Watermark

Watermark 10th Highest-Rated Poetry Blog?

I just don't see how this is possible:

Since I've been blogging again, I took a look at my stats, and discovered several visitors from this site (images are linked.) How can this be? 

Watermark was neglected for a long time. I recieve fewer than 200 visitors a day, and most of those are looking for Friday Cat Blogging posts.

I rarely get comments, I suspect because I rarely comment myself. This is partly by choice, and partly not. That my energy is so limited is not by choice; that I spend what energy I have on writing poems and making collages rather than commenting on the work of others is by choice. 

(Though I would really love to get more comments.)

So how can Watermark be #10? 

I'm guessing that this site doesn't index a good number of us: if you have a poetry blog, get over there and add yours. Push Watermark down a bit. 

There is some reason for optimism in these numbers:

Clearly, there is an audience for poetry; it's just a bit limited in what sites it goes to. The big shots, Poets.org and Poem of the Day get most of the action. Which is fine, but where's trickle down when you need it?

Where is Poetry Daily? Where is Via Negativa? 

So, it's somewhat gratifying to see my own blog ranked so high, but it certainly would be more so if I could believe it, if I got lots of hits on my poems, if readers left comments, if the other blogs I read were on this list, and if I thought we blogging poets had more of an audience than each other.

 

 

Through Corridors of Light

Today I received an unexpected bit of solstice light in the mail:

 

 

There are poets in here whom I love and admire: Emily Dickinson, Jane Kenyon, Theodore Roethke, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Elizabeth Bishop – well, the list is long. 

And then there's me. My poem Fibromyalgia is the fourth in the book: 

 

I've become the princess I disdained as a child. I'll prove my
royal blood. Put twenty mattresses between me and that pea.
My bones will feel its sharp, hard curve, here, at the small
of my back. I am only sick, I am not dying, no faster

than I was before. I want to stretch my muscles across
the cool length of the blue pool. I want to walk four miles a day
in the rainforest, through the cedars, beneath the eagles and herons.
I want to laugh from the middle of my belly so hard my breasts

bounce. I want to throw Clancy's ball one hundred times in a row.
Instead, I consider the purchase of a stylish cane, one with an animal
head to hold in my aching hand. I've become cranky and rude. I eat
off paper plates, drink from plastic glasses. China and silver fade

under dust on the shelves. I want to be back where I was before.
I want to wrap my legs around another body. I want to earn hard
breathing. I want to build my own garden wall, bend to place
seeds in the black earth with my own hand. I want to wake

in the quiet morning glad for the day in front of me and the dreams
behind. I want to lie in the sun all long afternoon, hot and easy and
dazed by good fortune. I want to bicycle down the hill with Elizabeth.
How do others move through this with such grace and good manners?

My days are short as winter solstice, even in summer heat. I have no
desire left, except for sleep, solitude, a feathered bed. No, sorry, I'm
too tired, too many people at parties, too much noise in the streets.
There is no prince. There is no heaven. There is no sleep.

~

I knew this was in the works. 

But I didn't really believe it. 

The book image is linked to poemsofconsolation.net, where you can get more information and purchase the book. Royalties will be donated to ME Research UK.

 

I plan to spend the next several days with this. Consoled. 

 

Politics & Poetics - a repost

Sometimes when I experience a crisis of confidence, as I have lately (what am I doing? is it any good? what does it matter? & so on) I scroll back through this blog, just to see what I have been doing.

Late last night I came across this post, from January 2008, which I had completely forgotten about. I sound so ... confident.

Click through to the original and outside links to see the comment threads, which are of interest in themselves:

~

Politics & Poetics

[UPDATED 8:00 PM 16 January: Wow. Andrew Sullivan just linked to the poem. My stats are booming!]

My poems seldom incite controversy, but I Have This To Say About That, regarding why the New Hampshire pollsters got it wrong, has done exactly that, here and elsewhere. Comments and emails on this poem have reminded me of questions regarding the role and responsibility of art, of poetry, in our contentious times; and of my own responsibilities, as a poet, a woman, a feminist, and a citizen.

First, let me mention that (like many, if not most poets) I often write in a voice not my own; that neither the speaker nor the subject of my poem is necessarily me. Like a novelist, I am attempting to say truth with fiction, true fiction, as it were. I have found, through the years, that adherence to fact can actually impede the expression of truth.

In writing workshops, when some aspect of a piece is critiqued, the novice writer will often protest: but that's what actually happened! and resist the suggestion that something that didn't really happen might express the mood or the point of the piece with more power and, paradoxically, authenticity.

