Yearly Archives: 2017

91 posts

The “Sullen Art” of Writing Poetry

dwarfs

Sure, some writers love to spout off about inspiration, about their passion for writing, about the way their precious ideas bloop out as finished products, ninth month in the first week and Hail Caesarean!

Then you have the honest writers. The ones who write quality poems, but acknowledge it as work that seems to take this side of forever. Writer as the eighth dwarf, call it, whistling as he heads off to the mines for another day’s work. Poem as dirt and sweat, then. As collar so stained you can no longer see the blue.

One poet who described writing this way was that brief star from Wales, Dylan Thomas. I say brief because his life was cut short by the black hole called alcohol (also known as “America’s drug of choice”).

In the end, Thomas writes, his work is for the lovers “Who pay no praise or wages / Nor heed my craft or art.” Now those are words a writer can identify with, as writing, even when published, seems the province of a vacuum, of a god named Hoover or Dirt Devil.

Here is Thomas’s “In My Craft or Sullen Art.” Does it look, like so many good poems do, spontaneous and born of sea or briny foam (or, God save us, of Adam’s rib)–miraculously? Or can you picture the messy process, the ink stains and half-past-midnight oil, start to finish?

I know a poet who claims he sends no poem to markets until he’s revised it for at least a year. Hyperbole? Perhaps. But if it’s true, it’s wise. Wiser than any golden potato chip.

“In My Craft or Sullen Art” by Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

revision process

Sure Things: Food and Loneliness

poetry writing writing inspiration

rice

What to write about?

Seems like an easy enough question. Some say your topics should be determined solely by the dictator that is you. Others say have mercy on your readers’ souls. Consider them. Others still–the agnostic wafflers of the bunch–say, “Why not both?”

I’ll be political and not take a stand because who really cares what I think? I do know this: You’re in trouble if you think you can write about something you know nothing about or don’t care about.

Which brings us to two sure things: food and loneliness. Like air and water, they will keep you grounded.

How do we know food resonates? Easy. People eat it up. And people with cellphones (there are a few, apparently) actually photograph and upload the stuff before eating it. Curious case closed!

And loneliness? True, most confuse loneliness with being alone, two different animals. Unlike many in this world, I cherish alone time. It sustains me. And my writing. But I know the world also harbors manic social sorts. They get frenzied by lack of sound, technological input, people. They believe they are unpopular, neglected, or sad if not buoyed by activity and input. (How sad!) Can you go wrong, then, when writing about the poignancy and beauty of alone-ness? Rhetorical, I assure you.

My thoughts turned to these two staples of writing after I read Li-Young Lee’s poem “Eating Alone,” which nicely breathes and drinks the two poem-sustaining wonders in one fell swoop. And check out the last line! It speaks to the ages (if you’ll pardon the pun). See if you agree:

“Eating Alone” by Li-Young Lee

I’ve pulled the last of the year’s young onions.
The garden is bare now. The ground is cold,
brown and old. What is left of the day flames
in the maples at the corner of my
eye. I turn, a cardinal vanishes.
By the cellar door, I wash the onions,
then drink from the icy metal spigot.

Once, years back, I walked beside my father
among the windfall pears. I can’t recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way-left hand braced
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.

It was my father I saw this morning
waving to me from the trees. I almost
called to him, until I came close enough
to see the shovel, leaning where I had
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want.

— from Rose by Li-Young Lee, BOA Editions

My Book Finds Precious Real Estate

poetry The Indifferent World

So your book is listed on amazon. Ho-hum. The same is true for 4,609,398,623,211 other books. Where the rubber really hits the road is when your book sits on a bookstore shelf. We’re talking prime real estate, many dots beyond com, between Barnes and his distinguished brother, Noble, say, or between some Mom and some Pop in an independent bookstore, maybe.

Such was my treat Wednesday night when I ran into the University of Connecticut’s Barnes & Noble bookstore before taking in the basketball game at Gampel Pavilion. There it was, into the blue and on the poetry section shelves, standing between Billy Collins (nice to meet you, William) and Rita Dove (peace out, sister)–The Indifferent World, looking anything but indifferent with its gaudy red “Local Author” sticker.

