Yearly Archives: 2018

132 posts

Dear Marie and Naomi: Want to Read Some Poems?

Every year, the National Poetry Series out of Princeton (I hear they have a college) stages an open competition for outstanding poetry manuscripts. To enter, it costs 30 bucks, and the submission period takes place from New Year’s Day to the end of February.

Though I’ve never entered, one thing that I like about the contest is that it is judged blindly. Top poets, the final readers, don’t know who wrote what. Submitting poets are not allowed to provide biographical info, a table of contents, an acknowledgments page, nothing.

St. Billy of Collins says this about the National Poetry Series: “I know of no program more vital to the launching of a poet’s career than The National Poetry Series. For over 30 years, 5 poets annually have enjoyed the immense benefit of having their manuscripts transformed into handsome books by some of the most prestigious publishers in the country. Measured by these hard, practical results alone, the Series deserves the support of every devotee of poetry. My own Questions About Angels, selected by Edward Hirsch in 1990, marked the true beginning of my public life in poetry.”

Which brings me to the reason I am writing this: Yesterday I checked Carrie Fountain’s Burn Lake out of the library and am looking forward to reading it this week. It had a big stamp on the cover that read “WINNER, National Poetry Series, Selected by Natasha Trethewey,” which made me curious (and you already know I’m the curious type).

As is true with every poetry book I read, I first count the number of poems (here it’s 48) and then look at the acknowledgments page for marketing possibilities (here it includes AGNI, Ascent, Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, Cave Wall, Cimarron Review, Crazy Horse, cream city review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Marlboro Review, The Missouri Review, Southwestern American Review, Swink, and The Texas Observer).

Finally, I look at the “Thanks” entries. In the case of Carrie Fountain’s once-anonymous manuscript, thanks were extended “for help with this manuscript” to Marie Howe (!) and Naomi Shihab Nye (!). In Nye’s case, Fountain wrote, “My deepest gratitude to my teacher and friend Naomi Nye.”

Gulp. This once-anonymous manuscript forwarded into an open competition clearly had some high-octane help! Which makes me wonder, “Outside of signing up for an MFA, which is tough to do when you have a FTJ (full-time job), what can I do to improve my new poetry manuscript’s chances for the big-time?”

Such a rhetorical question! I haven’t signed on for any teachers, is what I can do, and should do if I decide to pony up 30 bucks for the 2019 competition and want to give it a Kentucky Derby’s chance (I’ll take the outside post, even) by having some very cool poets like Marie and/or Naomi give feedback first.

So this is an open letter to you, Marie and Naomi. No, it’s not anonymous, but I know that neither of you will be readers for the 2019 competition, so it’s all good. No worries.

Drop me a line! Take in a poem or two (I know you’re busy, so one or two will do)! Teach me things!

Winsomely,

Swinging for the Fences

marketing poetry poetry writing poetry

Marketing poetry isn’t simple math. It’s a word problem. You show your work, and the teacher in you is either satisfied or not.

Lately I have yearned for more, meaning the math has shifted such that I am studying that old Indian concept of zero. That’s right. No longer satisfied with placing poems in this journal or that, I’ve taken to swinging for the fences: Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic… any well-known and lofty (by poetry journal standards) outfit that pays.

Pointing to the wall as you step to the plate (á la Babe Ruth) means two things: long waits and short rejection notes. The major leagues mean major competition. Spots are precious few, and many are taken by insiders and “members of the club.”

Still, periodically, over-the-transom types sneak through, cut lines, find a way. It’s that blind lottery ticket mentality: “It could happen to me!”

But, wait. Isn’t lack of publication leading to lack of readership? What’s a poem without a reader (ancient Buddhist koan)?

Like a diet (erm… “lifestyle change”), you actually get used to it after a while. The silence becomes an affirmation of sorts. Your resolution is moving along as planned. You’re hearing from major markets every 8 to 12 months, as if time is not of the essence, as if you will live long enough to see this submission of five poems through “school” (read: 5-10 markets).

