Yearly Archives: 2017

90 posts

Getting Away with Corny

poetry writing

corn

The last thing any aspiring poet wants is corny. You know, where readers look at your poem and say, “Seriously? This is (fill in the blank) cornball, schmaltzy, over-the-top, stereotype-bad!” This is especially dangerous in contemporary poetry. In olden times corny was not only forgiven, it was expected–a hallmark of the times, even.

What constitutes corny? Too much to chronicle, but if a rose is red (don’t say!) and a violet is blue (really?), look out! Also suspect are certain poetic expressions, such as “yonder” and “o’er” and “Oh!” (or the more flamboyant still “O!”)

No. Never. Don’t go there. And yet…and yet…sometimes a contemporary poet not only goes there but sends postcards saying the weather is fine!

The secret is not one I can give you, beyond this: If you’re going to attempt a word or expression that might be cornier than a field in Iowa, play it straight and keep a poker face until the very last moment. Like exclamation points and adjectives and salt, corn must be used sparingly.

The payoff? Big. Yes, sometimes, against all odds, “corn” can reward the daring among us. Even in the year 2017. Even in these cynical, world-weary times. For proof, I offer you a poem I came across and loved while reading an August Kleinzahler collection this week:

 

“Family Album”

Loneliness–huge, suddenly menacing
and no one is left here who knows me anymore:
the Little League coach,
his TV repair truck and stinking cigars
and Saul the Butcherman
and the broken arm that fell out of the apple tree,
dead,
dead or gone south to die warm.

The little boy with mittens and dog
posing on the stoop–
he isn’t me;
and the young couple in polo shirts, ready to pop
with their firstborn
four pages on in shirtshorts and beatnik top
showing her figure off at 16…
1955 is in an attic bookcast
spine cracked and pages falling out.

Willow and plum tree
green pods from maple whirling down to the sidewalk…
Only the guy at the hot dog stand since when
maybe remembers me,
or at least looks twice.

But the smushfaced bus from New York, dropping
them off at night along
these avenues of brick, somber as the dead child
and crimes of old mayors
lets off no one I know, or want to.

Warm grass and dragonflies–
O, my heart.

 

Whoa! Did you see what I saw? Here Kleinzahler has us with a garden-variety (albeit it nicely done) memory lane poem when–WHAM–he goes all Walt Whitman on us and drops a should-be corny “O.”

Trouble is, it’s NOT corny in this poem. It’s effective, especially paired off with the everyday ordinariness of warm grass and dragonflies. Maybe that’s part of the secret: two parts everyday with one part corn. That and being an experienced poet. (Can’t you just hear it? “Beginners should not try this at home. These are professional poets driving on a closed course.”)

The moral of this post? Don’t close yourself off. Don’t accept blanket rules such as “Thou shalt not sow, reap, and write corn.” It may just be the captain, your captain your poem needs. What’s more, if you pull it off as Kleinzahler does, you just might be closer to an “experienced poet” than anyone let on. Congratulations!

Breaking Writer’s Block

poetry writing inspiration

block

What inspires a poet to write? And why do some poets throw up their arms and say, “That’s it. I’m dry. No more ideas. All written out!” when such sentiments are logically impossible?

Inspiration and ideas hew closely to mood. Thus, a lack of ideas or inspiration is often the writer’s way of not admitting he or she is feeling down and out (whether in London or Paris matters not). Writing your way out of a funk is no fun, either. It probably cannot be done through poetry or your chosen genre, but it certainly can be attempted through journaling.

Journals, like dogs, are good listeners. Also like man’s best friend, journals don’t judge. They reflect and sometimes allow us to see more clearly, especially in hindsight (a few days or weeks later) which, as everyone knows, is 20/20. The hope is, with the passage of time, the idea-deprived can reread his or her rambling from “higher ground” and not fully recognize that despondent journalist who claimed to be drier than Death Valley. This separation is a start.

After that? Read poetry. Define yourself as a reader instead of a writer, at least temporarily. Some may argue no, that reading others’ talent only emphasizes our own shortcomings, but I see the glass half-full. Often, when reading good poetry, I kid myself that certain successful lines or techniques look easy. This gentle deception is inspiration by any other name.

Getting active is another strategy to inspire creativity. If you don’t worry about writing, but make a goal of getting out for a run, a walk, a workout, a project, some volunteering or whatever, you’ll often stumble upon ideas while doing the “opposite” of writing (just don’t tell anyone the “opposite” is actually brainstorming in sheep’s clothing).