I am not a reporter. I am a poet. I attempt to tell the truth, and sometimes to enlighten, to entertain, even to amuse while doing so. I am attempting to enlighten, entertain, and amuse myself as well as the reader. The truth is, I often don't know what my poem is about until years later, if ever.

But this time I did.

I chose to speak in a voice not my own, a cadence as true as I could make it to the twang of my western youth. My uncles' voices, perhaps; a certain Missouri syrup in there with a little Montana cowboy. But is this cowboy lying when he says:

... women
lie ...

They lie mostly about
money and politics.
And sex. That, too.

... to which several have taken offense?

No, he is telling the truth. People lie when they must, or when they believe they must. In this country, many women have little power in these arenas, which are considered the territory of the husband -- so they lie. They lie to get along, or to get what they need or want, or -- in more cases than we want to acknowledge -- to avoid a beating.

But they tell the truth when they can:

when they pull that poll booth curtain
closed, who's to know?

One response to this poem was that it presents an ugly stereotype of men and women. This is true.

catnapping says: ... one of the things that kinda bothers me about absentee ballots is that so many women have abusive husbands watching over their shoulders as they fill them out ...

It has been suggested that merely writing -- or posting -- this poem is a betrayal of women. My first (gut) response to this was, gosh, women are betrayed in so many ways, this doesn't even register on the meter -- even if it were a betrayal, which I don't believe it is.

But the suggestion does raise the question -- are there things that must not be said? Isn't that how we got here to begin with, by being told that there are questions which must not be asked, things which must not be said? Isn't this, at least in part, what art is for: to say what is not allowed, to uncover what is buried?

gautami tripathy says: ... categorising as Woman or Black man is demeaning. We vote for a person, not to any gender or colour.

To which I say, this is the dream. But the dream has not been reached. In this country, it is unprecedented to have viable candidates for president who are women, who are black. As long as there are (many) citizens who will vote against a candidate on that basis, we must not pretend otherwise. To pretend otherwise is to accept things as they are, without hope or expectation of change.

And I do not.

And white women, well,
they'll vote for a woman
or a black man without flinching.

... which is, of course, the dream, that one might vote for someone like or unlike ourselves, without flinching. Or the nightmare, I suppose, depending on your point of view. If you think that only white men should be in positions of power, this is, truly, the nightmare.

Don't those pollsters know
that married women
lie ...

Is this really why the pollsters got it wrong? I don't know; it was just an thought, that grew into a voice, that grew into a poem, that became a question.

That became several questions: Are there thoughts, ideas, concepts, that a responsible artist must not share? Is poetry a political act? Do you restrict what you say in public, because of these concerns?

Is that lying?

[There is a piece in response to this one at Poetics Vs. Politics: I Just Have This To Say About That.]

 

[UPDATED 8:00 PM 16 January: Wow. Andrew Sullivan just linked to the poem. My stats are booming!]

My poems seldom incite controversy, but I Have This To Say About That, regarding why the New Hampshire pollsters got it wrong, has done exactly that, here and elsewhere. Comments and emails on this poem have reminded me of questions regarding the role and responsibility of art, of poetry, in our contentious times; and of my own responsibilities, as a poet, a woman, a feminist, and a citizen.

First, let me mention that (like many, if not most poets) I often write in a voice not my own; that neither the speaker nor the subject of my poem is necessarily me. Like a novelist, I am attempting to say truth with fiction, true fiction, as it were. I have found, through the years, that adherence to fact can actually impede the expression of truth.

In writing workshops, when some aspect of a piece is critiqued, the novice writer will often protest: but that's what actually happened! and resist the suggestion that something that didn't really happen might express the mood or the point of the piece with more power and, paradoxically, authenticity.

I am not a reporter. I am a poet. I attempt to tell the truth, and sometimes to enlighten, to entertain, even to amuse while doing so. I am attempting to enlighten, entertain, and amuse myself as well as the reader. The truth is, I often don't know what my poem is about until years later, if ever.

But this time I did.

I chose to speak in a voice not my own, a cadence as true as I could make it to the twang of my western youth. My uncles' voices, perhaps; a certain Missouri syrup in there with a little Montana cowboy. But is this cowboy lying when he says:

... women
lie ...

They lie mostly about
money and politics.
And sex. That, too.

... to which several have taken offense?