It’s like meditation: the lack of publication in this journal in Obscura, Illinois, or that journal in Arcana, Indiana, is OK. The “om” of “zero” feels good. I just focus on my breathing and write. And revise. And write. And revise. And write….

The Top 3 Posts of All Time

kencraftpoetry poetry

top3

… all time being since this blog began, that is. I must admit that I began this venture more for the business side of poetry. As the new saying goes, creating a blog would make me a “brand” like “Kelloggs” and readers would click, click, click to buy my books of poetry, poetry, poetry (Editor’s Note: Ha, ha, ha.)

As it turns out, blog readers come to read blogs, not buy poetry collections. But I kept writing anyway. Why? As a warm-up? There’s that. To help myself think when reading poetry? That, too. Therapy of a sort when I post “Random Thoughts” posts. Hoo, boy.

In any event, curious as to what was most popular in the now long history of posts here, I found WordPress’s stats area for posts and Voila! as they say during riots in France, the Top 3 for me were revealed! Here they are:

Number 3 (Third most popular post):

How To Review a Poetry Collection I don’t know. What do you think? Students, maybe, assigned a book review on a poetry collection? Maybe, but more likely adults because what teacher assigns poetry collections? Poems, yes. Usually war horses that keep web sites like Schmoop and Sparknotes dot coms in business.

Number 2 (Second most popular post):

A Poem Should Be Mysteriously popular, as this post is more about what a poem should not be. But it includes Archibald MacLeish’s poem, “Ars Poetica,” along with a definition of that word. Maybe internet searches are seeking his poem? Or a little Latin lesson? Or inspiration to write their own ars poetica? Or jokes about swift kicks in the ars poetica?

Number 1 (Drum roll, please, for the most popular post of all time!)

“Apollo and Marsyas”: Zbigniew Herbert Redux Apparently translations of Herbert’s “Apollo and Marsyas” on the Net are few and far between. Yes, I get a lot of visits from Poland, according to the country counter, but fans of Herbert are everywhere, poetry being the universal language. Thus, the first place finish. For now.

For now? Who knows. Clicks on my books of poetry, poetry, poetry (now standing at “two” on the counter) may some day catch up, so pass the French fries and salt….

Top 3 Posts

“The General, Big-Bearded Arrogance of Certainty.” And Then There’s Poetry.

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uack underwood

As a subscriber to Poetry, I admit to enjoying the essays in the back section as much as or, some months, more than the poetry up front. I’m still safe at the plate, however, as the essays are about poetry.

The May issue features Poetry‘s well-advised fourth installment of exchanges with England’s estimable Poetry Review. I enjoyed one essay in particular—Jack Underwood’s “On Poetry and Uncertain Subjects.”

Though an essay, Underwood’s is an ode to poetry’s protean knack for escaping. Escaping what, you ask? Lots of things. Predictions. Definitions. Sometimes even meaning.

In poetry, Underwood writes, “You not only have to acknowledge the innate inaccuracy of language as a system that cannot catch or hold onto anything securely, but also that it’s precisely this characteristic of inaccuracy that a poetic, empathetic transactions rests on.”

When it comes to writing and publishing poems, Underwood warns, “you deliberately build you poem as an open habitation; you have to learn to leave holes in the walls, because you won’t and can’t be around later on to clear up any ambiguities when the lakes of your readers’ lives come flooding up through the floor.”

(Editor’s Note: Underwood assumes that your poems will, in fact, have readers.)

What resonated with me most in this essay is its admission that our poems can slip away even from us, the supposedly confidant author / poets:

“If a poem works it’s because you’ve made it such that other people might participate in making it meaningful, and this participation will always rest on another person’s understanding of the poem and its relationship to a world that is not your own. Your own understanding of the poem will evolve over time too, as you reread it in light of your changing world, just as you will find the world altered in light of the poem you wrote to understand a small uncertain corner of it. With poems, you never get to settle on a final meaning for your work, just as you never get to feel settled, finally, as yourself. So it seems entirely natural to me that poets, exploring and nudging such unstable material, foregrounding connotation and metaphor, and constantly dredging up the gunk of unconscious activity over which they have no control, might start to doubt the confidence, finality, and the general big-bearded Victorian arrogance of certainty as it seems to appear in other forms of language: mathematical, religious, political, legal, or financial.”

