pfiore8 asked me to take her place this week for Writing in the Raw. So here are some of my thoughts on poetry and a few suggestions for writing quick sketches followed by poems when I tried the exercises.
I was listening to the new American Poet Laureate, Charles Simic, last night on The News Hour as he was interviewed by Jeffery Brown and he had some interesting commentary on poetry and the writers of such. I like to collect some of the better quotes of poets trying to explain their craft and what it means to them and society in general. No one quote ever fits all possibilities of poetry, but there are several that resonate with me:
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen
Poetry is what gets lost in translation. ~Robert Frost
Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes. ~Carl Sandburg
The poem is the point at which our strength gave out. ~Richard Rosen
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~Novalis
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. ~Carl Sandburg
Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. ~Thomas Gray
Charles Simic must be a pragmatist at heart for his descriptions of what poetry means to him were very grounded and of common sense. To paraphrase some of his quotes:
‘Human beings don’t know themselves.’ –
‘The best things in poems are accidents – glimpses of how we see ourselves.’
‘Poetry is how we deal with events in history that are beyond our control.’
And once when a student asked him what poetry was good for in a class he was teaching, another student answered, ‘To remind us of our own humanity.’
In my life, first came the storyteller, then the poet peeked shyly between the curtains and one day took a risk. I found that my poetry was born of emotions too strong for me to digest any other way – whether happy or tragic. They roiled around inside me in a process of distillation until something triggered a release. When I tell my stories I can take my time getting to the point as long as the narrative is entertaining along the way. But poetry requires a brisk sort of pace. Few lines, careful word choices and a deft hand. Sometimes I get lucky and what was roiled and distilled works for me and upon occasion other readers.
Some of my favorite poems came from quick 10 minute exercises done as warm ups for a longer writing session. Just something of an appetizer. Structured in directions, they can surprise me with their insight or humor.
Here is one in which the rules were: each line is two words, the last word of a line must be the first word of the next line, the starting word must be the ending word. My topic was: grief.
SOUL TO SOUL
Soul drained
drained pain
pain wept
wept time
time passed
passed slowly
slowly healed
healed bodybody craves
craves peace
peace comes
comes softly
softly lights
lights shines
shines for
for soulCronsense
An exercise in opposites surprised me one day when these words came out of my pen:
FOR
An open heart locked in a closed mind
in love and out of luck.A narrow life led in wide spaces
conceals straight thoughts
and crooked hopes.The early dawn rising
followed by a late breakfast
helps the noon sun
burn out the midnight lust.The loud fabric of my skirt
belies the soft laments in my ears
as a smooth stone of longing
slides down my grainy throat.I feel the steady, rocking pace of love –
hot love, cold desire.I sink my teeth deeply into
the fresh peach.Cronesense
An exercise of repeating the first words of each line throughout three stanzas:
HOME
Hands outstretched to capture hearth heat
Hopes licked by flames
Dreams glow in shimmering coals
Heart beats of memories untoldHOME
Hands rub warmth over each other
Hopes flare and crack
Dreams renewed dance in the flames
Heart beats hold the keyHOME
Hands bank memories to the back of the hearth
Hopes heat insulated by gray ash
Dreams flicker and damp down
Heart beats ever onCronesense
Writing instructions can lead to poetry:
INSTRUCTIONS FOR READING A BOOK
Select a place of comfort
In the middle of all the things
You need to ignore.Be sure the light is bright enough
To hear the words.Listen as you turn the pages
To the metronome beat of the story.Let the characters act for you
Let them take you away,
Far, far away.
Let them put you down
In a better place.Close the book and share with a friend.
Like a meal
Like a gift
Like a prayer.Cronesense
And sometimes I just try to put my philosophy into a little nutshell:
LEARNED
Take what can be restored.
Restore what can be shared.
Share what is needed.
Need what can be passed on.
Pass on the value of love.
Love until your heart is full.
Then love some more.Cronesense
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I hope some of these suggestions help you enjoy writing poetry.
Now what do you have to share with all of us?
Dumb beneath the flowery blaze
That cycles warmth through passing days,
Brutal ardor sways the yoke
Of labored love that wraps and folds
Itself in what it dumbly holds–
The dreamless clay the heavens woke,
the bending knee, the earth that broke,
Softened soil takes the stroke,
The stroke it takes to trestle toil.
The roots that clutch the scented soil
Rise in fueling skies that foil
Flames through umbered canopies,
Where birds are rolled like dice in trees
And pantomime the dream to phrase
A song that raises gates of praise,
As if just rising from the ground
could cultivate the air in sound
beyond the wailings of the breeze.
They blow the backs of salted knees,
the slamming notes that ‘tempt to rhyme
the swirlings in the pantomime.
But heaven knows a garden grows,
The well that shook the willow flows,
And soaks the roots that clutch the soil,
Like limbs entwined to trestle toil.
Ardor rises from its berth
To lay into the scented earth.