No, he is telling the truth. People lie when they must, or when they believe they must. In this country, many women have little power in these arenas, which are considered the territory of the husband -- so they lie. They lie to get along, or to get what they need or want, or -- in more cases than we want to acknowledge -- to avoid a beating.

But they tell the truth when they can:

when they pull that poll booth curtain
closed, who's to know?

One response to this poem was that it presents an ugly stereotype of men and women. This is true.

catnapping says: ... one of the things that kinda bothers me about absentee ballots is that so many women have abusive husbands watching over their shoulders as they fill them out ...

It has been suggested that merely writing -- or posting -- this poem is a betrayal of women. My first (gut) response to this was, gosh, women are betrayed in so many ways, this doesn't even register on the meter -- even if it were a betrayal, which I don't believe it is.

But the suggestion does raise the question -- are there things that must not be said? Isn't that how we got here to begin with, by being told that there are questions which must not be asked, things which must not be said? Isn't this, at least in part, what art is for: to say what is not allowed, to uncover what is buried?

gautami tripathy says: ... categorising as Woman or Black man is demeaning. We vote for a person, not to any gender or colour.

To which I say, this is the dream. But the dream has not been reached. In this country, it is unprecedented to have viable candidates for president who are women, who are black. As long as there are (many) citizens who will vote against a candidate on that basis, we must not pretend otherwise. To pretend otherwise is to accept things as they are, without hope or expectation of change.

And I do not.

And white women, well,
they'll vote for a woman
or a black man without flinching.

... which is, of course, the dream, that one might vote for someone like or unlike ourselves, without flinching. Or the nightmare, I suppose, depending on your point of view. If you think that only white men should be in positions of power, this is, truly, the nightmare.

Don't those pollsters know
that married women
lie ...

Is this really why the pollsters got it wrong? I don't know; it was just an thought, that grew into a voice, that grew into a poem, that became a question.

That became several questions: Are there thoughts, ideas, concepts, that a responsible artist must not share? Is poetry a political act? Do you restrict what you say in public, because of these concerns?

Is that lying?

[There is a piece in response to this one at Poetics Vs. Politics: I Just Have This To Say About That.]

 

Inaugural Poem * by Elizabeth Alexander

UPDATE: Here, courtesy of RCH, is the poet's version of the poem, with line breaks: Praise Song for the Day. This version, though, is copywrighted, so I don't feel comfortable posting it here -- even though it seems to me that this poem, of any, should belong to any of us.

So below is the transcript from the New York Times:

* ~ *

Praise Song for the Day

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

* ~ *

This is from the NYT transcript; I don't know whether the poet's own version has more line breaks. It may.

Already I've seen that some find it too prosaic; they wanted something with more grandeur. I quite like it.

What do you think?

Kay Ryan

National Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day

Today is that day, according to an event announcement at facebook (I think you probably have to be a member to see this):

On the eve of National Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day, which Jay Robinson and I have just now declared, we are offering you a cornucopia of poetry exercises to jump start your writing.

I know that some people don't like prompts, and think you should rely on your own bad self for inspiration. But for those of us who need an assignment, or some kind of push, prompts are invaluable.

Would you like to join the celebration? If so, try your hand at a poetry prompt tomorrow, or share one with a friend, or the entire blogosphere / facebookosphere.

-- Mary Biddinger and Jay Robinson, Co-Editors-in-Chief of Barn Owl Review.

I like prompts. I use them, and, on occasion, I make some up. I made some up last night, when I should have been sleeping, but instead was listening to the thunderstorm.

If you write from any of these, leave a comment telling me which, and a link, and I'll bring the link up under the prompts so that we can all go visit the results.  I may use one or two of these myself.

1. Write a poem that includes three words beginning with O -- and no, those little two-letter words don't count. No names or abstractions (opportunity, only); they must be real things, like: octopus, orange, orangutan. Include one word beginning with Q, and -- oh yes -- twenty lines, please.
2. Write a rhymed sonnet, but put the rhymes at the beginning or middle, instead of the end, of lines. (I've no idea how this will work.)
3. Write a prose poem. What makes it a poem?
4. Image: the head of a daisy, just the head, on a green lawn.
5. Write a love poem without using the word love or any of its substitutes.
6. Write a poem about making something: a quilt, a building, a table, a cake. But not a poem.
7. Image: lightning and thunder from a clear sky.
8. Write a green poem.
9. If it's hot where you are, write a cold poem; if it's cold, write a hot poem.
10. Take the last ten poems you wrote. Beginning with the most recent, write the first line; from the next, the second line, and so on. If the next poem in order doesn't have enough lines, go back to the beginning and move forward until you reach one that does. When you're done, you have ten lines. Keeping them as much in order as possible, make a new poem.

