"I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money." --Paulo Coelho Link To Blog Archive here.
The Cretin At The Poetry Reading (2015-07-01)
The Cretin At The Poetry Reading (2015-07-01)
The Cretin walked into a room where a poet was reading her poems very loudly. The cretin clutched his ears and thought about poetry.
"Poetry is what hurts my ears," he said. Then, being a rather intellectual Cretin, he generalized: "Poetry is a way of experiencing pain."
The poet heard him say this, so she began reading her poems very softly. Eventually the Cretin took his hands away from his ears. He listened for a moment and thought some more about poetry. (He was a very open-minded Cretin.) "Poetry is also a way of soothing my ears," he said. "Yes," he continued, "poetry is a way of experiencing pleasure."
The poet heard what he said, and she lost her temper. "Damn it," she said, "poetry has nothing whatsoever to do with making you feel pain or pleasure." The Cretin couldn't understand this.
(Excerpt from my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
A Reader’s Expectations & A Poem’s Expectations (2015-07-02)
A Reader’s Expectations & A Poem’s Expectations (2015-07-02)
“Two things to be grateful for: poets accomplish poems; and poems accomplish nothing.” —Hippokrites
To often we come to poems with a set of expectations, and if they don’t meet those expectations, it is easy—but very wrong—to dismiss the work. Poems aren’t utilitarian, which doesn’t mean they aren’t still valuable.
While we shouldn’t have expectations of the poem, poems do expect a lot of the reader.
A Poem’s Expectations: Attentive Reading (2015-07-03)
A Poem’s Expectations: Attentive Reading (2015-07-03)
Many of us read quickly. I know that is one of the reasons I’m not good at proofreading my own work. It’s also why half my mail comes addressed to Ken Strange. (I may be, but my name isn’t.)
We fill in the blanks. We see what we expect to see, often triggered by the first few letters of a word. My son came across a great example of this in Sobey’s sales flyer. Apparently they’ve opened a new meat section for cannibals featuring Jamie Oliver’s certification!
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A Poem’s Expectations: Attentive Reading (2015-07-04)
A Poem’s Expectations: Attentive Reading (2015-07-04)
A poem requires more attentive reading than prose, just as it requires more effort to write. So it’s only fair to give it that attention. This often requires repeated reading, which will be rewarding if the poem is any good.
Also because the sound of the poem is such an integral part of the poem’s effectiveness, it is best to read it aloud. Subvocal reading is efficient for most reading, but not for poetry!
A Poem’s Expectations: Attention To Rhythm (2015-07-05)
A Poem’s Expectations: Attention To Rhythm (2015-07-05)
One very important feature of poetry is the rhythm. It is expressed in print by various means: line breaks, stanza breaks, spacing on the page. Even in so-called prose poems that don’t use these devices, rhythm is crucial to defining it at as poetry. Here sentence and paragraph breaks, refrain, and punctuation serve the same function.
Rather than labeling some writing as a poem on the basis of the lines being printed unjustified, it makes more sense to read it aloud. You’ll hear the poetry in work seemingly disguised as prose.
An example of a fine use of refrain is the very poetic Gettysburg Address. Note the brilliantly placed repetition of heavily accented words such as “dedicate” and the rhythmic parallel phrasing.
Here is a fine reading with accompanying text:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Bojjx_Dew
A Poem’s Expectations: Tolerance For Ambiguity (2015-07-06)
A Poem’s Expectations: Tolerance For Ambiguity (2015-07-06)
“A koan is a Zen problem. The most famous koan, at least in the West, is: "What is the sound of one hand clapping." The answer to the koan is usually as cryptic as the question, and often becomes part of the problem. To grasp the relationship between question and answer involves thinking metaphorically. It also requires a willingness to tolerate ambiguity, even paradox. Poems are obviously very much like koans, with the important difference that they are not problems. People that read with a ruler will have a difficult time with poems. A considerable number of koans are jokes, albeit serious ones, and this is also true of poems. Much depends on thesis and antithesis, and the surprise synthesis. Dictionaries are useful. They are orderly, although it is an arbitrary order. What is the natural order? When the white heron stands in the snow it has a different colour. And that is why cold clarifies.”
(Excerpt from my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
A Poem’s Expectations: Tolerance For Ambiguity (2015-07-07)
A Poem’s Expectations: Tolerance For Ambiguity (2015-07-07)
“Advice to the writer of love poems: Don't tell me she is blonde, for my lover is brunette.” —Hippokrites
A Poem’s Expectations: Attention To Connotation (2015-07-08)
A Poem’s Expectations: Attention To Connotation (2015-07-08)
“It is more worthwhile to write a mediocre poem than to write a great instruction manual.” —Hippokrites
We are accustomed to reading for denotation, for information. If a gardening guide says where to plant your roses, you don’t think about all the connotations of the word ‘rose’. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” as Gertrude Stein wrote—albeit ironically.
