The Portable Poetry Workshop: Connecting Content - Thematic Shapes of Poems

Pen and Paper by mlpdesign via Flickr

I know poems have shapes. I've even seen a poem about a rabbit crafted in the shape of a carrot in forum for an online class I was taking. People can get creative with their forms, certainly, but I've never thought about a poem being organized in a thematic shape.

While I don't think a lot of poems are crafted with this in mind, I find it interesting to observe poems with a possible thematic shape in mind. Jack states that in some poems, "the poet's aesthetic sense and the perceptions stemming from the topic create the organizing principle that composes the poem's thematic shape."

The end of the chapter offers writing exercises according to both argumentative and natural shapes. I've shared one from each below along with the example Jack offers:

Argumentative Shapes - Centripetal 
Holding the thesis of your poem in mind, associate images, scenes, and tropes located outside the immediate situation but whose connotations move the material inward toward the unstated central thesis.
An example of this shape is Louis Simpson's "The Silent Piano."

Natural Shapes - Circular
In your closure, return to the same idea that your opining lines suggest, but do so as an "enriched restatement." An example of this shape is one of my favorite poems, Mark Strand's "Keeping Things Whole."

--

And now, because it is Valentine's Day, a centrifugal thematic shaped poem (I think): The Meaning of Zero: A Love Poem by Amy Uyematsu.

Do you have a favorite Valentine's or Anti-Valentine's Day poem or story?

The Portable Poetry Workshop: Connecting Content - Triggering Words

"Spring" by Dani via Flickr

Triggering words open up new opportunities for content and direction in our writing. As Jack Myers says, these words can act as "a semantic springboard that uncoils enough upward lift to give the poem new momentum." Such words can elevate theme, create or extend a metaphor's matrix, or even determine and/or lift a plot point.

The many different elements of just one word have the power to transform a poem. Have you ever had a word or series of words act as a spring for your writing? What it the sonic or the connotative quality of the word that set your pen on the page to either write a new piece or revise and old one, or was it something else?

Let's work on one of these exercises today:

From Jack's conclusion of this section for revision: Triggering riff - Choose a detail, image, or action in your poem, and then improvise a series of associated images, details, or actions.

Triggering word - chose a word that appeals to you in your reading today and write down other images, actions, and situations that you can associate with this word. Weave a poem from what you've written and allow the poem to end with the word you've selected.

I've been attracted to the words "safety pin" and "pencil" lately. What about you?

The Portable Poetry Workshop: Connecting Content - Syntactical Transitions

In this section, Jack Myers presents the poet as architect and illustrates the various methods one can employ in making connections and "building" a poem. There is hypotaxis, in which "the ordering of content proceeds through conventional forms of logic and the conventions of syntax, grammar, and language as a medium, and there is parataxis (or juxtaposition), which is "based more on the unconscious, associative kinds of connections."

More important than the technical descriptions and examples presented in this section is Myers' asking the reader to imagine a sign over the writer's "workshop" engraved with the timeless quote, "Writing is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration." He then offers a competing quote of John Keats', "If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to the tree then it had better not come at all."

Instead of focusing on the architecture of a poem in this post, I want to focus on the inspiration behind the architect. What does the sign hanging over your "workshop" read? Does a poem/story/work of art build itself in your workshop or do you build it?

The Portable Poetry Workshop: Connecting Content - Cinematic Techniques

"Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing." - James Tate

In this section, Jack Myers uses film as a metaphor for poetry, and through identification and explanation of various cinematic techniques such as cuts, visual transitions, alternate views, angles, and movements, one can see how a poem can be a film in its own right and in accordance with Tate's quote above.

I recently read "Jasper, 1998," a trilogy of poems by Saeed Jones. The poems employs a staggering of views from low-angle to bird's eye then returning to low-angle. The movement of these poems are that of a moving shot, "creating a sense of action to, through, and away from a scene." Hear Jones read this poignant and heart-breaking collection of poems.  (And I highly recommend purchasing his chapbook When the Only Light is Fire at that same link. It was an incredible read, one still haunting me days after I've read it and I'm sure will continue throughout the year.)

