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Welcome to the Antrim House Seminar Room. Click on the appropriate link below.
Edwina Trentham’s Stumbling into the Light
1. Consider titles—of the book, of its three sections, and of individual poems such as “The Way the Dark Opens Out into Light,” “Falling,” and “Stone.” Look at the titles of your own poems and find one that might be more suggestive, simpler, or less obvious. 2. For you, how do the book’s epigraphs relate to it? What epigraph or epigraphs would you choose for a collection of your own poems? Try ordering a group of your poems for a chapbook of 15-25 pages. 3. Consider line breaks when reading the poems in Stumbling. In what ways do those line breaks help to add meaning, interest, or resonance to the poems? Find one line break you find particularly interesting. Now go through one of your own poems to see if different line breaks might improve it. 4.
Do you consider “Beach Song” a fitting first poem? How
do you interpret the last five lines of the poem? (Note: a “waterbottle” is a sort of “sea grape”
found less often these days than when the author lived in 5. What clues lead you to an understanding of the situation in “Photograph”? (Note that the photograph in question is the one that appears at the beginning of the book’s first section.) Try writing a poem based on a photograph of you as a child, perhaps pictured with one or more members of your family. See if you can imply more than you state in the poem, perhaps some sort of family dynamic. 6. It is interesting to look at “The Short Way to the Beach” from at least two points of view: a) its relationship to the book’s title and overall theme, and b) its use of form. What is the essence of that form? You might want to read a formal translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Robert Pinsky’s, for instance) to see a rather famous use of the form. Do you know what it is called? For another use of the same form, read Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Now try your hand at this form, perhaps in a poem that describes a child’s perilous journey, short though that journey might be. 7. Consider the ending of “Souvenir” in which a “gentle sway of blue” vanishes “into the flowered meadow.” What, for you, is the psychology of the child’s act? What leads you to that interpretation? Try a poem of your own in which a child (perhaps you, perhaps not) performs an act inspired by the same sort of feeling present in “Souvenir.” 8. “My Father’s Heart” is breath-taking in its combination of strong emotion and strict form. It is good to read the poem at first without attention to its form, then allow that form to become more evident on additional readings. How would you define the form? Now compose a poem of your own using the same structure, perhaps a poem in which you depict a relationship with one or both parents. 9. In "Solace," the author uses another strict form--a canzone, which repeats five end words in a complex pattern--as a way of exploring her father's life in the context of a scientific theory. How does the use of this form enhance this exploration? How does the author vary the end words and what is the effect of that variation? Think about a scientific theory that connects in some way with your own experience, and use that as a metaphor to explore your experience. If you are feeling adventurous, read about canzones. Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms, edited by Philip Dacey and David Jauss, has a clear explanation of the form and some good examples. Now try writing a canzone. You might want to keep in mind that forms like this one often lend themselves more easily to story-telling than to philosophizing, although like all rules about writing, this one is made to be broken. 10. The sonnet is another form used frequently in Stumbling, although the author favors loose sonnets marked by slant rhyme and syllabics (in which each line contains the same number of syllables), rather than meter and full rhyme. For examples see "The Summer I Decide Who I Am" and "Snake Song." Some poems of fourteen lines, also in syllabics but without a strict rhyme scheme also have the feel of a sonnet, as in "The Way the Dark Opens Out into Light" and "The Harbor." What is gained by the different uses of the sonnet form in these poems? Try writing a poem in free verse. Then revise the poem into fourteen lines, then into syllabics, and then into slant rhyme, following either the English or Italian sonnet rhyme scheme. How do these revisions change the poem? (For a survey of sonnet forms, slant rhyme, etc., web-search “Poetic Forms.”)
Joan Joffe Hall’s In Angled Light
1. “The Envelope” (p. 17): What is the envelope? Is it one thing, or many? What is the role of the sun in this poem? What are the qualities of light in the poem? 2. “Driver’s License” (p. 57): What do you think of the ending of this poem? Does it fit the rest of the poem? Are there serious elements in this very humorous poem? If so, what is the effect of balancing humor and seriousness? Try writing a poem (or story, essay, letter, dialogue…) in which you describe some particularly frustrating experience. Consider mixing the humorous and the serious, and see if you can incorporate a general truth in your writing, as Hall does at the end of “Driver’s License.” 3. In “Autumn Roads” (p. 65) Hall juxtaposes seemingly unrelated ideas—the arrival of fall and the Roman invasion, cracked acorns and cracked skulls. In fact, her poems are full of abrupt changes or contradictions. Find some other examples. Do they work? Write a poem in which the first section moves in one direction, and the second section in a completely different direction. This could mean a shift in style or form, or a chance to explore an issue on which you are divided; for example, two sides of the self might address each other as in a debate or dialogue. 4. “Red” (p.59). Usually it is a small thing that brings back memories of our childhood, in this case an abundance of red cars (and, later, an abundance of black-and-white television ads). What brings you back to your childhood or to a time when the world seemed very different? Concentrate on specific details that are personal to you. Draw connections between memory, the world you lived in, and the things that trigger memory involuntarily. Write a poem describing a memory and what triggers it. Remember to involve the senses, presenting details of what you saw, heard, smelled, touched and tasted. 5. Consider Hall’s thoughts on children and parents in poems such as “Seed Sack” (p. 7), “Parenthood” (p. 8) “The Aperture (p. 9),”Conversations with the Dead” (p. 14), “Kansas, Sunstruck” (p. 16), “Envelope” (p. 17), “Red Moon” (p. 26), “Fowl” (p. 45), “Matthew at Thirteen” (p. 47), “Our Last Winter” (p. 49) and “The Pool” (p. 50).Ê What elements do you find in the poet’s attitude toward children and parents? Do you see any ambivalence or contradiction? Try composing a poem in which you reveal your own attitude(s) toward a parent, a child or a sibling, perhaps focusing on a single incident or a series of related incidents. Bear in mind that ambivalence is often the hallmark of truth and that it is usually better to be specific, to show rather than tell. Don’t be afraid of anger. Or of love. 6. After reading “A World Infested by Potential” (p. 4), write about a childhood event or series of related events arousing strong emotion in you—fury, joy, frustration, jealousy, regret, love… 8. Read the series of love poems on pp. 31-44. What sorts of attitudes towards love and lovers does the poet reveal? Do you agree with her? Try writing about a) an apparently
