Extraordinary Ordinariness

A lot of poets make this mistake - melodrama. Whether exalted or rife with despair, lines full of people staring at the night sky, spilling their souls out, do not make for good poems. We've all done it. We all want to do it. When I looked at the full moon last night, my heart felt like bursting, but if I wrote that down (and I was tempted), yikes, that would make a sucky, cliched poem. It may not be fair, but it's true. A good poem is mostly ordinary. It does not over-emotionalize. It is understated and restrained. In that way, it speaks to true emotion in a subtle and beautiful way.

I didn't have a particular poem in mind while writing this, but here is one of millions that we can read and feel the emotion without being slapped over the head with it. It's a beautiful poem that makes us feel young and old, makes us feel the magic of this time of year, makes us chuckle and sigh, feel both a touch of joy and pain. 

"Holiday Concert" by Maryann Corbett

Slow Down

As an editor, I read a lot of poems. It's a huge privilege. Most of the poems I read are rejected. There are so many reasons for this, and you shouldn't take it personally. Many of the rejected poems have such immense potential or an amazing line or stanza. They excite me and make me want more, and I hope their writers keep writing and revising and submitting.

What I've noticed most lately is that some poems are really several poems in one. They cover myriad topics and images. They can be heavy and overwhelming. Yet, each topic and image separately is interesting and should be given more space. So my number one rule of advice to other poets (and to myself - editing is an amazing learning tool) is to slow down.

If you have a poem that is more than a page long, mentions all your family members, describes more than a handful of objects, or moves through a few decades of time...you may have many poems trapped in there. Sure, sometimes these things work but not often. For now, stick to the Slow Down Rule. It's probably the most important rule of writing.

Focus on one moment. One person. One object. One metaphor. You can always add more in later, but, as in life, the richness that comes from giving one thing your full attention is truly rewarding.

Lastly, for example, I always think of Jane Kenyon, a poet who could fill so much emotion into short, focused poems, like:

What Came to Me

The Shirt

If You Want to Be a Poet, Hang Out with Words

I was watching an Academy of American Poets documentary with Anthony Hecht the other night, and he mentioned something simple and brilliant that W.H. Auden had once said (never mind the male-centric terminology here; it was a long time ago!). A quick Internet search turned this up: 

 “W. H. Auden was once asked what advice he would give to a young man who wished to become a poet. Auden replied that he would ask the young man why he wanted to write poetry. If the answer was ‘because I have something important to say,’ Auden would conclude that there was no hope for the young man as a poet. If on the other hand the answer was something like ‘because I like to hang around words and overhear them talking to one another,’ then that young man was at least interested in a fundamental part of the poetic process and and there was hope for him.” 

- John Ciardi in How Does a Poem Mean? (Houghton Mifflin, 1959). Part Three of An Introduction to Literature by Herbert Barrows, Hubert Heffner, John Ciardi and Wallace Douglas.

That's Craptastic!

When you're having a crappy day, wondering why you've lost what you've lost or why you can't seem to grasp what you want, read this poem:

"The Promise" by Jane Hirshfield

It saved me today, when I wanted to fall into anger and grief and sadness over things that can never be.

Poem in Your Pocket Day 2014

Every time I begin writing this post, the sick computer fates decide to erase the clever things I have to say, so forget that. Here's what my partner, son, and I are carrying folded up in our little pockets today. You do the rest.

Note: All three poems are taken from Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets published by the Academy of American Poets, Inc. A nifty little book with perforated pages. Our pocket poems have come from this book for the last four years.

N's poem:

ELETELEPHONY

by Laura Elizabeth Richards

Once there was an elephant, 

Who tried to use the telephant— 

No! No! I mean an elephone 

Who tried to use the telephone— 

(Dear me! I am not certain quite 

That even now I've got it right.) 

Howe'er it was, he got his trunk 

Entangled in the telephunk; 

The more he tried to get it free, 

The louder buzzed the telephee— 

(I fear I'd better drop the song 

Of elephop and telephong!)