Jack concludes the section by stating that poetry is "one of the most eclectic forms of art since it contains many aspects of the other arts..." What other art do you see most in poetry? What are your favorite techniques to employ?

In closing, here is one of the exercises offered at the end of this section, and since I am heavy into revisions lately, I am going to try this myself tonight:

"Cut shot - Crosscut technique: Next to an event in a poem of yours, juxtapose a simultaneous event that parallels or enhances the original event."

Happy writing! Andrea

P.S. If you like what you've heard from Saeed Jones, please read Jonterri Gadson's interview with him for Eclectica Magazine.

If Every Teardrop is a Waterfall...

Lots of people are sharing their resolutions on their blogs, which is a great thing and I love reading them, but just in case everyone's resolutions are either spreading you a little thin in the blogosphere, I intend to keep mine short and sweet.

Yes, I make resolutions/goals at the start of the year. They act as my compass throughout the fleeting twelve months. I make two sets: three personal and three professional. This year, I'm adding another set for my writing (poetry) as well as my blog and they seem to go hand-in-hand.

For my writing:

1. Bring it into FULL focus. Attend a writing workshop in May. Take another online class at some point. Keep researching MFA programs and possibilities. Keep connecting with other writers and continue building my writing community.
2.  Dedicate one hour to writing and one to reading each day. #52poetry will live on in 2012 and I'm adding one novel per month to the mix.
3. Strengthen my blog, which leads us to...

For my blog:

1. Blog three times each week. Sundays will be dedicated to a poem for the week along with various reading and writing notes/resources. Tuesdays will be for talking/learning/exploring craft and I will continue to sprinkle in bits of Jack Myers' The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thursday posts will be a tad more personal in nature and will include advice from Grandma/lunch with Grandma and will bring back lunch observations.
2. Increase readership of other blogs and engage more in conversation. I've found a good handful of blogs I enjoy reading for diverse reasons, but they are all central to writing or poetry in some form or another. I want to keep building upon this community and with you.
3. This is still up in the air but the wheels in my head are still turning about including a video reading once a month from a fellow poet/writer if they are willing. I've met some incredibly talented people and want to share the writing that inspires/moves me with the rest of you. (Fingers crossed.)

And last but not least, I always pick a song as my motto for the year, so without further ado, I bring you Coldplay's "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall." What are your resolutions and what song would you chose as your motto?

The Portable Poetry Workshop: Connecting Content - The Image Narrative

The image narrative: the "story told, in coherent form, through a series of the poem's images and perceptions." Jack offers the poem "Summer" by Cesar Pavese (the one who first spoke of a poem's "image story") along with "TV Room at the Children's Hospice" by Michael Ryan as examples.

Segues and white space in a poem act as connectors of the images within the story on their many different levels. Jack offers the poem "Paper Bird" by Robin Behn as an incredible example of the use of white space. (If you haven't read this poem, you must!) I think Behn's poem "Living with Sister" stands as a wonderful example of both segue and white space as a technique within the image narrative:

"Living with Sister" by Robin Behn

On a side note, this particular section within this chapter had me chuckling to myself today. Jack asked me to read in class one day and the word "segue" was in the poem he chose. I had never come upon this word before and butchered its pronunciation. He waited patiently, not once trying to interrupt, and once I gave my final, what I thought was successful, utterance of the word, he smiled his kind smile, half grinning, and launched into a mini-lecture about what a segue does. I am sure the class was fond of me that day. I've never forgotten that word.

Well, and white space, that was a lecture he dedicated a full day to, and I had some sort of epiphany during that lecture resulting in my crafting of poems with words spaced out all over the page. Sporadic placement poems is what I shall now call them. It even inspired a poem I titled "White Space." Jack got a kick out of it. He must have thought I was crazy.