I had one-quarter a mind to autograph it on the spot, but no. Probably out of line without management’s blessing. So I just said hello, because you know what? This particular copy of the now-familiar book looked different. A prince among the paupers waiting to be adopted at amazon. An august leader among the plebes sitting in my to-be-signed-at-readings bag at home.

Despite the watery cover, it had definite airs. And why not? I say. Seize the moment, kid. Carpe your diem while the sun shines, because the sun also sets, as Hemingway almost told us.

In parting, I whispered these words to it: “I hope you find a good home–but maybe not just yet. Maybe after a few weeks, enjoying the view.”

When Poems Drink Too Much Language

poetry

too much

Dial 911. I think my poem’s on something.

I thought the house smelled a little odd this morning. A bit more organic than usual. My first thought was the dog, who always looks guilty, but no.

Turns out, it’s that poem I wrote yesterday.

My fault, in a roundabout way. I left some “language” poetry lying around the house. Ron Silliman, Gertrude Stein. Rae Armantrout (oh, forgive me… rae armantrout). Typically it’s under lock and key.

What was I thinking, you ask? I wasn’t. I was just writing, having a little fun. And my poem, it started watching The Young and the Reckless on TV. Like any adolescent, its brain hasn’t fully developed. Ask and it will have no raison, no d’être.

Last night, on the counter, I’d also left open an old New Yorker to a Dan Chiasson review of Mai Der Vang’s debut poetry collection, Afterland. Dan quotes a Mai poem (“Mother of People Without Script”) with impunity, with little regard for rhyme, reason, or innocent bystanders (read: impressionable poems-in-progress):

Paj is not pam is not pan.
Blossom is not blanket is not help.

Ntug is not ntuj is not ntub.
Edge is not sky is not wet.

On sheet of bamboo
with indigo branch.

To txiav is not the txias.
To scissor is not the cold.

To scissor is not the cold? What could it mean? To scissor is the hot, maybe? My poem didn’t care. It clearly swooned at the whole idea of inhaling language like this.

As is typical of the young, my first draft rationalized: “What does it matter if my words carry no meaning and every meaning at the same time? That’s for the reader to climb through. The reader comes, interacts, and makes meaning from words, beautiful words. I just provide, in my lettered bounty.”

I even found a few glossy M.F.A. brochures lying around. Lord.

Once I challenged it, my poem started getting uppity. It grew loud with its opinions, heady with its possibilities. “You only need imagination,” it said in its post-, post-, post-modern voice. “Mine is to stir the embers of your imagination. From there, the fire is yours.”

Then it passed out.

Eventually, I had to ask myself: Did I really write this? Can wordplay be taken this seriously? Are there still “language editors” out there, even “L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E” ones, ready to click ACCEPT so many years after the heyday of avants being off their gardes?

And why me, anyway? Rehab is expensive stuff, and detoxing poems is neither easy nor cheap. You know and I know that health care is fraught these days. Kind of like poetry sales. And poetry marketing. And yes, the raising and writing of poetry into good, rule-abiding citizens.

Pray for me, friends, and do not judge me. Better yet, pray for my poem, and do not judge it, either. It’s on an IV now, getting 50 cc’s of meaning per hour.

You’ll see. A little revision. A few dactyls here, a few trochees there. It will be on its metrical feet in no time.

Meanwhile, I thank all of you for your expressions of sympathy. See you in the hospital gift shop…

Excuses in the Winter of Our Discontent

poetry

richard-iii

Not writing? Heck. Not marketing writing, either.

What is it about this winter of our discontent? And how did Steinbeck (via Shakespeare’s play, Richard III) know that it’s tough to write when you’re constantly sick, both physically and mentally?

If you work in a Petri dish or go to grocery stores where people cough all over apples, pears, and kiwi, you know something about winter and coughs and sneezes and sinus congestion and stomach bugs and strep viruses and bronchitis and locusts. Biblical in scale, all these bacterial and viral agents! And creativity doesn’t flourish in the same rotten conditions as such germs.