K's poem:

MAYBE TOMATOES
by Connie J. Green

if the vines mature

if the caterpillars don’t get them

if we water, sucker, feed

if we pick and preserve

maybe, tomatoes

thin, sliced on sandwiches
chunked into salads
peeled and whole
juiced and sauced
stewed
pickled
stuffed

My poem:

NO DEPOSIT
by Earle Thompson

Sometimes

you feel

like

a

bottle

sitting

by itself;

no

return,

just

empty;

ready

to

be

thrown away.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22275#sthash.fN0IisqH.dpuf

All Shiny & New

Beginning a new poetry book is exciting. I've finally finished Millay's mammoth collection and can now turn my attention to several smaller books that have been tempting me from their dusty positions on my unused desk. Yesterday, I began A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver, and today, I finished it. It's a pretty short book, and seemed to speak directly to my current inner turmoil, something I won't go into in depth about here, but if you're human and you're grappling with questions about life and what it is, you may very much enjoy this book. It's bittersweet because it sheds light on the inherent suffering of life, but it is also beautiful in its simplicity and sheer good writing. 

Now I'm moving on to Lucifer at the Starlite, by Kim Addonizio. The very first poem, called "Sign Your Name" is depressing and demanding, and in essence, challenges you to take control of your life, to make it beautifully yours. The second poem, "November 11," begins "O everyone's dead and the rain today is marvelous!" Possibly my favorite line of poetry ever. (At least until I see another great line and think oh! that is the best line ever!) After this book, I have the large-ish-looking What Love Comes To by Ruth Stone to look forward to. Throw in some anthologies that have been waving their arms at me for a year or so, and this spring and summer are looking up up up! 

It's spring (in theory), and so, it's a time for new things. Hello sun! Hello poetry! I'm so so ready.

"Let us to dinner, comrade, and be fed."

I just finished the greatest book in existence in this fine, fine multiverse:

Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Over 700 pages of Vincent's hand, it took me a little over a year to complete. Through the years, I have fallen for many poets and authors. My crushes usually give way to admiration and respect, but I move on. Even Austen, whose books I will reread until I'm dead, has lost her luster. Her books are great, but I don't feel a particular affection or connection to Jane, the person. To put it in modern terms, I don't want to have dinner with J.K. Rowling. But it's a little different with poets. I would love to have dinner with Mark Doty or Gregory Orr or Joy Harjo or Robert Bly or Robert Hass or any poet by the name of Robert, but I would sit there and awkwardly stare at them while feeling like I'm a total writing loser. Not so with Vincent. I would be nervously excited, but I would pour a couple of glasses of wine and say "Hey, Vincent, what do you think about a game of Scrabble?" Or "Isn't the moon nice tonight?" Maybe it's too soon to say this, but Vincent is my soul-poet; I just know it. 

Having finished her collected poems, I am moving on to her biography, Savage Beauty (Nancy Milford), and her letters (Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, edited by Allan Ross Macdougall). Why? I just want to know her. Maybe it's stalker-ish, but I just want to get as close as possible to the insides of her head. I have a vague understanding of her somewhat sensational life, but I want to know what she felt. Her poems, I think, are a good indication. Sure, there's always an element of fiction in the poems we write, but I think it's safe to say that Vincent the real, live woman was as full of passion and opinions as her poems suggest. She, like me, was capable of feeling the highest highs and the lowest lows. She truly, for good or ill, lived, loved, and lost.

I'm not saying I love every one of her poems. Nope. Not possible. Not even ideal. That would be totally weird. But there are so, so many that speak to me, piercingly. How to pick one last poem to share with you before moving on to new subjects, new poets? Randomly pick a dog-ear, I suppose. And yet, not so random after all. "Let us to dinner, comrade, and be fed."

Sonnet clxxiv

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you

All through my life?—Sharing my fire, my bed,

Sharing—oh, worst of all things!—the same head?—

And, when I feed myself, feeding you, too?

So be it, then, if what seems true, is true:

Let us to dinner, comrade, and be fed;

I cannot die till you yourself are dead,

And, with you living, I can live life through.

Yet have you done me harm, ungracious guest,

Spying upon my ardent offices

With frosty look; robbing my nights of rest;

And making harder things I did with ease.

You will die with me: but I shall, at best,

Forgive you with restraint, for deeds like these.