But in carefully constructed literary works, connotation is of great importance. The word ‘rose’ has all sorts of resonances. It is a traditional symbol of love and beauty. The red rose is also a symbol of the blood of the Christian martyrs, as well as the adopted symbol of socialists. Not to mention that it is the national flower of England and the floral emblem of the United States. Being aware of these connotations and the context in which the word appears greatly enriches the effect of a poem.
Robbie Burns’ “My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hOZgkglvLA&noredirect=1
What We Expect Of The Poet (2015-07-09)
What We Expect Of The Poet (2015-07-09)
So, yes, poems are very demanding of the reader, but the reader has a right to expect that meeting these demands will be rewarded. The poet has a responsibility to justify making these demands. Unfortunately, too many things pose as poems—or are mistakenly assumed to be poems.
One can’t assume that because something is labeled a poem, it is in fact a poem. And only too often the poet has neglected some critical feature of a good poem.
Maybe because I’m a poet I am hypercritical of what I expect of a poem. But I’ve taught (really an impossible task) ‘creative writing’, and I can say that most would-be poets are too quick to label what they wrought as a poem.
What We Expect Of The Poet: Autonomy (2015-07-10)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Autonomy (2015-07-10)
As Dylan Thomas said, a poem should be able to stand on its own two wobbly feet. If it needs the support of another art form, it shouldn’t be called a poem. A poem can, of course, be embedded in a visual artwork or put to music. But if you take away the support of the image or the music, and it falls flat, it isn’t a poem.
What We Expect Of The Poet: Autonomy From Music (2015-07-11)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Autonomy From Music (2015-07-11)
Music. Multimedia art makes fewer demands, and so naturally it is more popular. For example, movies are more popular than novels. And music with lyrics is far more popular than absolute music such as most jazz and classical. I should emphasize that this isn’t a criticism of multi-media work, the creation of which may in fact often be extremely demanding. And can be masterful.
A common mislabelling is the result of this prominence and popularity of music with lyrics: the lyrics are often called—and assumed to be—poetry. Occasionally they may be, but most often they are not. The test is to remove the lyrics from the music, to simply confront the lyrics on the page. If, for example, you can read the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song without playing the tune in your head, it is immediately apparent that it’s not good poetry. On the other hand, the lyrics of most of Tom Waits’ or Leonard Cohen’s songs clearly are poetry. Their songs are one art form, but it happens to be true that their lyrics alone are also another art form: i.e., poetry.
If Tom Waits had never written any songs and published a book of his lyrics it would be a book of poetry well worth our attention. And in the case of Leonard Cohen, he is a poet with numerous books of poetry, and many of his songs were the result of integrating his poems with music.
Hats off to those who can both write songs and poetry!
What We Expect Of The Poet: Autonomy From Image (2015-07-12)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Autonomy From Image (2015-07-12)
Visual art. Text embedded in an image is a multi-media art form. At least that is how I think of it. It is different from a purely visual image. It can enrich the image, just as lyrics can enrich music. And, as in the case of music, it isn’t correct to assume that because the whole work is art the textual component is necessarily poetry.
My own visual art is always an image with text. It is simply a rule I’ve set myself. When I started creating these works back in the eighties, I initially called them ‘computer poems’ because they were created on a computer and contained text. It was mislabelling, like calling a song a poem. Sometimes I did use one of my poems in an artwork, but that didn’t make it a poem. It is an entirely different beast.
What We Expect Of The Poet: Sound and Sense (2015-07-13)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Sound and Sense (2015-07-13)
In university, I had a textbook called Sound And Sense: Introduction To Poetry. The title says it all. A poet has a responsibility to attend to both these components and integrate them so each enhances the other.
What We Expect Of The Poet: Sound (2015-07-14)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Sound (2015-07-14)
Around the middle of the Nineteenth Century, we broke the bonds of formal metrical structure that had restrained English poetry for several centuries. More and more poems were written in so-called ‘free verse’. It may have been freed of often-arbitrary prosodic rules, but it wasn’t freed of the need for the sound of the poem to be effective.
From 1750 to 1830 (the Classical Period) musical structure was largely constrained by a set of rules, with, for example, the structure of a symphony as clearly defined as that of the sonnet. Then—also around the middle of the Nineteenth Century—along came Beethoven, who ushered in the Romantic Period. Composers were no longer required to conform to the rules. That Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony included a choral section didn’t matter, because no one could deny the musical beauty of the work.
It is analogous with poetry. That Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass didn’t have a formal metrical structure didn’t matter, because no one could deny that he was using the sound of his poems to great effect.
Unfortunately, too many would-be poets fail to realize that they aren’t freed of attending to the sound of a poem. If they fail to realize that, what they’re writing has no right to be called a poem.
What We Expect Of The Poet: Sense (2015-07-15)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Sense (2015-07-15)
“A poem isn’t a puzzle, except perhaps in the
sense that life is a puzzle. There is no solution to either.”
—Hippokrites
It is understandable that if one assumes a poem is a puzzle one might want to shout, “Just say what you mean in plain English!” But of course a poem can’t be translated into simple declarative statements.
