was temporarily closing for a month or MORE so it could move to its new digs, meaning that all due dates, late dues, and fines were off. Granted clemency. Freed.

That’s right: a total eclipse of the library! (At this point, if you’re jealous, consider it a good sign… sort of like “Ice Cream Parlor 2 Miles Ahead.”)

With this knowledge, the race was on. I had 10 days to collect books from the old library before it was occluded. At that point, any books in my possession would make themselves at home for a month and a half at the very least.

As poetry books bear rereading, this would be a real treat. This meant setting aside time to scour the home library’s shelves in a leisurely fashion. It also meant placing holds on inter-library books that had no waiting lists, ones that would wend their ways to me ipso fasto–soon enough to beat the “temporarily dead line.”

Me, I am a big supporter of libraries and think they should be larger, better financed, and worthy of more taxpayer funds. Alas, too many of our town dollars go to athletic fields and programs instead, as if our children’s bodies alone were worthy of support. What about their minds?

Judge a town or city by its library, I always say. How big, how well-stocked, and how many hours open to the public.

And if the rare eclipse comes your way, giving you a book-borrowing holiday of sorts, don your glasses and look that gift horse in its shiny mouth!

J. Crew Poetry Clues

poetry word choice writing

jcrew2

My daughter, once a huge fan of J. Crew clothing, introduced me to the wonderfully-entertaining (if you like words) J. Crew catalogue. Heck with the clothes. There one would find color names that looked more at home in a biosphere than a coloring book. What would I do to be employed by J. Crew, my job not to model clothes and look good (not on my résumé in either case), but to invent creative and sales-inducing names for colors!

This all rushed back to me as I was reading Mark Doty’s The Art of Description, part of Graywolf Press’s “The Art Of” Series. In that book, Doty ventures on a side trip–a Huck Finn-like raft trip, if you will–devoted to poetry writing and the use of color. All poets use colors as part of their descriptive toolbox, but do they keep J. Crew (that famous Lake Poet manual) in mind?

“How does color get onto the page, into the reader’s internal eye?” Doty asks. “Certainly not by naming it,” he concludes.

And yet, as writers, how often do we do just that? In fact, if we use the Word function to search and highlight words we tend to favor (read: overuse), most of us are likely to see a color. For me, it’s green. Yes, I use it creatively at times, but the fact is, it remains your garden-variety GREEN.

To make his point, Doty starts with the term “the red door.” He shows how adding modifiers for different textures as a dimension can improve the description: “the rough, scraped red door.” Then he takes it another step, calling on J. Crew for some how-to:

“Readers may remember when every mailbox in America sported the J. Crew catalog, with its nouveau prep clothes, every T-shirt or sweater available in a range of colors with memorable names: pool, pine, sierra, stone. It’s marketing kitsch, but those writers knew what they were doing; the word not only makes us see the color in a way that a more straightforward name never would, but also invokes an inviting world of associations, the aqua spells of pool, the scented cool of pine. It’s an indirect way of naming, and it avoids the problem of color words that can seem as flat as Crayola hues, and tend to lead to lying anyway. When we refer to leaves as green or bark as brown, we reduce language to a debasing perceptual shorthand. Every leaf is made up of a complex interaction of shades, tones that shift as light does. Watch a Russian olive toss in the wind in sunlight!…What you see is as far from “green” as the appallingly named “flesh” of the crayon boxes of my childhood is from the beautiful variety of human skin. Even to say the phrase “Russian olive” is to bring something of the flashing, always-moving aspect of those leaves with their silvery undersides into speech, if only by association.”

This riff also brings back the basic color rule of never being obvious, repetitive, and insulting to our readers. You don’t say “green leaf” or “white snow” or “blue sky” when that is a reader’s normal association anyway. You employ color only when it defies expectations.

Or at least that’s step one. As Doty (J. Crew catalogue in hand) proves, it’s more subtle than even that. Careful modifiers and associations that might make your readers do the equivalent of clicking “Add to Cart” come into play.

Pretend you have that dream job from J. Crew, in other words. Next time you write a poem, put that cool scent of pine strategy to work!

 

“Would You Critique My Poem?” (Gulp!)

poetry poetry criticism

telescope

According to the prophets, when someone asks you to review their book, you make like Donald and duck (the exception being a good friend). But what about a request that you critique a poem? Tougher, as it’s such a small basket of kindness, the sort you might decline only if it’s a stranger.

But…but! If you’re up to helping a friend by reading and reviewing a poem, consider the hazards. Critiquing is not an easy basket to prepare, Red Riding Hood. There’s a wolf’s teeth worth of dangers once you jump in!