If your feelings conspire against your muse, seek to define those feelings in a figurative way. This turns “writer’s block” against itself. Write “Not having ideas is like…” ten times on a page in the journal with a what-the-hell and nothing-to-lose attitude. In the end, it can only reward or prove harmless. Win or draw. That’s it. No lose.

Finally, I advise two tablespoons of music. Whatever it is you love to space out to, turn it on and turn it up. Music takes you to a muse-y place where nothing quite looks the same as the real side of your blues-colored universe. It’s your Alice-free Wonderland, and that’s a geographic advantage. Jotting notes to music drives moods such as regret and nostalgia and (dare I say it?) joy.

Wherever it takes you, it’s the next station up from where you stand now as a frustrated writer. Punch your ticket, then. Give your mind permission to board the musically-inspired train of thought and leave your inner judge on the platform waving a hankie. In time, as you listen to the gentle rumble of the tracks, the groove will return. You are a writer, after all. Writing’s what you do.

 

When “Required Reading” Is a Good Thing

poetry poetry journals reading poetry

coppernickel

In the back of the journal Copper Nickel there is a feature called “Required Reading.” Usually those words bring fear and loathing to mind (we were students for years, after all), but in this case it is recommended reading from each author published in that issue of the journal for you, the gentle reader.

What fascinates me is how infrequently any given title is recommended by more than one writer. In fact, on a list that sprawled almost five pages, top to bottom, a grand total of THREE titles garnered more than one recommendation.

These titles, of course, might merit our reading attention, as would any title recommended by a writer we particularly respect (or whose work in the journal left a deep impression). Here are the three titles that caught more than one author-reader’s attention:

Application for Release from the Dream  by Tony Hoagland (recommended by Joanne Dominique Dwyer and Yerra Sugarman). Hoagland is a known entity, not only for his poetry, but for his essays on poetry. This title is, I believe, his most recent release poetry-wise, and I will give it a look-see.

Bright Dead Things  by Ada Limón (recommended by FOUR–the most endorsements of any on the list–including Zeina Hashem Beck, Kevin Craft, Danielle Lazarin, and James Davis May). This collection I read last year, finding many of the poems laudable, so I’m one for three on my to-read list already!

The End of Pink by Kathryn Nuernberger (recommended by Jenny Molberg and John A. Nieves). A send-up of fact and folklore, of science and pseudo-science, this one looks like it might make a fun read. If it’s a fun AND rewarding read, I’ll be a happy camper (with a book by the campfire).

We come to books in many ways. Word-of-mouth, for one. Reviews, for another. Sometimes an author we admire gives another author or book the nod. I’ve read numerous titles that were mentioned in J.D. Salinger books and Ernest Hemingway books, for instance. And then you get recommendations from unexpected places. I think Copper Nickel‘s feature, which I stumbled upon as I read the journal, counts as one of those.

No matter. Leads are always welcome, whether they come to fruition (and literary satisfaction) or not!

Vital Signs for the Impatient Writer

poetry submitting poetry writing

rattle

Writers know they are alive by receiving rejections. Those rote e-mails in the inbox are vital signs–reminders of the obvious and the necessary. Receiving them is like focusing on the autonomous functions of your lungs breathing and your heart beating (Yep, all there and all working!)

The trouble is, rejections (peppered with the powerful flavor of acceptances!) come few and far between due to the slow nature of the submissions-process beast. Waiting for replies–acceptances and rejections alike–is like holding your breath and diving in for an underwater swim, back and forth, across an Olympic-sized pool. Air! You need air! But judgments from overtaxed editors of small journals, print and electronic, are like Marco Polo’s voyage to China–long in coming.

One solution, rare as they are to find, is entering a contest where poetry is judged weekly. The best example of this is Rattle‘s “Poets Respond” series, wherein Rattle invites poets to reflect on events in each week’s news by writing and submitting a poem with a deadline of Friday, midnight Pacific Time.

Rejection is uncharacteristically swift. It has to be! Usually it comes within 24 hours of the deadline, as the winning poem goes online by Sunday. And success? Like everything in the writing business, the magic brew will be a combination of luck, talent, and matching the subjective tastes of an editor (the not-so-secret ingredient). But at least you are impatiently alive as a writer and quickly reminded as much!

Weekly opportunities like this can also serve as great discipline. They are like daily warm-ups and exercise that force you to write and flex your creative muscle. You may feel current events make poor fodder for poetry, but remember that connections between the CBS Evening News and your muse can be tangential and even personal (that’s the point!).