A Tuesday Poem

"Auld Lang Syne" by Jennifer L. Knox

This poem is sad but also very moving and sweet. You feel terrible for the father, but then his personality comes out, and he seems content, at which point, you feel sad for the mother, but she still seems to maintain a certain amount of humor, perhaps a small happiness that her husband, despite not knowing her, is happy where he is. Of course, it's all told through the eyes of the speaker, the daughter, the real-life poet, who, despite her sadness, can look at the moment through an artist's lens. The title cinched it for me, maybe because New Years wasn't that long ago. While I read the poem, I hear the song at the same time. And the poem does exactly what the song does. It's pretty amazing actually, that juxtaposition of bitter and sweet and memory and present. Nicely done.

My original intention was to talk about Anne Bradstreet today, America's first published poet. I'm rather glad I stumbled upon this instead.

A Monday Poem

"Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox was one of my first favorite poems (right up there with Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"). It's easy to see why. Maybe I was an unusual sixteen year-old, but this poem got me through some of the more angst-ridden nights.

A Sunday Poem

"To a Singer" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Perhaps, by today's standards, we would consider the language of this poem somewhat flowery, maybe overly exultant. If I read something similar in modern tongue by modern poet, I would probably think "OMG. Ick." But Shelley is not a contemporary, and this poem is all things lovely and beautiful, and my heart feels very full when I read it. I especially love the soul as a boat, as I love all water imagery. Also: "And we sail on, away, afar, / Without a course, without a star, / But by the instinct of sweet music driven." The fact that the title suggests the poet is honoring the voice of a singer makes it all the more endearing; that he could put words to the listening is truly marvelous.

A Saturday Poem

Sonnet xxxii

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain. 

What struck me about this poem, other than the poem itself, is that a previous owner of my old hard-covered, 1950s edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay's Collected Works, penciled in "So True June 1956" above it. I still have some more to read, but from what I can tell, this is the only note written in the book. The book may look old, but before I came along, it's pages were crisp and neat. Now they are often dog-eared, but still, this little note remains the only non-printed writing. It means a lot to me. Vincent felt such wonderfully fierce emotions and passions in her lifetime. Apparently anonymous owner did too. And so have I. I feel kind of like one with these ghosts.

A Friday Poem

I'm a very lucky person. I get to start my weekends on Thursday night. So Friday always feels like Saturday to me. A slow, pajama-clad day, baking brownies and watching cartoons with my three year-old son. There's not much else I'd rather be doing right now, except maybe sleeping. It's only fitting I should read a nice, content poem today. Not unrequited love, no sorrow, no big questions about life. Thank you, William Carlos Williams, for this lovely, simple, wonderful poem I enjoy reading again and again. Here's someone who understands the simple pleasures of life, our reason for, in my opinion, for existence.

A Thursday Poem

"Faint Music" by Robert Hass

Robert Hass is one of my FAVORITE poets. This poem's opening line, "Maybe you need to write a poem about grace," hit me like giant octopus tentacles. I was sucked in to the welcome abyss of one of my favorite Roberts (equally tied with Bly). If you follow the above link, not only can you read this magnificent poem, you can listen to Hass read it. It's not easy to be a great poem-out-loud-reader. Most of us have that poet voice, where we're all drawn in to a melodic lullaby, but no one catches the words as their eyes slowly close. I wish I didn't sound that way, but I do. Not so with Robert. He's a pleasure to listen to. His voice is slow and calm but in a way that makes you engage with the words. Among the melody, their is friction too. I could go on and on about some of the lines, especially the ones in the second full stanza, about the man who wanted to kill himself and his meanderings about sea animals, but I'll let you experience it for yourself. What I love most is being taken through a story here. It may seem random at first, but it most certainly is not. It is life. It is grace. Elegance and movement. And just a little bit of song.

A Wednesday Poem

"A Hundred Years from Now" by David Shumate (from The Writer's Almanac January 29, 2014)

Please visit the link to read this poem. I don't want to get into any copyright issues...a whole other issue I haven't given enough thought to...have I posted poems I shouldn't have in the past? I'm not sure. Let me know if you see one, but I think they've mostly been oldies...

I love the tone of this poem. The language, the humor, the curiosity. The wistfulness (I don't think the poem is actually very wistful, but it makes me feel that way). I wish I could see how it all turns out too. But it really doesn't matter, does it? It speaks to how much changes in so little time, how we are all gone so quickly, yet I can't help thinking about how the big things don't change at all. Carriages came and went, and so, too, may baseball and opera, but family is family. Grandparents, children. They live and die, but our time together is what makes us human. A hundred years from now, we may be gone, but we will live on in the generations to come.