slight “love-moment” which speaks volumes, as Hall does
in “You Out There” on p. 33 orÊ
b) about a rendezvous, as in “Raspberries” (p.31)
and “Grass” (p. 38). Another possibility: write about
a lust or a crush, as in “Courting the Muse” (p. 34) and
“Crushes” (p. 37). Or write a letter/poem to a lover,
ex-lover or would-be lover, as Hall does in “Letter to 9. “In Praise of Swimming Pools” (p. 51). Here, Hall delivers a eulogy concerning one of her favorite sites. Do the same for a place or thing you relish. 10. Write a “persona poem”
as Hall does in “Weddings” (p. 83)—that is, a poem
in which you speak in the voice of someone else. Assuming another’s
personality and voice, as Mark Twain did in The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn and J.D. Salinger in Catcher in the 11. In “Gradually” (p. 97), Hall may be writing about an ex-husband. What makes the poem so moving is the degree of empathy it shows. In a poem about someone who may have hurt you or with whom you have had a falling out, see if you can achieve the same sort of empathy by imagining yourself into the life of the other person. 12. What do “Driving” (p.99), “Turn” (p. 100) and “Ice Cream Cones” (p. 102) tell you about the poet? Do other poems in the book show a similar quality or qualities? Write a poem in which you describe behavior in yourself that typifies you. It is probably best to focus on a particular incident or pattern of incidents. 13. “Still Life” (p. 104). Write a poem in which you or someone you describe is “released from the slicing of time” and exists for a moment “between what was and what will be.” 14. What role do diamonds play in “Swimming through the Perseids”? What would you say is the theme of this poem? Write a poem with a similar theme, perhaps one describing an event from your own life. 15. “Amy Lowell” (p. 109). Poems like this based on the lives of literary, artistic or cultural celebrities—people who have lived “on the edge”—can allow a writer to explore the sort of extreme behavior or startling event that throws light on the true nature of life. Try writing such a poem, perhaps doing some research to bone up on the life of a celebrity who intrigues you.
Pit Pinegar's The Physics of Transmigration
1. This is one of those rare poetry collections that reads like a novel. Each poem builds on the one before it, so we urge you to read the book straight through, from start to finish. In the end, it will be interesting to consider the ways in which the title might be construed. 2. “Setting the Record Straight” (p. 13) is, in one respect, a “catalogue poem” in the tradition of Walt Whitman. You might want to try your hand at a poem that catalogues a variety of things or events. How about a “how do I love (hate, fear…) thee, let me count the ways” sort of poem? 3. “Intimacy” (p. 17). Just as this poem begins with a quotation that the poem contradicts, you might compose a poem that begins with someone’s statement then takes issue with it. The statement might be a saying of a parent or teacher, a line from a song, something overheard in conversation, etc. It should be a statement that infuriates you or rouses some sort of strong emotion. Let ’er rip. 4. “Light” (p. 18). Try a poem in which you describe the early stages of a love when all is bright and shiny, perhaps a first rendezvous or meeting, a first getaway, etc. Play with the possibility of sustaining a metaphor, image or theme, just as Pinegar plays variations on the theme of Light. 5. There are many ways of rendering a portrait. In “Portrait” (p. 20), Pinegar can’t get past the beloved’s eyes, because he once said, remember us this way—/to your last breath. Think of a portrait you would like to write. What specific memory (or memories) and details intrude on the rendering of your portrait—making it both spectacularly true and not a whole picture?Ê Consider writing a portrait of someone you care or have cared about: parent, grandparent, child, friend, lover, spouse, et al.Ê Consider writing a whole gallery of portraits. 6. “Where There’s Smoke” (p.30) is an example of the use of synesthesia to create unexpected images. Imagine describing sound visually or what music might feel like. If you could hear color, what would it sound like? Write a poem in which your senses respond in unexpected ways to the world around you. 7. Pinegar writes about the power of imagination in poem after poem—the power of imagination to heal, to transform, to create a new reality by imagining it first. Look at “Imagination” (p. 31), “Before the Longing” (p. 52), “Your Death” (p. 54), “Distance” (p. 72), and “December’s Dying Light” (p. 79). Consider how imagination functions in each poem, how it shapes the poem, how imagination might also shape the life of the poet. Try writing a poem in which you must imagine something—the presence today of the mother or father, sibling or child who died many years ago; the child you didn’t have; the path you didn’t take. 8.
The reader may not always be able to make the distinction between
what Pinegar calls imagination and what she might call metaphysical
reality. In many of the poems
in the second section of the book— “ 9. The Physics of Transmigration is a love story, but it does not follow the usual prescriptions that Hollywood and the media generally set forth, since the love she describes does not end neatly with “and they lived happily ever after” and since she asks questions that we are not accustomed to asking: What if love is not so much about what we receive but about what we learn about our own capacities to love?Ê What if love is a multi-faceted adventure of the spirit? What if love always enables us to be more loving, as long as loss or fear of loss doesn’t cripple our capacities to be generous? Try writing a poem about what a “lost” love, a recalcitrant child, an impossible family member, a former close friend taught you about your own capacity to love. Make an effort to write your way past whatever barriers you might have constructed to mitigate the pain of loss or disappointment.