Doubtful? You need only dig up some of your own published work, whether they be poems in poetry journals or poems in your own books. Trust me when I say, some of your poems will wink at you, stick their tongues out at you, and even turn their backs on you.

Willful children, I think they used to be called. You did your best, and now they go out unto the world to be interpreted as they will by the many, many people they will cross paths with.

Vaya con Dios, I tell them. Godspeed and may you reflect kindly on your creator.

Another One of Those “Random Thoughts” Posts…

blathering comma mine humor opinion poetry

sking

Random Thoughts, Early May Edition:

I just read about this guy, scientist and entrepreneur Joe Betts-Lacroix, who says the antiaging business is “an $8 billion industry of stuff that doesn’t work.”
Maybe poets should write poems about anti-aging research. They may not work, but they’ll pay well.
You know you’ve made it if you’re referred to by initials or one name only and people know who you are: Apollinaire, H.D., Sappho.
Maybe I should take up the name “Craft.” OK, how about “Crafty”?
Speaking of, the verb “craft” is having its moment in the writing industry.
In a conversation with other poets, I agreed that Stephen King’s best book is not one of his many novels but the how-to/memoir mix, On Writing.
Which begs the question: How is it that a voluminous author wins hosannahs by writing a book about being direct and to the point?
Maybe we should ask Charles Dickens?
(Maybe not.)
I opened my copy of King’s book and found this line: “There’s a place in A Raisin in the Sun where a character cries out: ‘I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!’ to which his wife replies, ‘First eat your eggs.'”
What a great metaphor that line about eating your eggs is.
Also yet another way of echoing Thoreau’s timeless wisdom (only without the yolk): “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Don’t listen now, but I am working on podcasting my poems. Coming soon to a hyperlink near you: my voice.
Why is it that our recorded voice never sounds like our real voice? I mean, who is this person?
The corollary: Why is it that the person called “you” in a photograph never looks like the person called “you” in a mirror?
A picture speaks a thousand words—999 of them unwelcome.
In the word “poetry” are the words “Poe” and “try” and “pot” (going left to right). Poe also lurks in the word “onomatopoeia.”
Nevermore.
Crows and ravens are my favorite birds. So sue me.
Speaking of “nevermore,” I interviewed an “ex-poet” who gave up the practice because he was disillusioned with the whole business of art (or the whole art of business, if you prefer). By the end of the interview, I called him Dr. No, to which he said, “Yes.”
When I clear out my bookshelf for library sales, I always leave the poetry books be. I think the Beatles wrote a song about this: “Let It Be.”
When I give away books to friends, I always leave the poetry books be, even poetry books I don’t particularly care for and will never read again.
My friends don’t read poetry books.
Like spring colds, it’s going around.
Every published poet’s secret favorite quote: “I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book.” Thus spake Kenneth Rexroth.
Speaking of quotes, James Tate is always good for a laugh: “Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.”
Life needs editing, too. Which tells you something.
All of us should have at least one poem memorized. All of us should be able to answer, “What’s the last great poem you read?”
All of us have some work to do. (What else is new?)

Damned* Adjectives II: The Sequel

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dean young

Yesterday’s game was such a mad success with online poet-gamers and poet-grammar lovers (in both cases, their numbers are legion) that I thought I’d follow up with a contemporary poet, the wildly creative Dean Young.

The first version of his poem below, “Hammer,” features highlighted adjectives. Some of them are his adjectives and belong. Some of them I have added, to see if you can pick them out as superfluous for all the reasons adjectives can BE superfluous (and I love describing adjectives as being unnecessary by using adjectives–first “superfluous” and now “unnecessary.”

In any event, Young’s actual poem is a scroll-down below, so no cheating. Just pencil down the bad boys (my imposters) and tally up your score.

“Hammer”
by Dean Young

Every Wednesday when I went to the shared office

before the class on the comma, etc.,

there was on the desk, among

the notes from students aggrieved and belly-up

and memos about lack of funding

and the quixotic feasibility memos

and labyrinthine parking memos

and quizzes pecked by red ink

and once orange peels,

a claw hammer.