For example, consider Joan Colby’s recent winner. She focused on one colorful word used by former FBI director James Comey (“Lordy!”) in his testimony before Congress and came up with this nifty number.

In my submissions travels, I’ve also learned that there are markets that respond in an uncharacteristically quick way compared to the typically 6-12 month crowd. Plume and 32 Poems (each approximately 2 weeks response time) are two examples of these rapid-turnaround rarities.

So go ahead. Submit! Breath! Let your heart race! Acceptances get all the attention, but it is acceptances and rejections alike that prove you are a writer. Honest.

The Hands of the Dying

poetry poetry books

pinsky

Typically, I’m not a fan of the “Best of…” series, but last week at the library I picked up a copy of The Best of the Best American Poetry edited by Robert Pinsky and released in 2013. Surprisingly, I enjoyed many poems by many familiar faces in this collection, and what I liked best was how the back of the book included not just a brief bio on the poet, but a brief commentary on the selected poem as well.

Most moving was the Jane Kenyon poem “Reading Aloud to My Father.” Kenyon describes the final days sitting beside her dying father, but in this case, poignancy is added to the poem not by Kenyon’s commentary in the back (for she herself would succumb to leukemia 14 years after her father’s death), but by commentary added by her husband, the poet Donald Hall. First, though, the poem:

 

Reading Aloud to My Father by Jane Kenyon

I chose the book haphazard
from the shelf, but with Nabokov’s first
sentence I knew it wasn’t the thing
to read to a dying man:
The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began,
and common sense tells us that our existence
is but a brief crack of light
between two eternities of darkness.

The words disturbed both of us immediately,
and I stopped. With music it was the same–-
Chopin’s piano concerto–-he asked me
top turn it off. He ceased eating, and drank
little, while the tumors briskly appropriated
what was left of him.

But to return to the cradle rocking. I think
Nabokov had it wrong. This is the abyss.
That’s why babies howl at birth,
and why the dying so often reach
for something only they can apprehend.

At the end they don’t want their hands
to be under the covers, and if you should put
your hand on theirs in a tentative gesture
of solidarity, they’ll pull the hand free;
and you must honor that desire,
and let them pull it free.

 

The words quoted in the first stanza are from Nabokov’s memoir, Speak, Memory. In 1996, one year after Kenyon’s death, Hall wrote this commentary, which was used for this book; it gives the poem special significance and power, I think:

“Jane wrote many poems about her father’s illness and death, of which ‘Reading Aloud to My Father’ is the latest and last. Reuel Kenyon died of cancer in Michigan in 1981; Jane and I stayed with him for much of his illness, helping Jane’s mother care for him. When Jane was dying, I thought of this poem. Music was her passion, as it was her father’s; at the end, she could not bear to hear it, because it tied her to what she had to leave. In her last twenty-four hours, her hands remained outside the bedclothes, lightly clenched. I touched them from time to time, but I did not try to hold tight.”

Thus did a husband use his wife’s words from 14 years earlier to guide his behavior at her own death. And thus were Jane Kenyon’s last hours an echo of her father’s. I lingered on the part about the hands. I reread the poem. I lifted my eyes from the book and stared in the distance, for a while seeing nothing.

 

*************************************************************************

Lost Sherpa of Happiness — 

 

The Art of Bottling Nostalgia

poetry

carr

I just finished J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country and didn’t like it as much as expected. Part of the problem is the title. I could use a month in the country along about now, raising expectations.

The other problem is the publisher, New York Review Books. NYRB’s paperbacks are pretty products. Typically, the covers are candy. This one’s so-so, but the lineage is there. Thus, picking the book up, I anticipated great things.

I settled for so-so things. But I did find diamonds in this little patch of English rough. Like this poetic chipt toward the end of the book:

Ah, those days…for many years afterwards their happiness haunted me. Sometimes, listening to music, I drift back and nothing has changed. The long end of summer. Day after day of warm weather, voices callings as night came on and lighted windows pricked the darkness and, at day-break, the murmur of corn and the warm smell of fields ripe for harvest. And being young,

Sometimes a little stretch like that makes books worth your while, at least on the given day you pick them up. I especially loved this: “…night came on and lighted windows pricked the darkness….” A nice little image, that.

Then we get the day-break, the personification of the corn’s “murmur” and the lovely “warm smell of fields ripe for harvest.” Dreamy, no? And Carr scores points for trying to bottle nostalgia there. Nostalgia’s tricky stuff. It resists being poured and hermetically sealed. At the blink of an eye, it transforms into a noble gas and disappears.