Norah Pollard's Report from the Banana Hospital A few thoughts.... When I was first called upon to give poetry readings, I would often preface the poem by explaining—rather defensively—that the poem was true. It happened. I could prove it. Part of the reason for this habit was my misguided notion that, if the poem were true, the audience could not criticize it. For how can you criticize the truth? I was dumb, of course. You can criticize the art of a poem. In fact, feel free to criticize the fact of it, too, if it's boring, or tasteless, or boring. Or boring. The other reason for telling the audience my poem was true was because my poems are true. I've tried writing poems about paintings or about subjects suggested by books on writing, but they have always been bad poems. They come out sounding flat and composed. And I don’t get the “high” from writing them. If it's someone else's idea for a poem, I’m like a toad attempting to suckle a mourning dove. I can't adopt it. Once I tried writing a play, and all the characters sounded like the same person—me. They were all talking to each other, and it was like one actor holding forth in front of one of those department store three-angled mirrors. Same person, different angles. Boring as hell. I might be a narcissist—all this writing about myself and my life—but I rather think it's that I lack the ability to invent. I can paint a real scene or recount a real situation, but I can’t create. I record. I transcribe my world. Sometimes I condense or combine the literal truths. In the title poem, “Report From the Banana Hospital,” I have changed two names. Also, Dr. Grimakis is a combination of a nurse and a doctor (who, hopefully, have found new careers). Sometimes I have added a detail, like the hooker's little dance at the end of the poem. But she did say what I wrote down she said. Milton was there. And the beautiful Cuban pianist. And Henry. I did take the bus home because I had no money. I did do a stint in the looney bin. I did have to fend off Milton. I did, I did, I did. I wrote "The Banana Hospital" because I wanted to record that experience in my life. I keep a diary (day-to-day stuff), and I keep a journal (ideas, opinions, observations), and I write down any dream that might provide me with a helpful insight if only I could figure it out. I have a writing compulsion. One morning a few years ago, public radio hosted an interview with a man who spent his time recording his life—every minute of it in minute detail—so that he no longer had time for anything else. He wrote and wrote and wrote, with no time to live or work or even think too much. This sounds humorous, maybe, but the man obviously had a sickness. I warn myself about this, so I won't end up in the booby hatch recording how many swallows of coffee it took me to get down how many little blue pills at what exact time in the a.m. and what the weather was doing when I swallowed them. Anyway, all this is to say that "The Banana Hospital" is true, critique it as you will. When I finally got through the depression—five years after it had begun and about a year after my hospital stay—I felt a messianic zeal to educate the world about depression. While I was depressed, both a relative and one friend suggested that I enjoyed my pain. Another told me I must "Get over it." And I see how a healthy person could want to say these things to someone who seems to refuse to see that life is so beautiful. What I was wanting to do after I came up out of the darkness was to climb up on a soapbox and give a speech. But what would I say? And to whom? Describing depression and despair is impossible because despair and depression are indescribable. Even the great William Saroyan in Darkness Visible could not capture it. Several years later I decided to make a record, a poem about my hospital stay. I decided to make it humorous so that it would be palatable, and also because it was humorous. (I can see Woody Allen being me.) Friends have told me I did not succeed in this, but I rather think that is because they know me and feel bad about the whole affair. I think if it were about someone they didn’t know, a fellow named Ralph Roisterdoister, say, they might grin now and then. I guess if I did get to make my speech about mental illness now, I would tell people that the cruelest adage in the world is, "God does not give you more than you can bear." Because, of course, some folks are given more than they can bear. And they crack up, or swallow ant traps with a quart of gin, or murder the plumber. It's not a character flaw that we do not prevail at all times. Everyone has a breaking point. Everyone. And so we must have compassion and tenderness for those who break. And if you want to point to a person who’s been through hell and has come out of it intact, and if you are inclined to say, “But, see! He bore what got dished out,” remember that he has just had not reached that circle of hell that would break him. There. See. I would be a terrible mental health speech giver, because beyond saying that everyone has a breaking point and therefore we should be compassionate towards those who have reached theirs, I have only this to say: The human spirit is an incredible thing. It can subsist on so very little. It can come back from the dead. It can also leave you absolutely. Wandering back to my theme of True Poems, "Lucy Dancing" and "The Seal In the Wave" are the only "untrue" poems in the book, though the men in "The Seal in the Wave" are certainly men I have known. And the seal is living with me now. I don't know where "Lucy Dancing" came from. A true aberration. Do I contradict myself? So my poems are a selective record of my life and what I've seen. My depression lasted from 1978 to 1983. It was in 1983, at the age of 43, that I started writing. I wrote, in part, because my fine therapist had said that the dreams I wrote down for him were well written, and that made me feel I could do something beside make a plausible meatloaf. And I wrote in part because coming out of the blackness into the blindingly beautiful world made me want to write and write about it, in terms both black and bright.
Rennie McQuilkin's Private Collection
Many of the images which inspired the writing of these poems are well known and can be found on the internet. Others are unknown and can be found here.
Ginny Lowe Connors on Barbarians in the Kitchen
FIRST MEMORY Author’s Note: This poem really is about my earliest memory: I must have been two or three years old. I had climbed up onto the sink in the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, taken out my mother’s lipstick and was trying to apply it to my own face when my grandfather caught a glimpse of me. He probably mistook the lipstick for blood and rushed forward to rescue me. Large and alarmed, he was a frightening figure. What interests me about the memory are the themes of beauty and transformation and their link to danger. Writing: What are some of your earliest memories? They are sure to have emotional power. Select one and try writing about it.