Then there’s the sickness from day-to-day news. All new authoritarian-style leaders popping up around the world, each using methods (chiefly the Internet) their 1930s forefathers had never heard of. The slow death of ideals of the Enlightenment–the very ideals that gave birth to The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution–buffets the soul and, with it, 8 of the 9 muses at least.

But is it any excuse? Is it any reason to say, “I just don’t have it in me to write. I can’t think of anything under these conditions. I don’t even feel like submitting work, much less writing it”?

Of course not. These lame dodges are found at an Excuses R Us near you.

Yes, you could write about the sickness itself, physical or moral, but I find that makes me sicker still. The proper tack then, is to take a page (say, 241) from escapist fiction’s book. Many people read just to get away from it all. Perhaps it’s time to write for that reason as well.

I know, I know. Our compatriots at the ramparts will accuse us of indifference, the very thing authoritarians depend upon. Well, Jekyll your Hyde, then. One by day, the other by night.

“Multi-tasking” hasn’t become a buzzword for nothing.

Review: Grief Is the Thing With Feathers

poetry poetry books publishing reading poetry

crow

DAD

My day-to-day work, see, is reading manuscripts, so you can see what put me on to publishing–my day job. By night I read Ted Hughes, my favorite poet, particularly his crow poems. The conjunction of bright idea (day) and Ted’s crows (night) put me on to this novella in verse…kinda, sorta verse.

BOYS

We got the tough job. We had to suspend our disbelief and pretend our mum was dead, and we were just little ones. Dad was a bit of a stereotypical bumbler. You know. Male of the species. Looks cute at our age, looks pathetic at his, but we got by. With a special helper, that is.

CROW

In this book I play antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and baby-sitter. I know because the inner flap tells me so. (Ted Hughes or no, crows aren’t all that clever.) Here I make KRAAH noises. No caws for concern. Strictly KRAAH. And I am as clever as a shaman, or would be if I knew what a shaman is. I’m a CROW, for godssake.

DAD

Sometimes I get a little tipsy with wine–OK, a lot–and pass out, but that sort of thing is cool if you have a crow in the wings.

CROW

Once he had a little missy over–you know, once he had observed a respectable amount of time grieving over his dead wife–and I got to mimic his noises after missy left. KRAAH!

DAD

What a smelly, oily voyeuristic nuisance! But he’s the book’s conceit, so I endured it.

BOYS

Boys will be boys. That’s all we had to do here. That and collect pity like Oliver collects alms. It was rather fun. We missed Mum, yes, but we had a wonderful time breaking rules and making a mess of the place. The crow looked the other way. Or said, “Carry-on, lads” like a proud Mary Poppins.

CROW

I allowed Sylvia Plath to be mentioned a few times, but I have my limits. Beyond that, only TED talk. Clever as hell. Unique. Not that wonderful, writing-wise, but different, and difference can take you a long way in the publishing world of Stepford novels. And Stepford poetry. Plus, it was Hughes’ idea, really.

DAD

I’m a likable guy.

CROW

“Krickle krackle, hop sniff and tackle, in with the bins, singing the hymns.” That’s one of my lines of poetry. You must admit it’s wonderful, mustn’t you?

DAD

I like the Russians and James Joyce. I read lots of books and was quiet growing up. I sound a lot like a Goodreads prototype, really, which is why my book is so appealing. Also, there’s that appeal to pity thing. So don’t start with the logical fallacies, will you? I have a crow and I’m not afraid to use it.

CROW

A fast read, gentle readers. And amusing. With some decent lines. And a wonderful conceit that builds on another poet’s wonderful conceit, which stars my favorite conceit! Me! Playing Grief personified (black, get it?)! With feathers! How could I not answer the casting call?

BOYS

We think we heard Dad say you should rent it at the library vs. buy it, but the crow said KRAAH really loudly so it wasn’t clear. Crows know things. About royalties, even.

CROW

Buy it. Everybody loves crows. And royalties. And the little guy. And widowers with two devilishly innocent boys. It’s as good as a puppy, methinks. Do you suppose I’d waste my time inside a book otherwise? Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is recommended! Even for non-poets (of which there are a few, I hear). KRAAH!