You'll find lots of links to prompt sites here:      POETRY LINKS, and over the weekend I'll links here to participants in this 'event' as I find them, as well as links to poems that respond to the above prompts.

Poetry, Personality & Design

 

We've been having some interesting discussions about poems, poetry, and poetics on the PoetryEtc list -- some of it focused around my own recent work. Frederick Pollack offered some thorough and pointed criticism of my poems -- and my 'kind' of poetry. 

What is my kind of poetry? Mainstream, I gather. Lyrical, perhaps. Not, certainly, his favorite sort.

While I'm unlikely to change the kind of poetry I write, Frederick's critiques and perspective are being very helpful. I find myself thinking, for the first time in too long, about what I'm doing, and why; how I do it, and to what end. I've been lazy lately. The poems have come too easily, and I've posted them too quickly.

I read poems, and I read books about writing poems; but I don't often read, or think much about, criticism or theory. Perhaps, twenty years in, it's past time.

Frederick's advice:

Two tips: 1. Distinguish between your genuinely subjective experience and your narrowly autobiographical experience.  The former is what counts.  As I said before, neither "I" nor "you" (nor parents, siblings, Aunt Tilly etc.) are at all important in themselves; only as functions of a poem and how it engineers its reader's experience. 2: Realize that a narrative, a story, is a metaphor.  In a narrative poem, the guiding incident is the poem's metaphor.  (Stylistically, therefore, there should be as few other metaphors as possible.)

While the first point is familiar to me, the second brought me up short. Not regarding narrative poetry, which I seldom attempt, but regarding what I do write. I thought about how image-heavy my poems tend to be. Then I looked around the room.

My house is just the same. Every wall is covered with art. Every room, even the bathrooms, the kitchen, the closet/ dressing room. Tables and shelves are covered with books, magazines, artifacts. There are goldfish in the garden, parakeets in the sunroom, a small aquarium in the living room, and cats and dogs wherever they please. Everywhere, memories, totems, collections. Also dust, dishes, and pet hair.

I conclude that my house, and my poems, reflect my mind: cluttered, personal, eclectic. Dusty. And I wonder -- have you noticed such correlations in your own writing? Do your poems look like your house, minimal and modern, or traditional, or Bohemian, or . . . ?  Would an attempt to change the style of your writing be like an attempt to change the style of your rooms? And would that be easily done, or not?

I love my house, and don't plan to change it. But you might expect to see some experimentation here.

How to Critique a Poem

 

First, I do not expect every comment on my poems to be a critique -- please don't feel required to become a critic! Please, please don't! I love getting comments on my poems; just that tells me it meant something for you. Critiques are, however, welcome if you feel so inclined.

This post is an effort to remind myself how to best go about this, which I sometimes do. I hope it might be useful for others who offer feedback on poems, as well.

As I've recommitted myself to poetry, and increased my participation in online poetry communities, I've discovered that I seem to have lost the knack of offering concise and helpful feedback on a poem, while being supportive and encouraging.

I have participated in several real-life workshops, with excellent teachers, and seemed to manage it in those settings. But online is different. (Some communities, of course, like Read Write Poem, specifically discourage critique unless the poet requests it.)

Each comment seems, somehow, too blunt, too narrow. I mean this about the comments I make, not those I receive. I am practiced at receiving critiques, and have many years of writing behind me to hold me up against unexpected pushes. I also have rules for myself about receiving C&C (Comments & Critique) developed in face- to- face workshops, that help keep my balance:

• Be receptive; do not speak.
• Write down everything, including responses you don't like or don't think will be useful.
• Do not respond to anything other than direct questions; and delay responding to those, if possible, until the critique is done.

This is easily done online. Less easily done is to  communicate nuance and feeling in responding to someone else's work. Usually this is accomplished with gesture, expression, and voice -- none of which are available at the keyboard. (Emoticons just don't do it for me.)

I realize I've developed the habit, unless I'm working -- that is, trying to learn something from this specific poem or poet -- of reading poems more quickly than I ought to. I read a poem, sit with the feeling or ideas it evokes for a moment, and then move on. Unless, that is, the poem raises some question for me: why does the poet break the line here? how did this poem evoke such a powerful feeling in me? what does that word mean?

poem| a virtual poetry group has especially made me aware of how careless I've become, as I see the attention and depth with which others approach the poems up for discussion. I would like to bring at least some of that kind of attention to the poems offered up in the other communities I belong to. 