WORMS Reading: Does the child narrator’s misconception about the origins of the worms she sees after a rainfall reflect anything about her attitude toward life? How does her attitude differ from that of her friend? Writing: If you are looking for a topic to write about, think of some of the misconceptions you had when you were very young; put yourself back in that frame of mind, and see what kind of writing results.
HOOLIGANS Reading: Notice that this poem begins with an open window and ends with an open door. Why do you think Connors structured it that way? Which parts of the poem are in the present and which parts are in the past? (How often we travel from the present to the past and back to the present, with sometimes a side trip or two into the future.)
LEGACY Reading: What kind of legacy has the narrator received? Writing: Think about family legacies and try writing about what you have received. If you are a parent, what kind of legacy do you think you are passing on? What legacy would you like to leave?
WE ARE CIVILIZED Reading: What is the significance of the title? How does this poem relate to the previous one (“Legacy”)? Writing: It’s a special challenge to write about the things that are not said, the actions that are about to happen, the things unseen that influence what is shown before us, all the borderline area between two states…but this is powerful territory.
HUNGER Reading: Try to imagine what might have happened to the woman in the poem before the scene described and how it has influenced her approach to life. When she encounters the bear, she is afraid of it and yet there is an instant in which she recognizes some kind of kinship with it. What could this woman and the bear possibly have in common? Writing: Try writing a poem about what comes either before or after the events related in “Hunger.” Or write your own poem about an unexpected encounter with an animal. Think about what the animal may represent.
ENTERING THE FOREST Reading: What might the forest represent? If you are familiar with the motif of the Hero’s Journey in mythology or classical literature, you might try comparing it to the journey in this poem.
THE TURN Reading: Much of this poem is about sleeping and dreaming. What else is it about? What is the significance of the first two stanzas?
THE SWIMMER Writing: This is an active poem. List all the verbs in it. Think of a scene or event you would like to write about. Start by making a list of possible verbs to use. Then write your poem.
BARBARIANS IN THE KITCHEN Reading: How does this, the title poem, relate to the theme that Connors states is the impetus of many of the poems in this book? (In the Afterword she talks about the intersection of wilderness and civilization as an inspiration for much of her writing.) What is the source of the narrator’s ambivalence as she tries to get her children to interact in ways that are more acceptable?
A RELATIVE STRANGER Reading: Have expectations, spoken or unspoken, conscious or unconscious, ever interfered with your ability to relate to someone else?
TRACKING THE BEAR Reading: What kind of journey are this mother and son taking? What’s going on in the last two lines of the poem? Writing: In this poem, the boy is compared to a bear. Think of a person that you would like to portray; what animal could represent him or her? If you want to write about someone, try working out the animal comparison and weaving it into your poem.
DAUGHTER, SIXTEEN Author’s Note: This poem was written as I observed my daughter practicing leaving. As college and then adulthood loomed closer and closer, she practiced distancing herself from us. I had to practice the same thing. But when I looked at her, I saw someone terribly young, beautiful and vulnerable; thus the spring imagery.
MY SON TURNS TWENTY-FOUR Reading: What would the poem be like if it were written from the son’s point of view? Writing: Take a poem or story you are familiar with and retell it from a different point of view. It would be interesting to take a piece you yourself have written and rewrite it from an alternate point of view.
A HUSBAND’S REFUGE Writing: What is your refuge? What about the people around you?
NO OTHER LIGHT Reading: What is the tone of this poem? There are several polarities in this poem; for instance, intimacy and separateness. What other polarities do you notice?
AMONG THE HALF-GROWN Author’s Note: This poem is dedicated to the students and staff of Sedgwick Middle School.
ANTHONY AFTER SCHOOL Reading: Compare and contrast this poem with “Barbarians in the Kitchen,” “My Son Turns Twenty-four,” “Seizure,” or any other poems in the collection that seem to connect to it in some way. Writing: This poem relates a failure in communication. The narrator meant to give one message, but it is not what came out. Have you ever had a similar experience? Or can you imagine one? Write about what you said and what you actually meant to communicate.
LOST, LEFT BEHIND, DISCARDED Reading: Compare and contrast this poem to “Among the Half-grown.” Especially consider tone.
ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING Reading: In most of Connors’ poems, she uses standard punctuation. Why do you think she eliminates all but the final period in this poem? Writing: This poem is a persona poem. You might find that writing in the voice of your subject is an effective way to find greater understanding of the person.
PIERCED Reading: According to the poem, what is the girl battling? What is the mother’s response? Does this poem remind you of anyone you’ve met? Do you think the poem oversimplifies the mother, the daughter, and the situation? Compare and contrast this poem to “A Relative Stranger.” Writing: Connors uses this poem and “Another School Shooting” to try to begin to understand some young people who have made negative choices. Think about the people or situations that worry or mystify you. Write for understanding.
GIVE ME TOMORROW Author’s Note: This poem is dedicated to soldiers of every nation, of every time…and also to those who fervently work toward a more peaceful world.
PRESENT AND IN AWE Reading: Relate the poem to its title.
THE WEIGHT OF BUTTERFLIES Reading: What kind of stories are mentioned in this poem and why do people need them? If you were to paint a scene from this poem, what would it look like?
ODE TO SKUNK CABBAGES Writing: Pick something common, something ordinarily overlooked: dandelions, chairs, or shoe laces, for example, and write a poem of celebration or appreciation on this topic.
GIANT BLOB OF SLIMY FLESH REMAINS UNIDENTIFIED Reading: How would the poem be different if the slimy blob were identified? Writing: Where do writers get ideas? The world is full of them. This poem and the next one in the collection (“Rare Albino Tiger Escapes”) are based on news accounts. When you read or hear the news, make note of interesting items that could become the basis of a poem.