If Humans Were Formulas…

philosophy poetry

formula

Not being of scientific or mathematical mind, I’ve never thought of humans in terms of a formula. Imagine my surprise, then, when I poked around Lin Yutang’s tome, The Importance of Living, and discovered this quixotic mix:

Reality – Dreams = Animal Being

Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism)

Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism)

Dreams – Humor = Fanaticism

Dreams + Humor = Fantasy

Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom

Lin Yutang himself admitted that these formulas are “pseudo-scientific” and that he distrusts, to a degree, “all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs or human personalities.”

And yet, as writers know full well, abstractions, when given expression through the medium of concrete objects and human character, can lead to poetry. Thinking in this manner, a poet might be moved to find ways to write, for instance, about heartache.

As proof, let’s look at helpful formula #2. Said poet might begin by mixing equal parts reality (concrete images) with the abstraction of a dream (human desire). The contrasts, written with an alchemist’s precision, could conjure poetry to be reckoned with–the type of poem readers read and react to with, “Yes! That’s it, precisely! A wistful, poignant moment captured by an actual moment in time I can identify with!”

The sixth formula might be the most challenging of all. Here the “show” vs. “tell” takes the form of three formidable objects being juggled at once. A slice of life (reality) teamed with mankind’s addiction for dreams, leavened with the spice of wry humor that expands the vision (and don’t you just love the warm smell of vision?).

Easier said than done? Surely! But what fun is writing without a challenge?

And look at formula #4! Does it not remind you of our world’s 1930s-style shift to right-wing governments and brash demagogues? I leave t to political writers who go where angels fear to tread by attempting political poems that don’t come off as didactic and sanctimonious. A good resistance poem is a rare wonder, and sometimes the best approach is to objectively describe the humorless dreamers of a past that never existed and leave it at that.

Meaning? I’m no fan of formulas, but I can see how Lin Yutang’s pseudo-scientific equations might serve as interesting prompts, a jumping-off point into a refreshing quarry pool of wonderful things.

The New Muses of Poetry

humor poetry

muses

Ancient times, when I was a kid running through Greek forests, brought us nine (a magical number, like three and seven) muses with nine ungodly names:

Calliope (the muse of epic poetry and eloquence)
Clio (the muse of history)
Erato (the muse of love poetry and mimicry)
Euterpe (the muse of music)
Melpomene (the muse of tragedy)
Polyhymnia (the muse of sacred poetry and religious dance)
Terpsichore (the muse of dance and lyric poetry)
Thalia (the muse of comedy and idyllic poetry)
Urania (the muse of astronomy)

Try remembering THOSE names. Me, I insist they wear those “Hi, My Name Is…” stickers whenever they show up for a party. And notice how many of them, among other specialties, cover forms of poetry: epic, love, sacred, lyric, and idyllic. Amusing, isn’t it? At least to poets, who are easily amused.

The problem is, these ancient Greek muses are dated, some even married. We need new blood, which is why we now have new, updated muses of poetry. And just in time, too. Terpsichore just wasn’t cutting it for me (though she does cut a mean rug when showing her moves on the dance floor).

If you want to write poetry today, then, invoke these:

Eutubia (the muse of viral poetry)
Amie (the muse of friends on Facebook who actually read your uploads)
Limerickia (the muse of bad poetry in public bathroom stalls)
Haikudzu (the muse of 17-syllable poetry in elementary classrooms)
Please Refrainia (the muse of bad lyrics in really bad pop music)
Cocoa Puffrina (the muse of backs-of-cereal-box copy)
Onlineia (the muse of online social network “writing”)
Textichore (the muse of dancing thumbs and cellphone addiction)
Snapia and Chatia (the twin muses of the ephemeral and the worthless)

Invoke at your own risk!

What? I Can’t Write About This?

poetry The Indifferent World writing

dogfood

One of the most enjoyable aspects of publishing a first book of poetry is–what else?–readers, but less obviously, it’s readers’ reactions to poems.