To poetry and fine teachers, Andrea

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Substitution

A poem can travels through both vertical and horizontal levels of meaning by way of substitution. The poet can chose to substitute the literal for the figurative or the abstract or vice-versa. Substitution can even become a poet's overall strategy or "organizing principle" whether employed as a technique or happening unconsciously.

There are a number of poems offered in this section as examples, but the one poet whose work comes to my mind is Matthew Zapruder. "Global Warming" and "White Castle" are two fine examples when it comes to substitution and the movement of meaning within poetry.

A substitution exercise from Jack: "Find some literal images in your poem and then add an abstract quality or specific detail to those images.

Happy writing, Andrea

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Logopoetics

TECHNIQUE. Jack ends this section with a statement I feel is more of a question: "It's just a matter of whether the techniques are being invented in the making or are being applied more consciously as devices a book such as this can teach."

I'd like to know what he thought about Anne Sexton's Transformations. There are many varied streams of consciousness and clever uses of literary devices throughout her collection. Were these poems carefully crafted or had they already been created in her mind, longing for the page? The layers in Sexton's poems are exquisite. "The White Snake" comes to mind...

I tried my hand at the exercise this section concluded with entitled "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" by Jim Simmerman.  I feel as if I've channeled John Ashbery in my attempt (think "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape") and am still chuckling about my hen and her impending frying.

I think you can create a poem from each one of these "Twenty Little Poetry Projects."  Have fun!

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Lateral and Digressive Moves

I've learned a new word: leitmotif. Jack's definition of this word is "a recurring image, phrase, statement, trope, or theme in a work." How did I not know this word?  I've known the definition and found myself weaving together recurring images, sounds, colors, etcetera, during my reading of a collection.  Ones that come to mind: the different hues of blue that weave their way throughout Matthew Zapruder's Come on All You Ghosts, the image of the fly in the aptly titled Flies by Michael Dickman, the conversation sometimes turning into an argument with death in Jack's The Memory of Water.

What are a few of your favorites?

Thanks for the new word today, Jack. :)

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Horizontal and Technical Content

I know that at this section of the book things may seem too technical, which is why I recommend reading this book for yourself. Through reading, the reader will be able to glean what is wanted and/or needed, and it won't feel so technical. (Craft is important!)  This section is overflowing with golden nuggets.

A technical golden nugget:  "A simple method for distinguishing the kinds and functions of content in a poem is to imagine to content of a poem in the shape of a cross..."

A simplified version of the cross Jack speaks of looks like this:

This cross then goes on to resemble more of a pinwheel upon consideration and examination of elements within different poems.

And now, more of a general golden nugget: "...The same cognitive processes we use in decoding our experience in the world are the same cognitive processes we use when we first read a poem."

What poem has given you the most fulfilling experience when reading?  The most recent one for me is Mary Ruefle's "White Buttons." 

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Techniques for Elaborating Content

Elaboration expands a poem.  We can plumpen a poem through a number of devices and methods such as conceit, simultaneity, inner correspondences, slant imagery, creating a story within a story, and correspondence.

Who better to talk about elaboration than Richard Hugo?  In this video, he touches upon the importance of elaboration: "The less you know about the town, the more you can add...subtraction is always more difficult than addition." Just listen to him read, "Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg." Hugo skillfully utilizes the setting as his "triggering town."

Enjoy!

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Techniques for Generating Content

Jack believes the "original impulse" in our writing can be invigorated or "stimulated" by use of technical moves such as adding plot elements, characterization, or images.  This stimulation can expand or shrink a poem either horizontally or vertically, and can even transform the poem altogether.

"The major problem in creative writing is creative writing."  What do you make of this statement?

My go-to when revising a poem is to add description to open up a line or image.  Some employ word play or tinker with words to give their poem more musicality.  Others try to introduce more action into their poems.  What methods do you use to invigorate your poems?