First off, critique requests usually come without specific questions. When on such vague grounds, the honest reviewer, left to his own devices, must decide where to begin. I like to start with the overall, then go to the nitty gritty.

The overall amounts to some parts emotional, some parts technical, but all considered as a whole. As a unique piece of literature, how does this poem hit me? What does it accomplish? What, pray tell, is its purpose? And once I convey that to the writer, I look closer and try to figure out the parts or techniques that were responsible for this general feeling (Part II of the critique).

Maybe I’m wrong, but I always feel like Part I–the overall effect– is the most important aspect of a poem. Still, the closer look (trees, as opposed to forest), which attempts to dig out the why’s, provides the true fodder for revision.

The key to answering these “why’s” involves the Good and the Bad technique. Usually, God help you, SOMEthing is working in this piece. Point this “Good” out by hunting down specific words, figurative language, or structural touches. that strengthened the poem’s purpose and/or struck you as powerful and unique.

Then it’s on to the “consider this” part (a.k.a. the “Bad,” which we don’t utter, as it is a 3-letter word with aspirations). As a receiver of critiques, I value “Bad” parts of a critique the most, for these are the constructive criticisms that represent one (hopefully sharp) reader’s reaction to my work’s weaknesses. The responder’s job, in this case, is to state what’s not quite working for him and why. The writer’s job is to consider it.

Considering isn’t as easy as it sounds. Yes, you can accept a suggestion, reject it, or put it on hold, but often criticism takes to task one of the writer’s babies. What, pray tell, is a “baby”? A baby is a particular line, word, or flourish that the poet-writer loves.

How crestfallen is the poet when the baby, of all things, comes under the scrutiny of a critical reader? Very. And you can bet THAT change will be put on “hold” as a “maybe, maybe not” change for future revision.

It’s like the dentist hitting a nerve while drilling teeth sans Novocaine. (Ouch!) The poet, clearly convinced that this was the best part of the poem (and often its genesis) must now realign his universe. It will take time. He may stubbornly hold (and lose the hand later on) or, in time, give the baby up with the greatest reluctance. That’s the nature of giving and receiving critiques.

Does expertise in poetry affect the quality of criticism? It can help or hurt, in my experience. Some university-trained (do the letters M, F, and A mean anything to you?) or self-appointed experts who are widely published can go overboard and get all tangled up in their own advice. As Whitman would have it, they come off as “Learn’d Astronomers” who look at heavens clouded by pride. Leave these good “professors” to their telescopes. You want people who just enjoy stars.

And it goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway because I talk too much) that second and third opinions are a great help. But yes, this is assuming that good poetry critics are easy as New Orleans and as plentiful as mosquitoes during a rainy spring.

Let’s agree on this much: Criticism is a fine balance of subjective and objective, brain and gut. Not everyone is good at it, but if they are and if they’re willing, they are invaluable poetry friends and you owe them in kind, if they write as well.

Good critiques take time and effort, after all. Going through the motions doesn’t fly.

Be a Man!

poetry poetry books

donkey gospel

What does it mean to be a man? In its way, as fascinating a topic as the age-old muse of many a poet: death. I was struck by this thought while reading Tony Hoagland’s 1998 collection (for the first time!), Donkey Gospel.

While in the book, wondering if the title had anything to do with what asses we are (a variation of Mark Twain’s fist-shaking at “the damned human race”), I came across “The Replacement.”

This poem, ostensibly about Hoagland’s brother and what it means to come of age as a “man” in America (oh, hell, anywhere really) struck me because it does what good poetry should do–it speaks on two levels, the concrete particular and the abstract in-general.

Man or woman, the reader reads the poem, hits the spot-on finish, and nods, “Yes! That’s it. This captures something I myself know, either from personal experience or from witnessing someone else’s experience.”

Better yet, Hoagland doesn’t preach. He simply lays his brother’s experience out and leaves it to the reader to decide: Good? Bad? Necessary? Unnecessary? Somewhere in between?

In case you haven’t read it yet, you can enjoy its bittersweet truths here. And if you have read it, enjoy anew. Poetry begs rereading more than any other genre, which only adds to the mystery of why so many otherwise-stalwart readers avoid it.

 

The Replacement

And across the country I know
they are replacing my brother’s brain
with the brain of a man:

one gesture, one word, one neuron at a time
with surgical precision
they are teaching him to hook his thumbs
into his belt, to iron his mouth as flat
as the horizon, and make his eyes
reflective as a piece of tin.