RARE ALBINO TIGER ESCAPES Writing: Think about that part of yourself that could be symbolized by the tiger in this poem. What would happen if you let it out? Write about it.
THE GREAT CIRCUS FIRE Reading: This is a true story. What keeps it from being a simple recitation of the facts; what makes it a poem? Author’s Note: The question above is one I struggled with while writing the poem, and I’m still uncertain about my degree of success or failure in transforming this true, tragic event into a narrative poem.
COWS STOP TRAFFIC IN WEST HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT Writing: Do you delight in the absurdity life offers so abundantly? If so, think of some examples and use them as a basis for writing.
AFTERWORD In the Afterword Connors talks about an overriding theme that resonates in many of her poems: the intersection of wildness and civilization and the tension between the two. Identify the poems that you think most relate to that theme and explain why or how they relate.
Geri Radacsi's Tightrope Walker
1. Ekphrasis can be defined as a verbal representation of visual images. The Oxford Classical Dictionary says it is “the rhetorical description of a work of art.” Horace, born in 65 B.C., and a leading Roman poet, in Ars Poetica expressed the ekphrastic ideal of giving voice to painting and had as a principle, ut picture poesis, “poetry as a speaking picture and painting as mute poetry.” The earliest examples of ekphrastic poetry focused on utilitarian objects such as goblets, urns, vases, chests, cloaks, weapons and armor, and architectural ornaments. Select an ordinary object, a kitchen knife, a dog’s leash, an IPod, a hammer, mirror, clock, lamp, remote control. Write a self-contained description or interpretation of this thing. Write a poem where it is possible to “insert” the description in an appropriate place. 2.
Note how this poetry collection is structured. How do the title and
last poem, “Tightrope Walker” suggest an overriding theme?
How does Idyll relate to Cold Rain and in turn to Tightrope Walker?
How do the three sections present a progression of thought and overall
arc of this book’s theme? 3.
Historical background research was done by the poet in writing poems
grounded in such art masterpieces at Matisse’s “Dance,”
“American Gothic,” John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait
of Madame X” and the famous photograph “Migrant Mother,
1936.” How can historical details create nuances in a poem? Select
a painting or photograph (not necessarily a celebrated one), and write
a poem in which you not only use close description drawing on all
the five senses to produce evocative imagery, but also invest the
poem with a “history” either factual or invented. (Study
Madame X for its sensual details.) 4.
Consider the “persona” speaking in “Migrant Mother
(Part I)". What’s the point of view, tone, attitude of
the speaker? Find a photograph taken on a special occasion (birthday,
anniversary, holiday festival, vacation) and write a persona poem
drawing from one of the people pictured. What is this person thinking,
feeling, hiding? Make the voice distinctive enough to resonate with
ironic meanings. 5.
Notice the difference in voice, attitude, and outlook of the two mothers
speaking in Part I and Part II of “Migrant Mother.” Select
a picture of your mother, and write about her qualities from different
perspectives: of yourself, a sibling, her brother/sister, her husband,
co-worker. 6.
Consider the “persona” speaking in “Neferiti’s
Missing Eye.” How would you describe this individual’s
tone, characteristics, goals, and fantasies? Assume the role of a
painter or sculptor and, write a poem in which the artist/speaker
directly addresses the subject or model being transformed into an
art form. Try experimenting with two opposite tones of voice; for
example, the speaker could be in love with the model in one poem and
be angry at the model in another version. 7.
Look at “Sonny on Trumpet in the Quarter” and how it melds
musical and personal themes. Select a musical form (classical, jazz,
rock ’n roll, be-hop, hip-hop, rap, whatever). Taking the artist’s
point of view as your favorite song is being performed, write a poem
showing how it feels to bring the music to life. Use images that transform
the music into words. 8.
Online there is a useful site to look at some 40 ekphrastic poems
accompanied by images. Ekphrastic Excursions is found at the site:
http://www.dwpoet.com/poetassign.html It is the creation of Prof.
David Wright of Wheaton College and contemporary as will as classic
poets are represented. Include are W.H. Auden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hayden, Lisel Mueller, Frank
O’Hara, W.D. Snodgrass, Wislawa Szymborska, and William Carlos
Williams. For an exercise, look at Randall Jarrell, "The Bronze David of Donatello" and compare and contrast that poem with “The David” in this collection. Consider such questions as how the poets have responded to the figure in the sculpture, the history, re-creation of the art through verbal means. What is the point of each poem? Is it the same as the work of art? What’s the point of view of the narrators?
9.
“Einstein, Man of the Century” was inspired by a Time
magazine cover. Depict your own Man or Woman of Any Century in an
ekphrastic poem. The subject could be a revolutionary figure, such
as Ghandi, Madame Curie, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Therese, Jackie Robinson,
Eleanor Roosevelt, or some other historical/political/literary/scientific
giant. Look closely at minute details in a picture of the subject.
Now decide on an approach you will take as poet to write about this
subject. Some ideas: give voice to the subject through a “persona”;
use the image/photograph to examine personal issues; conduct a narrative
conversation or interview with the subject (what questions would you
ask your subject?). 10.
Art sometimes provides strong reactions. Look at “Woman in the
Waves (Ondine).” Select a painting of your choosing and write
a poem focusing on what feelings it elicits. What details in the artwork
trigger them? 11.
Various sources agree that the “original” classic ekphrasitic
poem was a description of Achilles’ shield in the 18th book
of Homer’s the Iliad. Some noteworthy historical examples of
ekphrastic poetry are W. H. Auden’s “Shield of Achilles,”
Keat’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” William Wordsworth’s
“Tintern Abbey,” John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait
in a Convex Mirror,” and William Carlos Williams’, “Landscape
with the Fall of Icarus.” More contemporary examples include
Sylvia Plath’s “Colossus,” and Robert Hayden’s
“Night Blooming Cereus.” Study
some of these poems for their ekphrastic elements. Try writing a poem
using the form of one of these poems, but just for fun argue with
the poet you’ve read and present an opposite stance in your
poem.