There when I came and there when I left,

it didn’t seem in anyone’s employ.

There was no room left to hang anything.

It already knew how to structure an argument.

It already knew that it was all an illusion

that everything hadn’t blown apart

because of its proximity to oblivion,

having so recently come from oblivion itself.

Its epiphyses were already closed.

It wasn’t my future that was about to break its reedy wrist

or my past that was god knows where.

It looked used a number of times

not entirely appropriately

but its wing was clearly healed.

Down the hall was someone with a glove

instead of a right hand.

A student came by looking for who?

Hard to understand

then hard to do.

I didn’t think much of stealing it,

having so many hammers at home.

There when I came, there when I left.

Ball peen, roofing, framing, sledge, one

so small of probably only ornamental use.

That was one of my gifts,

finding hammers by sides of roads, in snow, inheriting,

one given by a stranger for a jump in the rain.

It cannot be refused, the hammer.

You take the handle, test its balance

then lift it over your head.

I needed a little help with the word “epiphyses,” so I jumped to the American Heritage Dictionary site, which told me it was “the end of a long bone that is originally separated from the main bone by a layer of cartilage but later becomes united to the main bone through ossification.”

As the adjective would tell you, Dean can be quite erudite in his vocabulary.

OK, then. Let’s see how you did. Below is Dean Young’s “Hammer” as it should be. Hopefully you removed and dropped into your wastebasket for superfluous words (every poet should have one) all unnecessary words.

“Hammer”

by Dean Young

Every Wednesday when I went to the shared office

before the class on the comma, etc.,

there was on the desk, among

the notes from students aggrieved and belly-up

and memos about lack of funding

and the quixotic feasibility memos

and labyrinthine parking memos

and quizzes pecked by red ink

and once orange peels,

a claw hammer.

There when I came and there when I left,

it didn’t seem in anyone’s employ.

There was no room left to hang anything.

It already knew how to structure an argument.

It already knew that it was all an illusion

that everything hadn’t blown apart

because of its proximity to oblivion,

having so recently come from oblivion itself.

Its epiphyses were already closed.

It wasn’t my future that was about to break its wrist

or my past that was god knows where.

It looked used a number of times

not entirely appropriately

but its wing was clearly healed.

Down the hall was someone with a glove

instead of a right hand.

A student came by looking for who?

Hard to understand

then hard to do.

I didn’t think much of stealing it,

having so many hammers at home.

There when I came, there when I left.

Ball peen, roofing, framing, sledge, one

so small of probably only ornamental use.

That was one of my gifts,

finding hammers by sides of roads, in snow, inheriting,

one given by a stranger for a jump in the rain.

It cannot be refused, the hammer.

You take the handle, test its balance

then lift it over your head.

———————————————————————————————————————————

That’s right. I added but one adjective to the original: the word “reedy” before “wrist” in the line “It wasn’t my future that was about to break its wrist.”

How’d you do? Better than yesterday? Remember, a good poet leaves necessary adjectives — ones that carry their weight — and, during revision, weeds out the reedy ones, such as all those blue skies and puffy clouds and green grasses. This is where I say, “Class dismissed!” Oh, and have a day! (Let’s assume the “good,” shall we?)

Damned* Adjectives (Again)

poetry revising poetry writing writing poetry

phil larkin

It’s easy–too easy–to damn adjectives all to hell and preach the Word: Thou shalt scorn both adjectives and their brothers-in-crime, adverbs, when writing and revising poems. But the truth of the matter is less black and white and more perplexingly gray.

So assign your poet writers-to-be (or, more wisely, yourself) the task of writing poems without these modifiers all you want. It’s a great assignment, yes. It’s push-ups and jumping jacks before your physical endurance feat, too. But it ain’t going to be what most poems are: verse rife with adjectives that pay their freight.

Ah. As my boy Will (Shakespeare to you) once wrote: “There’s the rub.” When your revisionary eye turns to the task of revising, you can’t just take the delete button to every adjective you see.