A poem to end this workshop:  "Art Class" by James Galvin. "Let us begin with a simple line..."

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: General Considerations - Associational Logic

...that which is "the kind of thinking that dreaming uses as logic when our mind moves from one thing to another through an unconscious process of juxtaposition."

Can we recognize it? Do we write and reveal our process or do we edit it out? Sometimes, I don't even know how I got from one place to another and oftentimes, this poses a problem for me during the revision process. Should I just let it be? I don't know how much logic there is in my poetry at times, although I know when I'm writing, it is making sense at that very moment. ;)

Jack concludes this last section of the first chapter with a noteworthy exercise:

Associating from the senses exercise - the following exercise is called "clustering." It uses the five basic physical senses as conduits to describe in a figurative way what something seems to be to the poet. Jack uses the emotion of fear as the subject and makes associations from there using touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight. Below is my example for this exercise:

DOUBT

Touch - like an emerald silk dress with a small snag in the center, like a plum tomato with a moldy soft spot

Smell - week-old bananas, water with too much chlorine

Taste - like a fig that's not sweet enough - your tongue is expects sweetness but settles for the so-so

Sight - green dress above, bleach stain in a towel, a scratch on a camera lens

Sound - a bird that's run into a glass window, an iron steaming

What are you clustering?  I hope it inspires a poem.  

The Memory of Water Giveaway

Those of you who follow along with my blog know the impact Jack Myers has left upon my life and my writing.  His new collection The Memory of Water is one I want to share with you and I am launching a giveaway contest for the month of August. (Please see the contest details at the end of this post.)  A touching review about his book is below along with a link to a few of his poems: 

Review by Roberto Bonazzi

From The Memory of Water

I will be giving away one copy of The Memory of Water by Jack Myers, at the end of August. For the chance to win this extraordinary collection, you must take the following three actions:

1. Follow my blog if you're not already.  Follow along with me as I work through my Portable Poetry Workshop Project, inspired by another of Jack's books. 
2. Leave a comment for me below.
3. Twitter and/or G+ a link to this post.

The winner will be selected at random and announced Wednesday, August 31st.  


I look forward to sharing Jack's poetry with you, Andrea

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: General Considerations - The Discovery Mode

Jack talks about the discovery mode as a "method of organic composition in which content and form arise without preset ideas."  Apperception, fixed form and free verse "intensions," not knowing, and complexity and simplicity are outlined in this discussion.  I think a lot of things can be included in this discussion, as everyone seems to have their own "discovery mode" when it comes to writing.

Jack emphasizes a point made by Richard Hugo, "Scholars look for final truths they will never find.  Creative writers concern themselves with possibilities that are always there to the receptive."  Sometimes I feel as if I am desperately searching for truth and that is why I write.  Other times, I just like to sit down and enjoy some word play, and sometimes, I really like what is staring back at me from the page.

I typically like to write free verse.  When at odds with my muse, I follow advice from James Arthur and  write according to a fixed form, my favorite being the villanelle.  How do you prefer to write your poetry?  What kinds of poems do you like to read?

In closing this chapter, Jack offers the "19 Questions" exercise.  I will share one of his questions with you along with one of my own:

One of Jack's 19 questions:  "Under what conditions have you experienced the joy of deep personal learning and insight?  How does your understanding of and relationship to discipline fit into this?  What would your personification of discipline look like?  In this image, are you in service to it, or is it in service to you?"  (Yes, that is all ONE question!  And I think I sense a hidden writing exercise in this one.)

My question:  In The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, the authors write, "Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely that when they are cut, you're the one that bleeds."  How do you feel about this statement and why?  Any past bleeding experiences you'd like to share?

Happy Friday, all!  Andrea

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: General Considerations - Mental Preparation

"Writer's Block."  We all experience it at one time or another.  Sometimes, it feels like a drought that might never end.  Everyone has a special term for it, as if by acknowledging it and naming it, we think it might just empathize with us and let up.  Jack Myers has a perfect analogy for it: "A bouquet of cut flowers might still truly be flowers, but they are cut off from their source, what nourished them, and any possibility of growth."