Brad Davis's Song of the Drunkards
In any single moment, we are encircled by innumerable persons and things that make their way into our consciousness by way of our senses. This fullness would be overwhelming were it not for how our brains are “fearfully and wonderfully” wired. Contrary to the pessimists who work so incredibly hard to demonstrate meaningfully the meaninglessness of all things, SONG OF THE DRUNKARDS accepts that humankind’s incurable search for meaning and beauty points to a truth: that meaning actually exists (beautifully) in, with, and under all things, and we, despite our various limitations, are equipped to search, find, and celebrate it. This seminar assumes the value of a journal in the process of developing poems and invites journaling from first to last. 1. THING. In the book’s first poem, “Imitatio,” the opening words are those which Donna read from her journal to the small group she belonged to at the time. New snow, her knees, and warm sunlight on a cold day. Surrounded by so much – “the air hung with fullness” – these are the things of that moment to which she assigned weight or meaning as she wrote the entry in her journal that day. My poem admires, aspires and pay homage to her sense of the miraculous in a life story (hers) that is under assault by disease. The ordinary things and people that surround us are not meaningless or rendered somehow irrelevant when held up to the so-called light bulb of some great idea, and each of us has our own cluster of invaluable things and persons without which we simply would not know how to be happy. And yet over time we do lose all those things or, in the end, we have to let them go. Journal exercise: Make a list of the things (and persons) that, as a friend has written, “bind [you] to this world.” There may even be on your list a few things that you still don’t have or have yet to experience: a life partner, rafting the Colorado River, a grandchild, a sunburst 1963 Telecaster. I remember a time when what kept me here was simply a vague but palpable hunger for something more. Your list of invaluable things and persons will be like your eye’s iris or your fingerprints, utterly unique to you. 2. IMAGE. Our brains are filled with all kinds of images. The musty odor of an old book, the whine of a vacuum cleaner, the ragged edge of a chipped tooth, the watery shimmer of aspen leaves, the subtle sweetness of a raw almond. The things and persons that surround us gain entry to our consciousness through our senses and impress themselves upon our awareness as images. What’s more, any one thing can make several simultaneous image impressions: a hot dog is a brown tube of meat and meat by-products that smells kind of like ham and tastes very salty. Stir in your own childhood memories of summer picnics, images of hot dog eating contests, and the Oscar Meyer TV jingle, and the hot dog ain’t just a hot dog anymore. “Old Story” (p. 47) is a poem I tried to write for years that began with an actual, visual image of a carnival tent going up in a field in what was then my home town. If I were a painter I would translate that childhood image into a painting. In “The Commuter” (p. 33) the image that got me going was the imagined sound, coming from both sides of a dove’s head, of wings beating in unison. Stereophonic effect and its subtle dimensionality. Journal exercise: Not all images (tactile, audio, oral, visual, olfactory) carry the same weight in everyone’s experience of the world. From your list of invaluable things and persons, select one, then focus all your senses (including memory) upon its image as it resides in your awareness, and take notes. If you need a fresh experience of the thing, get yourself in its presence and refresh your memory. We are in the translation business, yes? Now translate the fullness of the thing into full sensory description and such language (imagery) as may perhaps become useful in a poem. 3. IDEA. Images do not reside in our consciousness apart from an architecture of memory, thought, and feeling to which we are deeply committed. If an image is the internal residue of my experience of an external thing, then an idea would be the mechanism by which an image makes meaningful connections within my take on life and the world. The word “idea” is pretty flexible at this point. Ideas can include an emotional response or a philosophical implication, a random association or an apt metaphor. An idea can be relational – this thing with that person – or argumentative, pro or con. It can be sensory or subsensory. The idea that attaches to the image of a thing may be entirely settled or unsettling, affirming or alarming. In “Judgment” (p. 30), the precipitating idea was my admiration for a certain kind of poem (which is, in fact, a thing, no?) that a friend of mine has written so well, what I call the obsessive poem, wherein the subject gets named again and again and again as the poem moves forward. I decided on my image/subject (bones) because, in our post 9/11 world, suicide bombers have turned their bodies into weapon delivery systems, and I am sickened by the dark, twisted irony of it all. Yet the idea I set out to follow (like a dog on a scent) was that bones are good, no matter what. Heck, without them we’d be a huge pile of immobile lumps of flesh simmering in our own juices. Journal exercise: Take that which you selected for the last exercise; now subject that same image even further to an exploration of the mechanisms by which it connects meaningfully with your take on life and the world. Hopkins wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Why is that invaluable thing or person important to you? Okay, so there’s this old baseball mitt in the back of your closet. So what? 4. LINE. Poems are about things and persons and images and ideas, and what distinguishes the poem (even the prose poem) from other forms of literary art is that it presents itself to the reader (or listener) line by line. I enjoy thinking of poetry as having a particular problem, as being a way of writing that has issues with the right hand margin. In our moment there are three ways of solving the problem of the right hand margin: by opting to write either in (1) a closed or traditional form, (2) an open, broken line form, or (3) an unbroken, prose line form. This is the point at which poets begin to salivate. For it’s not enough, finally, to make fabulous entries in a journal. All that observation and association and rumination and general phrase turning needs to come to something, and that something is, for the poet, a poem, a shaped thing that moves down the page from line to line, image to image, and, if successful, communicates meaningfully, even beautifully, a pearl of perception from author to reader, “from deep to deep.” In SONG OF THE DRUNKARDS, all three solutions are employed. In poems like “In It” (p. 44) and “Elegy” (p.57), I set out with a loose loyalty to the decasyllabic line, a line length common to blank verse and the sonnet. In “Old Story” (p. 47), “Anticipating Our Retirement” (p.50), “For the Director of Music” (p. 51), and “Isolato” (p. 54) I wanted to continue my work with the fourteen-line or sonnet-length poem. “Against Nostalgia” (p. 46) is a prose poem. Most of the book’s poems, even where divided into stanzas, assume a commitment to openness regarding line length. Final exercise: From your journaling specific to this seminar, work what you’ve got into an open form poem. Make it image-rich. Let your idea(s) show, but just a little, like fine underwear. Pay attention to your line breaks. Now, since your first version is in an open form, make a second version that conforms more closely to a closed or traditional form (you choose the form). But wait, there’s more, a third step to this exercise: read up a bit on prose poems (begin with an on-line search) and what makes them tick, and then produce a third version of the poem that feels like (and does what) a prose poem (does). Have a blast! For a better sense
of the aims, accomplishments, and shortcomings of SONG OF THE DRUNKARDS,
buy the book and read it.