I've done a quick review online, and pulled out aging notes from my file cabinet, to pull together this list, much of which came from a very useful thread at How to critique a poem (aka Best Critiques on Poets.org):

• Critique the poem, not the poet.
• Don't assume that the speaker of the poem is the poet; poets often write in fictional voices.
• Offer suggestions for the poem from the point of view of a reader: point out the places that you don’t understand or sections that you find inconsistent with other parts of the poem. Give advice on the poem that is as concrete as possible. Tell the poet that you didn’t understand this line, or that word, or ask why each stanza begins with a capital letter.
  
• Say what you like about the poem; be specific.
• Tell the poet if you were confused by something; again, be specific.
• Say what you think does, and does not, work in the poem.
• Pay attention to what you felt as you read the poem, and share that.
• A small amount of encouragement goes a long way to making any critique more palatable to the poet, and thus is more likely to be taken seriously because the poet knows you’ve read and thought about his/her poem.
• There's a fine line between offering specific revision suggestions, and rewriting someone else's poem. Take care with this.
  

One of the guidelines often suggested is to not address the content of the poem, with the assumption that workshop poets are interested primarily, or only, in feedback on craft. That's not the case with me; I'm also interested in what you think and feel about the content, even if it offends, or confuses, or bewilders you.

I've begun adding to my critique tag in my del.icio.us bookmarks, and I'm putting that tagroll on this post, so it will update automatically and serve as a resource for further thought.

Please comment with any further ideas, thoughts, or resources on this topic. I'm going to link this post to the Critiques Welcome button on the sidebar, so it will continue to be easily available.

Politics & Poetics

[UPDATED 8:00 PM 16 January: Wow. Andrew Sullivan just linked to the poem. My stats are booming!]

My poems seldom incite controversy, but I Have This To Say About That, regarding why the New Hampshire pollsters got it wrong, has done exactly that, here and elsewhere. Comments and emails on this poem have reminded me of questions regarding the role and responsibility of art, of poetry, in our contentious times; and of my own responsibilities, as a poet, a woman, a feminist, and a citizen.

First, let me mention that (like many, if not most poets) I often write in a voice not my own; that neither the speaker nor the subject of my poem is necessarily me. Like a novelist, I am attempting to say truth with fiction, true fiction, as it were. I have found, through the years, that adherence to fact can actually impede the expression of truth.

In writing workshops, when some aspect of a piece is critiqued, the novice writer will often protest: but that's what actually happened! and resist the suggestion that something that didn't really happen might express the mood or the point of the piece with more power and, paradoxically, authenticity.

I am not a reporter. I am a poet. I attempt to tell the truth, and sometimes to enlighten, to entertain, even to amuse while doing so. I am attempting to enlighten, entertain, and amuse myself as well as the reader. The truth is, I often don't know what my poem is about until years later, if ever.

But this time I did.

I chose to speak in a voice not my own, a cadence as true as I could make it to the twang of my western youth. My uncles' voices, perhaps; a certain Missouri syrup in there with a little Montana cowboy. But is this cowboy lying when he says:

... women
lie ...

They lie mostly about
money and politics.
And sex. That, too.

... to which several have taken offense?

No, he is telling the truth. People lie when they must, or when they believe they must. In this country, many women have little power in these arenas, which are considered the territory of the husband -- so they lie. They lie to get along, or to get what they need or want, or -- in more cases than we want to acknowledge -- to avoid a beating.

But they tell the truth when they can:

when they pull that poll booth curtain
closed, who's to know?

One response to this poem was that it presents an ugly stereotype of men and women. This is true.

catnapping says: ... one of the things that kinda bothers me about absentee ballots is that so many women have abusive husbands watching over their shoulders as they fill them out ...

It has been suggested that merely writing -- or posting -- this poem is a betrayal of women. My first (gut) response to this was, gosh, women are betrayed in so many ways, this doesn't even register on the meter -- even if it were a betrayal, which I don't believe it is.

But the suggestion does raise the question -- are there things that must not be said? Isn't that how we got here to begin with, by being told that there are questions which must not be asked, things which must not be said? Isn't this, at least in part, what art is for: to say what is not allowed, to uncover what is buried?

gautami tripathy says: ... categorising as Woman or Black man is demeaning. We vote for a person, not to any gender or colour.