It is a kind of cooking
the male child undergoes:
to toughen him, he is dipped repeatedly
in insult–peckerwood, shitbag, faggot,
pussy, dicksucker–until spear points
will break against his epidermis,
until his is impossible to disappoint.

Then he walks out into the street
ready for a game of corporate poker
with a hard-on for the Dow-Jones
like this hormonal language I am
flexing like a bicep
to show who’s boss.

But I’m not the boss.
And there is nothing I can do to stop it,
and would I if I could?
What else is there for him to be
except a man?
If they fail,
he stumbles through his life
like an untied shoe.
If they succeed, he may become
something even I can’t love.

Already the photograph I have of him
is out of date
but in it he is standing by the pool
without a shirt: too young, too white, too weak,
with feelings he is too inept to hide
splashed over his face–

goofy, proud, shy,
he’s smiling at the camera
as if he were under the illusion
that someone loved him so well
they would not ever ever ever
turn him over to the world.

 

Reading ‘The New Yorker’ Backwards

poetry poetry books poetry criticism reading poetry

NYer

Sure, The New Yorker is eastern liberal elitist, but does that mean I can’t read it any way I want? Pricey at $8.99 (is that the “liberal elitist” part or the “eastern” part?), the magazine came my way free thanks to my daughter who renewed with the option to gift someone a subscription (she wrote in the name “Dear Old Dad”).

Besides, I live in Massachusetts, so blue it is one of two states (the other being Hawaii) to give Hillary (of all people) a clean sweep of its voting districts over You Know Who (of all…) in the recent “elections.”

Anyway, I read The New Yorker backwards all the time, if it’s all right with you. The beginning is ads, mail, and the tiny print of “Goings On About Town, ” which have little appeal to me because I’m allergic to New York City, for one, and I am neither “going on” nor “about town.” At least not that one.

There’s also “The Talk of the Town,” typically politics, typically about Trump or Trump-like sycophants or Trump-eted cabinet-seat-occupiers. I’ve reached the saturation point on this topic. As far as I’m concerned (and I’m apparently not), there’s nothing left to be said.

To the back, then! Reading New Yorkers from the back is an art form, kind of like the ungentle art of unlocking a cooked lobster (a shell game with many routes to victory, according to the experts). Let me give you an example. Today I received the Aug. 7 & 14 issue, covered with a devil-driven subway coming out of a tunnel marked “42 Street.” Cool (for something so hot, I mean).

I flipped to the back, ignored the last-page ads, and browsed the Cartoon Caption Contest. Ha-ha. Laymen readers are funny.

Flip. Now you’re at the back of an article. If there’s a cartoon, you read it. Sometimes “ha-ha” and sometimes “whatever.” This is the latter.

Flip. Ah! The beginning of the last piece. It’s the beloved BOOKS section! (Who says the best things are at the front of the line?) Called “Paper Trail,” it’s Dan Chiasson’s to-do about Susan Howe’s latest poetry collection.

Who’s Susan Howe? Oops. Lives in Massachusetts like me, yet I haven’t read her. That’s a “Go Directly to Jail” for me as a poet. Never heard of her, either, to be even more honest. Stay in jail an extra turn.

And what? She actually has a sister named Fanny who is ALSO a poet (and who I ALSO don’t know)? I concede this Monopoly game. But I read the piece beginning to end anyway to see if Howe’s new book (Debths) seems like my cuppa tea. I’m a coffee man, turns out. But I do love history, as Susan does. And Emerson and Thoreau and all things Boston (no allergies there), as she does.

Hmn. Put on “Think-About-It Shelf” and move on.

Flip. More BOOKS stuff! BONUS ROUND. “A Family Affair” by way of title, which is ironically accurate. The book review is about Tom Perrotta’s new novel Mrs. Fletcher, and it’s written by old virtual friend (Laura Miller) who used to hang at my old virtual haunt, Salon.com. And, once upon a time, back when I bothered with Monopoly, I read every Tom Perrotta book that came out. I long gave up that game, but it didn’t stop me from reading the wonderful Miller’s wonderful take on Perrotta’s latest to-do on eastern liberal elitist suburbia, start to finish. Good read, this. As for the book, I’ll slide it next to Howe’s on the “TAI” Shelf.

Flip. Middle of an article, but with the rapturous sidebar called “Briefly Noted.” Here I get to read three paragraph-length reviews of new books. They go down easy. Like Cheez-Its. The most interesting of the foursome is The Storied City by Charlie English because it’s about Timbuktu and a book is worth reading for that exotic reason alone. Timbuktu is one of those places you hear about but never read about. Correction possible!