–Compound F
I pretty much suck
I would say
But I love Leonard Cohen
One could quote him
all day
Here’s a bit from the song Closing Time:
Poetry set to music is definitely more my bag. No original content here tonight, but you really can’t go wrong with LC.
your economy is so effective. or maybe its just what i most envy…
‘for’ is beautiful.
but ‘instructions for reading a book’ is a masterpiece. if you made posters, i’d bet the companies that do school- and day-care supply would sell millions of them. although the ‘prayer’ part might be an issue there…
They certainly have worked for you. I love the last Carl Sandburg quotation – ” Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”
Due to an intense argument on a UK blog, I have nothing original to offer tonight ( it’s 03:25 here), though I will add something tomorrow when I can get to my notebooks. I put up a piece in the first week by Robert Nye which I carry in my wallet. I think the thread went off page and nobody read it. I can re-post that if you wish. It’s ever so good.
as always. I love your writing and your poetry.
I don’t write poetry, but here’s a favorite of mine by Evelyn Lau.
Suddenly There Was A Thunder Between Us
When light shattered across the floor
And briefly, there was a thunder between us,
If your eyes had held water,
it would have not spilled.
And when we peeled aside the dreams,
the skin underneath was still young.
When all was black, you smoothed aside the words and said,
It’s there, the light.
When you want it, it’ll be waiting for you.
A certain peace came into your eyes
That this was no different,
That this was so different,
yet every bit the same,
And your hands stilled with satisfaction.
You did this without touch,
So that, all around me, your hands stood shaped like shelters.
All around me there was room,
And after each hour,
the hallways outside were like caverns.
And around the corner and down the stairs,
there lurked as always light,
as ever, light.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful writing with us. :0)
As I say, this is the only piece of literature that I’ve ever had laminated to carry in my billfold. I was touched by it.
The Rain Upon the Roof
Listen. It is the rain upon the roof
Telling of who you loved but not enough,
Whispering of what is otherwise elsewhere.
It would be sweet on such a night to die,
Kissing another’s lips, touching darkly,
Hearing the soft rain falling everywhere.
Save that the rain has voices which complain
You never loved enough, you were unkind,
You ran away, you left your heart nowhere.
Come back! Come back! The rain’s regret may cease
But I will love you till my dying breath,
And after, if there’s after anywhere.
– Robert Nye.
Thank you so much Croney and everybody else. I will contribute a new one by one of my favorite poets, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
By the way, he has a new book out called Poetry as Insurgent Art his thoughts on what poetry is, could be and should be…
Great essay! I’m more and more convinced that buhdyville is a distillation and concentration of my dkos favorities, along with some truly exceptional non-dkos writers.
I’m so humbled by the great writers here!
sweet to know this of you, and thank you for brushing away some of the ashes.
Brilliant work.
marked #80
(ten moves in 22 months following Mom as the medical system murdered her)
“Mom/Dad”
“Art Books Etc”
Contents changed how many times
First the old diary
Then the red spiral bound book
flopped open to the one I wrote
when Dad died:
old soldier
I saw you brighten at me
then as if a curtain dropped
you withdrew your heart
each night
you die a little bit more
slip off into the killing fields
prisoner of memory
outside of time
I want to see the desert blush
at dawn
while stars pierce the night
hear the changing of the guard
as croaking
gives way to birdsong
feel cold sand between my toes
while my breath fogs anything near it
so here instead
entombed in a somber gray canopy
a leaden sky
as the wind screams
and drones above like some hateful tympani
the snow shifts and melts
like my dissolving dreams
as the cold intrudes into my joints
the north country kills from inside out
the barbershop sign
red neon scrawl on the window
after hours, after dark
displays illuminated inside – red
ghosts of hair clippings talking
still furious afterglow on a
clean swept floor
their heads mown
subjecting their pates to heaven
a tear in the sky
a thinning of the veil
between the living and the dead
a silhouette of a lost father
in the clouds at noon
on a bright winter’s day
the barbershop sign
busy torguing
souls to the sidewalk
the endless white line
twisting heavenward
or a hellbent spiral
depending on your point of view
picasso never
let anyone have locks of his hair
a life spent
dodging witchcraft
jealous ones sought his power
and he knew it
cherishing his helix, that
tension of life and death,
tantras and blessings spelled in paint
a union of contrary worlds
pulsing like a barber pole
and the songs of the old warriors
and the scent of cheap aftershave
they’re forever shaking out the dust of foreign wars
from their boots
speaking in code about their injuries
beneath wall mounts in barber shops
the image of their faces
shattered in infinitely opposed mirrors
as planes of vision join
as the barber pole dances
yes the red afterglow
all those meetings in spirit
sometimes among ghosts
someone told me it would be like this
when my father’s soul slipped away
with the clouds
into the bright air of winter
and strangers
took his body
“Reading poetry in translation is like kissing through a veil” – Vladimir Nabokov
Cronesense, Stonemason. Your exchanges are fascinating me. I promised I would find my notebooks and that I have done. This essay will remain and I shall add to it. I am following as closely as I can the events in Burma tonight, by internet, radio and TV. koNko has brought news of a possible coup and collapse within the Generals’ heirarchy. Aung San Suu Kyi is rumoured to be meeting with a pragmatic General today. There are snippets and no confirmations. I have to watch. It’s “Almed Men in the Streets”. Will ye no come back again……..? ‘Course you will. 🙂
stone
time keeper
historian
it tells me everything and says not a word