Sure, it’s a great exercise in Zen extremes, but your poem will be left shivering in the cold of the white screen, begging like Oliver (“Alms for the poor?”), and wondering what draconian school YOU went to for your feral MFA.

Let’s play a game and see how the pros do it. Below is a Philip Larkin poem that’s been messed with. Some of the adjectives are Phil’s and some are added by me, but all are in bold print.

See if you can identify the bad boys from the good. Don’t scroll down because the original appears below. Play the game first on the honor* system! (And imagine if I deleted the adjective “honor” from that request!)

Wild Oats (Not the Original, However)
by Philip Larkin

About twenty years ago

Two girls came in where I worked—

A bosomy English rose

And her studious friend in specs I could talk to.

Fresh faces in those days sparked

The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt

If ever one had like hers:

But it was the frowsy friend I took out,

And in seven years after that

Wrote over four hundred letters,

Gave a ten-guinea ring

I got back in the end, and met

At numerous cathedral cities

Unknown to the English clergy. I believe

I met beautiful twice. She was trying

Both times (so I thought) not to laugh.

Parting, after about five

Rehearsals, was an unstated agreement

That I was too selfish, withdrawn,

And easily bored to love.

Well, useful to get that learnt.

In my wallet are still two snaps

Of bosomy rose with svelte fur gloves on.

Unlucky charms, perhaps.

More adjectives than you’d expect, given the notorious nature of these parts of speech. Now take a look below to see how you did. How many Larkin adjectives got the axe in your version? How many Crafty ones passed muster and were left alone? Add them together to get your score. The higher the score, the more you need to ponder the point.

Phil’s original, then:

Wild Oats

by Philip Larkin

About twenty years ago

Two girls came in where I worked—

A bosomy English rose

And her friend in specs I could talk to.

Faces in those days sparked

The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt

If ever one had like hers:

But it was the friend I took out,

And in seven years after that

Wrote over four hundred letters,

Gave a ten-guinea ring

I got back in the end, and met

At numerous cathedral cities

Unknown to the clergy. I believe

I met beautiful twice. She was trying

Both times (so I thought) not to laugh.

Parting, after about five

Rehearsals, was an agreement

That I was too selfish, withdrawn,

And easily bored to love.

Well, useful to get that learnt.

In my wallet are still two snaps

Of bosomy rose with fur gloves on.

Unlucky charms, perhaps.

Of course, you are free to question even the greats. Is every adjective necessary in this poem? Does it depend on the poet? On the style? On the poem’s point?

Clear* as mud, as they say (in a useful-adjective kind of way).

Work in Progress — A Better Way

Lost Sherpa of Happiness poetry revising poetry The Indifferent World writing poetry

wip

We all know the joke by now–the sign on the road reading MEN WORKING. It’s how we learned the word “oxymoron” as the car sped past workers in hardhats leaning on shovels, sipping Dunkin Donuts coffees, chatting each other up.

“Work in Progress” is another matter, one with greater meaning and impact. As my third poetry manuscript grows (though not in Brooklyn), I’ve changed my approach. With the first two books, The Indifferent World and Lost Sherpa of Happiness, I created a folder on my computer and then created separate docs for each poem within them.

With this one, I smartened up. The folder is called “Work in Progress,” and it is a single doc containing ALL the poems as I go along. I keep them in the order I wrote them, leaving any new arrangements for the day when I’ve mustered 45 or more–about the number you need to call it a poetry collection as opposed to its little brother, the chapbook.

The advantage to this approach has proven to be huge. Why? Often I’m not in the mood to work on my most recent poem because it is frustrating me. In the past, I would seldom click other docs to look at other poems in the collection. Instead, I would avoid the frustration of the recalcitrant new poem by reading a book or, worse, the online news.

Now? I open up the “WIP” doc and am faced with the first two poems I wrote every time. “Oh, yeah,” I feel like saying. “You guys!” I scroll down and see the whole parade of so-called “finished” poems.

Revising is my middle name (thanks, Mom). It is also the lifeblood of poetry writing. Using this system, I find myself tinkering, changing, and–blessed be!–deleting entire lines and stanzas of poems I had considered “done.”