Some new poems since Ecstasy Among Ghosts
"Voices" is
a poem I’m working on that tries to sort out those sometimes
disconcerting Suddenly, from inside,
VOICES There are times when, in my mother’s voice, I also hear it when my daughter speaks- Then my boy speaks with his brother’s voice, "Back Pages" is a blank verse acrostic which uses the months
to depict the passage BACK PAGES Ah, but I was so much older then, Just another day of flawless clarity, Frankie and Rosario out in front Memories of joining the service out of spite, Angelo was the first to mutiny, Men grow up to see their fathers die, Joey showed up drunk one Christmas Eve, Jalopy parked against the curb, you posed and after that she brought you home to Mama. Soon enough you’d get to know her dad; Once there was a time that you would joke -- no chance that they’ll return. They don’t exist. During the day now you are in your cellar get down feebly on your iron knees,
WATCHES Agostino says, “For knock-off Rolexes THE DUTIFUL CAR My father makes his way to his grandson’s home, They arrive at the party to everyone’s delight, He tosses his keys in the basket on the table People graze around the kitchen table, I press the button on the little pad, The guests have now begun to fix their plates, Then someone says, “The car is on again.” And picking up the key-ring one more time, I think about the dutiful car out front
Derek is a family friend who has been a fire man for years and when
FIRE MAN The fire pit was a rusty fifty-five gallon drum pulsing and dancing to a larger flame. and charred to an ember. The moon split of his mouth, and recalled how cornered of unearthly manic joy as he spoke of the order where the “D” was, erased it from the sand, stick he twirled, dancing frenzied on the sand.
Michael Cervas's Inside the Box
1. Why might the poet have chosen to begin his book with the poem "Geology" (p. 15)? Why is "plate techtonics" an apt metaphor for poetry itself? For memory? What other poems in the collection suggest "plate techtonics" of their own? 2. What major themes and motifs characterize the collection of first poems in "Local Geography"? Consider carefully the titles of each poem. 3. How does natural imagery—mountains, stones, brooks—shape the poet's early poems in "Local Geography"? What does the imagery suggest about the speaker of these poems? About youth? 4. The poems in "Local Geography" all seem to be about coming of age. What images of youth and innocence are juxtaposed with images of awakening sexuality and maturation? 5.
In "Choosing" (p. 30) the poet carefully repeats several
words, images, and phrases. How do these repetitions link each
moment in the 6. Pick any one poem and analyze the line breaks. Why does the poet choose to end and begin his lines with certain words? 7. Many poems have a shift or a turn, moving the poem effectively from observation to reflection. What poems have a clearly identifiable turn? Is this turn toward the end of the poem, in the beginning, or somewhere in the middle? 8. The poet seems especially concerned with stolen moments and seconds, snapshots of time preserved delicately through verse. Why is poetry, in particular, an effective means of capturing these moments? Select several poems from the collection and discuss the ways in which the elements of poetry—figurative language, imagery, diction, line breaks—work to underscore the importance of a particular moment in time. 9. Look closely at the four poems about the sport of squash: "Sunday Morning Squash" (p. 45), "The Grip" (p. 46), "The Serve" (p. 47), and "Inside the Box" (p. 48). Why does the poet find squash a particularly "poetic" game? How do these poems inform our understanding of the book's title, Inside the Box? 10. What kinds of things does the poet lament in the third section, "Lament"? Is there a tension between reality and expectation? What also might the poet be suggesting about progress? 11. In the poem, "On Getting from Here to There" (p. 69), the poet asks: "What will we discover then, when our journeys are complete?" But he seems more concerned with the nature of the journey than the destination. What examples does he give of journeys he seems to cherish? Why might these journeys be better, compared to the faster, modern means to ends? 12. Why might the poet have chosen to end his entire collection with the poem "Fire" (p. 102)?