Here’s irony. Reading a lot about poetry, I often come across comments from experts, critics, and even other poets, spreading rumors like, “When writing poetry, you should never write about nature because it’s hackneyed. And certainly not love. Too Hallmark. And dogs? You must be crazy. Death? Only if you want to send your readers running while waving their arms over how depressing a poet you are.”

Yeah. Something to that effect. And then, just when I begin to second guess my work, readers of my book will tell me some of their favorite poems from are ones about nature, love, death, and DOGS.

The moral of this story is clear. As a poet, you write what you want to write. If it moves you or warms up your Muse’s harp strings, play it loud and proud! The naysayers apparently haven’t read Ecclesiastes about nothing being new under the sun. The secret is taking what’s always been there and finding personal magic in it. If it’s how the sun rays hit the boulders and cast their shadows, so be it.

Here’s a poem with strange inspiration, a combination of quotidian and quirky. It notes the way my dog always leaves a single nugget of dog food in his bowl each morning. It’s from my book, The Indifferent World, and it breaks the experts’ rules. So don’t tell the poetry police, will you?

“Dog Religion”
by Ken Craft

Each morning he rises and bows
before me–parable of humility,
maw yawning, paws splaying.

The hollow rattle of dry meal
raining on his aluminum bowl
pops his ears. Every day,
novelty in the ritual of repetition;
every day, the Pavlovian ear perk.
Like heartbeats and bad breath,
autonomous tail and tongue.
Just so.

Waiting for me
to move, he approaches the orb
demurely, noses in, crunches the bland
and the brown. That lovable greed.
Those stained, pacifist teeth.

He feeds, license and rabies tag
keeping time at bowl’s edge. And always,
in the end, one dry kibble
is left in a bowl cirrus-streaked
with spit: his offering
to the food gods, his prayer
answered each miraculous day.

One Box, Two Box, Mailbox, Inbox

poetry writing

mailbox

Once upon a time addictions were so innocent, no one thought to call them addictions. Yes, children. We would sit down for a leisurely hour or so and write long letters to friends and family, tri-fold the lined paper into a business envelope, affix a first-class (styling!) stamp, and away she went.

The reward for this long-attention span work? Every day we would check the raised red flag on the mailbox to see if it had been lowered by the friendly postman (what do dogs know?). Walking to that mailbox was, for writers who love to read (but what else?), the highlight of the day.

Maybe a long missive would be harbored in that tiny tunnel of tin darkness. If so, we’d find the right spot, grab the right drink, and enjoy another long-attention span activity: reading and re-reading a long letter from a fellow enthusiast of the screed trade.

Such, such were the days! And, as we became writers (read: supporters of the USPS) who constantly sent out submissions with self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASEs), the trips to the mailbox became all the more thrilling. Who would’ve ever believed that waiting for rejection would be such a high for young writers? But it was so!

Now we’ve supposedly increased the odds of feel-good hits via the mailbox stand-in, the e-mail inbox. Yes sirree Bob, writers can now get rejected at any hour of the day! And each time we do, we give a Whitmanesque yawp, saying, “Yes! I am a writer!” That’s what rejections do. Give us credentials. But only if aided by the element of surprise. What would that be? Acceptance. Publication. It happens. And it happens more and more with time and practice, increasing a writer’s inbox addiction (sigh).

The moral of this tale? For me, it’s this: I can pat myself on the back all I want for avoiding the ubiquitous and ridiculous spectacle of e-mail and, worse still, texting addiction by not owning a cellphone, but the truth is, as a writer, I’ve had to face the technological music of addiction, too. Only the hardcore writing warriors manage to get so lost in their work that they don’t worry about the marketing aspects of the trade by checking that secret inbox.

One box, two box, mailbox, inbox. It’s all one. Keep your checks to a concrete number a day (the magic number three, say) and count that as a victory. The rest of the time? Though rejections and acceptances may be washing ashore, writers have work to do, and it doesn’t fare so well with constant interruption.

As Aristotle said too many times, “I write, therefore I am… boxes notwithstanding.”