A couple of times, I’ve taken on the revision task of working on each poem in order until I worked my way back to the present poem. More often, as a warm-up, I find myself reading random poems in the “Work in Progress.”

Interestingly, I often change a word in a poem one day and then change it back the next. Must be the different light on Tuesday vs. Wednesday, but over time and with enough looks, I settle on a word I like better, even though I could go either way.

The revision practice of a “Works in Progress,” all-in-one-doc approach has also reined in my habit of sending babies to market prematurely like so many poor Oliver Twist waifs. Now when I send poems, they’re a sturdier lot, more fully grown and refined. It’s even emboldened me to submit to tougher markets, what the going-to-college kids would call “reaches.”

Though it came about by accident and through convenience, the new method has won me over. It works. It keeps the whole brood of babies in front of me. And, after a few days of revision, I’m all refreshed and ready to tackle that tough poem I’ve been ducking–the one that used to send me to all the bad news on the virtual front pages.

Tracy K. Smith Declares…

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In case you don’t keep track of such things, our latest poet laureate in the Estados Unitos is Tracy K. Smith. There was a nice profile on her in the April 15th copy of The New York Times Magazine, titled “The Poem Cure” by Ruth Franklin.

Included in the piece are many quotes and excerpts from her new book, Wade in the Water. “Literature allows us to be open, to listen and to be curious,” Smith tells Franklin. And as she travels the U.S. in her new national role, Smith vows, “I want to go to places where writers don’t usually go, where people like me don’t usually show up, and say: ‘Here are some poems. Do they speak to you? What do you hear in them?'”

As an African-American, Smith’s poems often confront issues of race. “You want a poem to unsettle something,” she says. “There’s a deep and interesting kind of troubling that poems do, which is to say: ‘This is what you think you’re certain of, and I’m going to show you how that’s not enough. There’s something more that might be even more rewarding if you’re willing to let go of what you already know.'”

This, of course, is a tall order. One thing we’ve learned in these days of division perpetuated by a “president” who specializes in dividing, is that people are *not* willing to let go of what they already know–perhaps because they can’t be bothered with poetry.

One of Smith’s interests is erasure poetry, wherein you take existing text, erase great swaths, and leave words which speak in a new voice. The article includes one that Smith created from Thomas Jefferson’s greatest hit, The Declaration of Independence. It appears and in her new book and looks like this:

Declaration
by Tracy K. Smith

He has
sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people
He has plundered our —
ravaged our —
destroyed the lives of our —
taking away our —
abolishing our most valuable —
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our —

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:…

Not a bad collaboration on Jefferson’s and Smith’s part–and further proof (as if we needed any) that we still CANNOT hold these truths to be self-evident, sadly.

Breakfast with Tolstoy

poetry

One of my gifts to myself this year was Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom, a book offering a page of wise thoughts for each day of the year. What does it look like? Not much, which is what I like best.

Emblematic of its humility are the themes for each page. Tolstoy offers a few quotes sourced from various religions and cultures, then offers his own two rubles. By way of example, here is the entry for today, April 23rd, where the theme is one of my favorites, simplicity.

Real goodness is always simple.

Simplicity is so attractive and so profitable that it is strange that so few people lead truly simply lives.

Do not seek happiness elsewhere. Give thanks to God, who made necessary things simple, and complicated things unnecessary. — Gregory Skovoroda

Most of our spending is done to forward our efforts to look like others. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every great thing is done in a quiet, humble, simple way; to plow the land, to build houses, to breed cattle, even to think — you cannot do such things when there are thunder and lightning around you. Great and true things are always simple and humble.

No one looks less simple than those people who artificially strive to seem so. Artificial simplicity is the most unpleasant of all artificial things.

Except for the two attributions, all words are Tolstoy’s. Tomorrow’s entry, with a theme of bravery, quotes the Bible (Book of John) and Cicero. Some entries quote the Talmud, scientists, philosophers, writers, Confucius, Eastern wisdom, Persian wisdom, etc.

All in all, not a bad (or terribly difficult) way to start the day — with words and with meaning.