Steve Foley's A Place at the Table
Additional poems composed since the book appeared:
SMOKE While his dad snores away We’re backed against the worn brick chimney, He’s a different twelve than I am, When the Camel burns down
A MURDER OF CROWS 4:52. 4:54. My wife’s undisturbed sleep-sounds behind me, The cacophony expands, At the window now Before I know it I’m through the kitchen, when from my right
THE YEARS SPEAK THEIR MESSAGE TO MY MOTHER We will allow you the story how you’d speed up at the dead spots the streetlights couldn’t
reach, how you’d see three, maybe four cars tops how you’d turn onto Colonial, Yes you can have that story, and we won’t allow you to remember
Parker Towle's This Weather Is No Womb
Every book is the very best the author can create at one point in time. Mine represents thirty-five years of pretty steady study and Engagement in the craft of poetry. It is my unofficial New & Selected collection. How do you approach a book of poems? I study the cover art which may be very pleasing in itself. I encounter the typography and overall production somewhat passively, I must confess, then advance to the back cover or fly-leaf blurbs. It’s nice to learn the names of certain friends of the author, and some knowledge of the contents may even be acquired. Biographical material about the author may be of interest, depending on our critical tendencies. Next it may be well to scan the author’s book credits, poem acknowledgements, other prefatory material, epigrams, and notes to individual poems, perhaps, compiled at the end, so as to be oriented to their location and content once the actual reading begins. Some readers may sample poems in the various sections of a volume. Being locked into narrative tendency, I find it best to start at the beginning. Infrequently I start at the end and work backwards. This may be out of laziness or contrariness. With more lyric poems it may matter very little. Those obsessed by puzzles, games and mystery novels may try to figure the reasoning behind poem groupings in the sections of the book and the naming of these sections. They may or may not succeed. It probably will not matter. The groupings may be to some extent outside the author’s (or even the editor’s) consciousness. Like the poems, like our children for that matter, we do not own the books we write. They pass through us, but they belong to the world for better or for worse. Typical of physicians and pedagogues, perhaps, I’m lecturing when I should be provoking my audience into thought. Well here’s a question: is poetry dead as some literati claim, I suppose, because it doesn’t fill stadiums? No, say others: it is taught more and better than ever before, and written more as well. What makes poetry novel and irreplaceable in the creative arts? It follows tradition. “Old Friends” and “”Spring at Town Hall Bridge” are two examples. Yet new forms are created; see “Variations on a Riff by Eubie Blake, Dead Age 100, 1984.” More importantly, poetry expresses itself physically, a literary form steeped in sound and beat like music, but carrying the richness of human language and meaning. With great concision it conveys mystery and surprise. It liberates imagination from the shackles of story. These features will be found in prose fiction, memoir and biography as well, but there is something uniquely primordial in poetry that will never be attained in any other form. Poetry will live on as long as language survives. I offer “Biking Remembered,” “The Architecture of Nine-Eleven” and “Mount Mansfield, Age Eight” as highlighting physicality, surprise and imagination respectively. You will find many more examples in this book. They are yours. Hopefully, they will touch you, and above all please.
“What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.” Soren Kierkegaard. According to the Kierkegaard’s definition, I am not a poet. I am a relatively happy person, in fact, more so than I have been at many times in my life, and am writing more poetry now than at any point save for my late teens when I churned out reams of stream of consciousness prose and poetry without stopping to consider whether or not it was any good. Still, “when in doubt go dark, and if still in doubt go darker;” has long been my fiction mantra and has been known to find its way into my poetry. It is also fair to say that I am a bit of an accidental poet, as I devote more of my time to short fiction. This has led friends and students to ask me whether I consider myself a short story writer who writes poems or a poet who writes short stories. I answer honestly that I am at a loss to see what the difference is. All writing is a mixture of ego and inspiration tempered and humbled by grinding hours of revision and doubt. One per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration, as the saw goes. Be the task an op-ed piece, a short story, a poem, or essay the process, from what Richard Hugo calls the initial “triggering” to the final draft, if there is such a thing, is a solitary slog. My friend, the songwriter and novelist, Bill Morrissey, points out that a musician may get ten or fifteen years to gather enough good songs for a first album, honing them over time in the clubs and bars while discarding the duds and polishing the gems, but once the album is released, faces the daunting task of creating another dozen songs in the next year for the follow up recording. In my twenty years in the music business, I averaged an album of new material about every five years—two to three songs a year if you spread it out. A poet who manages only two or three poems a year risks being forgotten between books. For me, songs came in bunches, and I find that poems and stories do as well. What is important to me is to always have work in progress, regardless of the genre. I may work on new poems and stories the same day, or on revisions of each almost simultaneously. My greatest fear is to have nothing in the works. That is why I get up early most days—the more hours the more opportunities to discover some “triggers.” I find the prose and poetry processes to be similar. The main difference is that short stories begin with a character or characters, while poems spring from smaller moments, more concise visions. In this way poems tend to come to me like stream of consciousness or interior monologue, one spark leading to another. Poetry gives me an outlet or opportunity that contemporary fiction allows me less frequently, and that is to explore lyricism. Contemporary poetry embraces vocabulary with a fonder zeal than contemporary short fiction. One need only read the vacuous slice of life prose that clogs the pages of the few national rags that still print fiction to see what I mean. For every wonderfully crafted William Trevor story in the New Yorker there are a half dozen dreadfully, self-indulgent, “frozen moments” of what is alleged to be an insightful look at contemporary life. It bores the hell out of me. Working on poetry makes me a better fiction writer, more concise, more evocative, and from fiction I have learned the importance of structure, which, I believe, improves my poetry. Lately, I have been trying to put to good use some advice I learned from Baron Wormser. He says that he often reads poems that seem unfinished, as if the poet were content to get enough of the job done to get on to the next thing. An emptiness is left behind. I am endeavoring to learn how to stay with the task to the end. This has sent me back to the poets who engaged me when I was in my teens and twenties: Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Blake, Whitman, Hardy, Yevtushenko, Frost, as well as to contemporary poets: Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Dennis Nurkse, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Ted Deppe, Jack Driscoll, Leslie Ullman, Betsy Sholl, Terrance Hayes, Brian Turner, Gerald Costanzo, Shara McCallum, Carolyn Forché, Kurt Brown, and Laure-Anne Bosselaar, to name a few. I have also been floored by John Stanizzi’s book Ecstasy Among Ghosts, which you can order right at this website. |