To which I say, this is the dream. But the dream has not been reached. In this country, it is unprecedented to have viable candidates for president who are women, who are black. As long as there are (many) citizens who will vote against a candidate on that basis, we must not pretend otherwise. To pretend otherwise is to accept things as they are, without hope or expectation of change.

And I do not.

And white women, well,
they'll vote for a woman
or a black man without flinching.

... which is, of course, the dream, that one might vote for someone like or unlike ourselves, without flinching. Or the nightmare, I suppose, depending on your point of view. If you think that only white men should be in positions of power, this is, truly, the nightmare.

Don't those pollsters know
that married women
lie ...

Is this really why the pollsters got it wrong? I don't know; it was just an thought, that grew into a voice, that grew into a poem, that became a question.

That became several questions: Are there thoughts, ideas, concepts, that a responsible artist must not share? Is poetry a political act? Do you restrict what you say in public, because of these concerns?

Is that lying?

[There is a piece in response to this one at Poetics Vs. Politics: I Just Have This To Say About That.]

Poetry Thursday|Cam's Poetry Meme

  This week's prompt was Cam's poetry meme:

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was ...

"Jabberwocky" is a poem (of nonsense verse) written by Lewis Carroll, and found as a part of his novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). It is generally considered to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe ...

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought ...

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and …

I don't remember being forced to memorize any poems.

I do remember being encouraged to memorize Bible verses, which no doubt contributed to my love for the rythms of language. It would have been the King James Version of the Bible.

I did memorize Jabberwocky, above, and didn't have to look that up before I typed it.

3. I read/don’t read poetry because …

I read poetry because it keeps me alive, awake, paying attention. It reminds me who I am; who I am not; who I want to be.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is …

I have a lot of favorite poems, I think; too many to list here. That one up there is certainly still one of them. I tend to respond to questions like this by thinking about a poet the questioners might like, and directing them there.

I have too many favorite poets, too.

My favorite just now is Jack Gilbert, because that's who I am reading.

5. I write/don’t write poetry, but …

I write poems, but don't actually expect anyone to read them. I'm surprised when they do, and even more surprised when they like them.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature …

... in that poems seem much more personal to me; they elicit my own emotion in a more sudden, intense way; seemingly bypassing my rational, thinking self.

7. I find poetry …

... in surprising places. Under stones and pepples. In the river. On my dinner plate. In the newspaper; on a neighbor's roof. On the side of a bus. In the trucks changing gears on the bridge.

8. The last time I heard poetry …

I listen to poetry a fair amount, online and on the radio (Garrison Keillor) -- but the last time (InRealLife) I heard a good poet, who is a good reader, do a reading was several years ago, when Pattiann Rogers was here. Now, there's a poet who brings you out of your chair. She's also a great teacher.

I've noticed that many poets are not the best readers of their work. Perhaps it's because so many of us are actually introverts. We're meant to be sitting alone by some deeply seductive body of water. Reading someone else's poems.

9. I think poetry is like …

Nothing else. It's closest to music, perhaps; or stories told to children, generation after generation, until they acquire the depth and wisdom and patina of great age, and become something new again.

I feel that I want to say something more about this. I've been involved in several discussions elsewhere about poetry as craft; poetry as talent; poetry as personal expression; poetry as spiritual practice. I think, for the practicioner, it can be any or all of these things.

But to make a poem, a good poem, that is a skillful thing. Just as making a table, or a house, or a concerto, is a skillful thing. Anyone can take some boards and a hammer and some nails and make a doghouse -- but if they haven't learned, if they haven't studied doghouses, or wood, or carpentry, or tools -- then that doghouse is likely to fall down. Now matter how 'talented' they may be with spatial imagination.

I am often surprised to meet people who want to write poetry --  but never read poems.  Or people who want to be a writer -- but never write -- or read -- anything other than tabloids. They are eager to talk about tools -- which computer, which software, which expensive fountain pen, which leather-bound journal (and I can talk about all this, myself, quite happily) --  but ...

If you want to write (not be a writer; not be a poet) -- this is what you need:  paper; a pen or pencil; the determination to make time and pay attention; and lots of  books. Library books are fine. Second-hand books are fine. Just be sure they are good books, of the sort you would like to write -- and then read them. Read some more of them. Read them again.

Read some books about writing by writers you admire. Try out their suggestions. Write, write, write some more. Remember that growth requires compost: write shit. Write some more shit. Let it ferment awhile, while you write some more.

Do that for a long time. Find out who you are. Write some more.

Now you have begun.

Have I forgotten anything?

[Please come by and Introduce Yourself!]