“A” for effort, then. If not a month, at least a day in the country was sweet. A fleeting thing. The best kind….

 

Epigraphic Content

poetry

epigraph

Writing a poetry collection is work. Finding an epigraph (or two) to grace those pale pages after the Table of Contents but before the first poem? That can be fun. “So many possibilities!” as mosquitoes in June like to say.

An epigraph can serve as a compass of sorts, a thematic guide to the poems you are about to read. Or it can be a satiric joke, maybe. A tender irony.

Whichever, I always read them. And often wonder over them. Returning to them after reading the collection is instructive, too. Sometimes they take on deeper meaning (like foreshadowing after the sun sets), and sometimes they become more cryptic (or, to be less generous, more random).

I’m still contemplating an epigraph for my forthcoming collection. For my first, I chose the oft-quoted Walden stalwart, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” because I thought it spoke to the theme of indifference, a rich vein on earth I tried to tap into.  I’ve always loved that quote. Heck with the book, it could serve as an epitaph on many a gravestone. Thank you, Henry, David, and Thoreau!

For fun, I thought I’d pull random poetry collections off my bookshelf and check out the epigraphs. Here’s what I found:

 

What do I erroneously assume that I know? (Montaigne)

— To the Left of Time by Thomas Lux

We would give anything for what we have. (Tony Hoagland) “‘Give me my leg,” she said.(Flannery O’Connor)

— Haywire by George Bilgere

One madman laughs at another,
and they each give enjoyment to one another.
If you watch closely, you will see
that the maddest gets the biggest laugh. (Erasmus)

— failure by Philip Shultz

The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock,
but of wisdom: no clock can measure. (William Blake)
Who would dare tell me that
I am a stranger here?!? (Anna Akhmatova)

— Facts About the Moon by Dorianne Laux

The landscape crossed out with a pen reappears here. (Bei Dao)

— Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuoung

Although Rama was Vishnu,
his human incarnation
made him unaware of his identity
at the moment. (The Ramayana, trans. R.K. Narayan)
Ugh! The stupidity of the beloved! (Grace Paley)

What Narcissism Means to Me by Tony Hoagland

Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun. (Romeo & Juliet, Act III, Scene II)

I thought, everything can be used in a lifetime, can’t it, and went on walking. (Joseph Cornell)

—Night Sky Frequencies by Debra Nystrom

I go up but at the same time I go down.
Present tense I am; but past tense too.
Three is one too many, one is one too few. (Old Riddle)

— Biecentennial by Dan Chiasson

You get the idea. Epigraphs may clear their throats and go all classical on us, Stentorian-like. Or they can throw quick, quiet quips like sophomores passing time in mandatory chapel. Either way, I enjoy them, and unlike prefaces and introductions, never skip them, pretentious or not.

Temptation = a Summer Book Before the Summer

humor poetry poetry books

a&e

I visited the local Barnes and his friend, Noble, this past weekend for the express purpose of visiting the periodicals section to buy copies of the July issue of Gray’s Sporting Journal, which includes my poem, “Hemingway Fishing.”  It didn’t go down that way. Not quite.

“While I’m here in the shady Tree of Knowledge,” I figured, “I might as well leaf through a few books. You know, just to browse. Nothing dangerous to my budget or my library-only resolution.”

The next thing you know, a clutch of Gray’s in my hand, I’m in the poetry section–akin to a recovering alcoholic visiting the open bar “just for the ambiance.”

Now I know how Adam & Eve felt. I had no chance. None. Before I knew it, I was starting a little book stash, rationalizing to myself that it was “just” a little pile for summer reading, that I can’t really access my home library when I am away at the summer camp, anyway, that I have a teacher-discount card from both Barnes AND Noble gathering dust in my wallet, so what the Hades.

Before you knew it, I had To the Left of Time (Thomas Lux), Stag’s Leap (Sharon Olds), and Poems (Elizabeth Bishop) poetically piggy-backed on the bookstore floor. Before you knew it, my conscience had been banished, and I didn’t give a fig.

Temptation, thy name is Summer Books Before Summer (officially starts the 21st in the northern hemisphere). To compound my sin? When I got home, I put these books aside for the summer and then, two nights later, when the novel I was reading did its molasses uphill imitation, turned to the Lux and started reading it early. Before summer, that is.

As Charlie Brown would put it: Arghhh!