Do we just allow the flowers to sit in the vase?  Do we try arranging them in different ways, change the water, trim the soggy stems?  In what ways do you deal with your "Writer's Block"?  Do you have a certain name for it?  Do you just let the visitor in until it decides to leave and ignore him/her all the while?

Jack ends the chapter suggesting an exercise for when you are feeling at odds with your muse:

1.  Think of a special object in your life and write down all the detail you can about it.  "See stereoscopically."

2.  Fuse your feelings into the object you've chosen, writing about its meaning to you and the feelings it evokes.

3.  Associate the object with something it reminds you of or something that comes to mind.  Try using a trope as you expand your writing.

4.  Affirm your belief in this object and write about how you may or may not live without it going forward.

If you're like me when battling "the block," you will probably scratch and scribble all over what you've written at some point and want to wad your paper into a ball and bang it into your forehead.  A piece of advice:  don't scribble and scratch so much that you can no longer make out what you've written, and definitely resist making a shape out of it.  Calmly place it in your "To Tackle When I'm in a Better Mood" pile and walk away.  The poem will find you again.

Happy writing, Andrea

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: General Considerations - Creativity and Consciousness

Jack Myers states, "In studying the basis for human life, you would quickly see that nature itself loves to create."  Taking a look outside my office window proves just so:  my lantana, merely leaves weeks ago, is robust with clusters of white blooms; the anthill just outside my patio looks twice its size from the time I last observed it; a spider has woven an intricate web upon the decorative door I've placed behind my wisteria bush.  Just this introduction to the chapter makes me want to write a poem.

But then, Jack pushes you off the diving board and forces you to the deepest part, the subconscious mind.  He talks about parts of the self and how they must "connect" in order to create.  He offers Wordsworth's definition of poetry and goes on to say, "This state of receptivity that forms the atmosphere for creativity seems to be galvanized into action, many times on the unconscious level, by the power of suggestion triggered by our associations and powers of deduction."  The first thing that comes to mind is his advice to me to always "read as much as I can, when I can" and to take time to "watch" the world.

This then leads me to think about the "definition" of poetry:  how many definitions are there, which one is most valid, what about its evolution, etc, etc, etc.  What is your definition of poetry?  Can one truly define it?  The poem that comes to mind when pondering this is John Ashbery's "Paradoxes and Oxymorons."  What are your thoughts on what this poem is saying? Megan Snyder-Camp suggests that "What I get, rather, is exactly what I need, which shifts with each reading."   

"The poem is you." - John Ashbery.  Now get to reading, and writing.  Watch the world.

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project

Now more than ever, I wish I could talk to Jack.  I want his guidance, his wit, his poetry reading suggestions.  I've been reading and rereading his poetry collections.  This week, I turned to his The Portable Poetry Workshop because I need to be in class with him again.  The semester has begun.

What I always admired most about Jack was the way he could make the intangible accessible, like magic.  I'm still in awe even as I read through the introduction pages: "The nature of poetry itself, beyond language and the art's elaborate history of conventions, is all about process, shaping whatever we are trying to sculpt from inchoate fog that allows us to feel what it is to be human."  Jack talks about specific things he feels are most important to making writing a habit, more a "sacred" practice:  sacred space, reading, imitation, feeling, free-writing, and journal writing.  I'm working my way down this checklist now.

One thing Jack always reminded his students was the importance of writing everyday.  It was one of the points he chose to emphasize in his last email to me when I told him I had begun writing again: "Scratch that itch even if it means doodling; it'll pour out poems eventually."  I'm scratching that itch, Jack, and following along with you in this new workshop.

Apt for the first day of class, Jack Myers' poem, "On Sitting" - http://tpqonline.org/myers.html

Happy reading, Andrea