Flip. Cartoon. Meh one. But little drawing of Trump as Gulliver on his back pinned by Lilliputians now unseen (perhaps eastern liberal elitists?). Big wet-mop of Cheetos hair projects from You Know Who’s alleged head.

Flip. Oh, too cool. Adam Gopnik’s “Critic at Large,” and he’s writing up a new book on Buddhism, Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism Is True. Initial reaction: What a horrible title for a book! Second reaction: Ommmmmm.

Reading along (a “long,” actually, as this one is six pages), I discover that Gopnik is himself a “Buddhist.” (I put quotes around “Buddhists” because there are so many branches and so many interpretations within those branches that I’m not sure you can be “a” anymore, but it’s pretty to think so, as Hemingway–a non-Buddhist if ever there was one–once said.)

An interesting meditation (heh) on Buddhism, this article meanders into other Buddhism books by way of comparison, chiefly Stephen Batchelor’s After Buddhism. What does this mean? It means my TBR pile grows exponentially. It means I still don’t own a meditation pillow (or whatever). It means I learn a guy named Goldstein has meditation tapes that can be listened to for free on youtube dot data-digger. Note to self: Must check out Goldstein’s “calming, grumpy voice” on Gopnik’s suggestion.

Flip. “Times of Trouble,” Anthony Lane’s review of two movies (Detroit and Whose Streets?). Like Holden Caulfield sans the whining, I don’t go to movies. Er. “Film,” I think it’s called an eastern elitist enclaves.

Flip. Cartoon with Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf making fun of Big Worse Wolf (read: technology), a sure-fire winner! Mid-article of some sort, by the way.

Flip.  More article and a cartoon. Chopin’s Funeral March allusions! Very funny in an eastern (European) liberal elitist way!

Flip. More article and lame cartoon on lame target: Congressmen.

Flip. Ah. No wonder so long. This is a short story. And the author is up-and-comer… oh, wait. It’s Don DeLillo taking up bandwidth. Sigh. I like to see promising newcomers in the big glossies, but the big glossies like to see tried-and-trues that make their blood look blue.  Thus, Don DeLillo. Whose books I can’t seem to read. Maybe a short, though? Eh. I’ll test the waters later, maybe. Or maybe not. Not all the sharks are tagged and tracked on-line.

Flip. Article and Don’t-Get-It cartoon. Small drawing of big red “Make America Great Again” hat spitting out Cheetos-colored hair. Themes, anyone?

Flip. A New Yorker poem! By Anne Carson! Do I know Anne Carson? I do not! Should I know Anne Carson? I should know everyone! Like Walt Whitman, my brain is everyone  and everything (just ask me).

Carson’s poem, “Clive Song,” is a winsome, conversational poem. Free verse. One giant stanza from Mars (or Tokyo Bay, maybe). There’s a new poetry editor on the beat, I understand. Paul Muldoon beat it. Is Anne Carson any relation to Rachel Carson, I wonder? Note to self: Check family tree of Anne. See if the tree grows in Brooklyn. Or some other eastern liberal elitist ‘hood.

Flip. “Sketchbook” by Luci Gutierrez called “Subway Substitutes.” Cute. And subways must be a “hot” topic in New York. I would think about this, but I might sneeze.

Flip. Article. Little cartoon of the Cheeto-in-Chief as Pinocchio, complete with Disneyesque shorts and vest and whopper wooden nose with branch growing out of it. Fake cartoon, the “president” (quotation marks are a marvelous thing) would call it, but still, cute in an eastern liberal elitist way. Geppetto would approve.

Flip. Oh, yeah. A long feature on Rachel Cusk, British novelist slash author of Outline and Transit, two books already between slices of cheese in my TBR sandwich. Did I mention my TBR sandwich? It’s tasty, needs a giant toothpick to hold it together, and leans left (like everything else in Massachusetts) due to its girth and height. I read this article start to finish before backing up anew….

And let me interrupt here because, at this point, I’ve written the longest post on this blog ever. At this point, too, I am the only reader of this post left.  And I’m only on p. 48 of The New Yorker, mind you, with much joy to go before I reach the start!

What does this say? It says back-to-front is the way to go–not with Agatha Christie mysteries, mind you, but certainly with New Yorkers. Probably it’s true of other periodicals as well.

Can books be read backwards as well? Can poetry collections? Open (to the back), says-a-me. Yes! Especially poetry collections (ignore that man named Billy Collins behind the curtain who says your best poems belong at the front of your collection).

Give it a go, then, why don’t you. When you get there, the Table of Contents will be well-earned and not just a little déjà vu.