Fear not, however. I immediately consoled myself. I said, “Hey, it’s over 90 degrees today. Close enough!”

Now you know where the adjective “Adamic” comes from.

Dog Days for Poetry Markets

marketing poetry poetry

dog

According to The Facts on File Encyclopedia or Word and Phrase Origins (3rd Edition), the expression “dog days” comes to us compliments of the Romans (who apparently couldn’t stay in one place and were always roamin’ around). “Dog days” refer to those torrid July and August days up ahead here in the northern hemisphere and are actually related to a star:

“The expression originated in Roman times as canicularis dies, “days of the dog,” and was an astronomical expression referring tot the dog star Sirius, or possibly Procyon. The Romans linked the rising of the Dog Star, the most brilliant star in the constellation, Canis Major, with the sultry summer heat, believing that the star added to the extreme heat of the sun.”

For poets, the dog days strike early, following the arc of university schedules. As so many poetry markets come to us thanks to the support of university journals and magazines, poets clicking through markets are now discovering dog days of submittable drought. Many markets, closed in April or May, are shouting “No current calls for submissions” on their web pages, and most won’t open again until September.

Perhaps more than any other writer, poets face seasonal challenges when it comes to getting their work published. The upside? Summer is a great time to make writing part of  rest and relaxation, to generate material for the fall. Poetry even takes to the sun (think “beach write” instead of “beach read”). It mixes with dogs, too, as Robert Frost proved dog-years ago:

 

Canis Major

The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I’m a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

 

If anyone has hot leads in the way of summer opportunities for publishing poets, share them in the comments section. Meanwhile, keep writing and keep appreciating man’s best friend, be he at your side or in the skies.

Allen Ginsberg’s Inner China

poetry reading poetry

ginsberg

I’m not a huge fan of Allen Ginsberg or the beat poets in general, but a poem of his I came across yesterday spoke to me, proving once again that it’s bad politics to bless or condemn poets until you’ve read the body of their work (and, in Ginsberg’s case, I have far to go).

Ginsberg, it seemed to past me, was too effusive, wordy, full of his avante garde stream-of-consciousness. Like Thomas Wolfe’s novels, his poems begged for an editor in large, sandwich-board-ad letters. An editor with scissors, thank you. Sharp and well-oiled ones.

In all honesty, it’s only eight lines of the poem that I love. But that’s OK. I’m of the school that deems poetry a “success” and a wonder if only part of it wows me. Sustaining a beautiful poem, start to finish, is no small feat, after all.

Here it is in full. Can you guess the lines that sing to me? I wonder if they’ll sing to you, too?

 

“Returning to the Country for a Brief Visit” by Allen Ginsberg

Annotations to Amitendranath Tagore’s Sung Poetry

“In later days, remembering this I shall certainly go mad.”

Reading Sung poems, I think of my poems to Neal
dead a few years now, Jack underground
invisible – their faces rise in my mind.
Did I write truthfully of them? In later times
I saw them little, not much difference they’re dead.
They live in books and memory, strong as on earth.

“I do not know who is hoarding all this rare work.”

Old One the dog stretches stiff legged,
soon he’ll be underground. Spring’s first fat bee
buzzes yellow over the new grass and dead leaves.

What’s this little brown insect walking zigzag
across the sunny white page of Su Tung-p’o’s poem?
Fly away, tiny mite, even your life is tender –
I lift the book and blow you into the dazzling void.

“You live apart on rivers and seas…”

You live in apartments by rivers and seas
Spring comes, waters flow murky, the salt wave’s covered with oily dung.
Sun rises, smokestacks cover the roofs with black mist,
winds blow, city skies are clear blue all afternoon
but at night the full moon hesitates behind brick.
How will all these millions of people worship the Great Mother?
When all these millions of people die, will they recognize the Great Father?

 

If you guessed stanzas 2 and 3 (from “Old One the dog stretches stiff legged…” to “I lift the book and blow you into the dazzling void”), you are correct.

For me, those lines stand out, a poem within a poem, a lovely nod to ahimsa, the Buddhist/Hindu/Jain belief in not harming even the tiniest of life forms. Those lines capture and bottle the gentle lightning of Chinese poetry quite nicely, no? The fact that thinking of his dead friends Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac incites Ginsberg’s muse is fine, if not essential, at least to me.

I thank Allen for the marrow of the poem alone. Its sweet, soft essence. Its gentle truths about life and how much of it is brief, tender, and vulnerable.