That doesn’t mean poetry shouldn’t ‘make sense’. Even so-called nonsense poems such as Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” make sense. But poetic sense is very different from literal, prosaic sense. It is the sense that metaphor makes. It is the sense that elicited associations have. And it is the sense that emotions have.
A poem’s’ sense resides in internal coherence and consistency. The poem has to make sense in the context of the poem itself.
Sensitivity to this kind of sense only comes with experience.
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-16)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-16)
"The Nature Of The Perfect Poem
The perfect poem has to have a very definite beginning and end, for it has to be a whole, complete onto itself. And it has to include all of life within it, as this is the subject of all poetry. And yet it has to be extremely concise, for this is an important criterion for perfection in poetry. And it has to be highly symmetrical, for balance is necessary to perfection. And it must evoke a universal emotion, for poetry without emotion is unsatisfying. And it must also engage the intellect by making a significant philosophical statement, for poetry without intelligence is equally unsatisfying. And it should have visual and auditory aspects to it, for it is through these two senses that we primarily encounter the world. And its sound must match its sense, for this is how the best poems work.
All these criteria are fairly widely accepted. It is interesting that when you put them together as a set of guidelines, and then use these guidelines to create a perfect poem, this perfect poem really isn't very exciting. Is it possible that one criterion has been omitted, one that can over-ride, negate even, all the other criteria: that the poem must be interesting?!"
(Excerpt from my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-17)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-17)
I. I Was At A Party When A Fat Woman
I was at a party when a fat woman came up to me and said: "I saw something in the paper about you. You write poetry, don't you?" I admitted that I did. "I collect stamps," she said.
(Excerpt from “The Art Of Prosody” chapter of my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-18)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-18)
II. There Was A Time When I Was Writing Poems
There was a time when I was writing poems far too quickly for them to be properly filled up with whatever it is that good poems are filled up with. I knew this, but still it was hard to turn off the typewriter and go mow the damn lawn. Finally I decided to confide in my friend, the Other Poet. I called him on the phone.
"Hello," he said. "I can't stop writing poems," I said, "I just can't stop the flow. For the last three days I've been writing poems almost constantly. You wouldn't believe the pile of poems I have on my desk. I'm almost out of erasable paper. My ribbon is in need of changing. My wife thinks I'm headed for another nervous breakdown. My dog shat in the kitchen last night because I forgot to walk him. Even when I'm on the toilet, I keep getting lines for poems. I'll never have time to revise them and polish them properly. I'm writing too many poems. I need help."
The Other Poet said: "Is this a crank call?"
(Excerpt from “The Art Of Prosody” chapter of my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-19)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-19)
III. I Was Sitting In The Garden Nibbling
I was sitting in the garden nibbling on a raw carrot fresh from the earth, when the Other Poet came in the back gate. He ran up the stone path to the garden which is located on top of a small hill in the back of our backyard.
"Guess what?" he said. "You sold a poem for ten thousand dollars," I said, between nibbles. "Nope," he said. "You've taken a thirteen-year-old mistress," I said, between nibbles. "Nope," he said. "You've written the perfect poem," I said, between nibbles. "Nope," he said. I finished the carrot and said: "Alright, I give up."
"I've planted a garden," he told me, beaming, with pleasure. "Jesus Christ!" I said, "it's already September. We're going to have our first fall frost in a few weeks. You'll never grow anything this year."
"You know," he said frowning, "you aren't really cut out to be a poet."
(Excerpt from “The Art Of Prosody” chapter of my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-20)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-20)
IV. One Sunny Afternoon In Early September
One sunny afternoon in early September I took my son walking in the woods. I wanted to find a perfect spruce tree, one about six or seven feet tall with branches evenly developed all the way around the trunk. My intention was to dig up this ideal tree, once I found it, and bring it home to transplant outside our dining room window.
The boreal woodland near our home is largely comprised of spruce trees - there are millions of them within driving distance from our house - but we weren't having any luck in finding this perfectly rounded tree I could so easily visualize. The problem was that we were walking along a tangled, overgrown path in the very heart of the bush, and where the forest is so thick, the spruce trees tend to grow too closely together, thus failing to develop evenly on all sides. A far better place to look for a perfect spruce would be in an open meadow or a gravel pit, some place where a tree might grow alone, uncrowded, out in the open.
My son, being only eight at the time and very fond of the bush, didn't especially care that we weren't having any success, but nevertheless I felt I should explain it to him. After I finished my explanation he looked at me curiously and inquired why then we were still searching in the forest. I said: "Because there are so many spruce trees around here, I can't help but think there must be a perfect one around here somewhere."
After a couple of hours more we gave up and came home. The Other Poet was sitting on my front porch when we drove up. I told him all about what we'd been doing, and why it was so futile. He said: "I guess spruce trees are like poets."
My son looked at him for a moment and then said: "That's silly. Spruce trees don't walk in the woods looking for perfect poets." Then my son went into the house to get himself a Coke.
(Excerpt from “The Art Of Prosody” chapter of my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-21)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Something Interesting (2015-07-21)
V. The Other Poet And I Went To This Farm
The Other Poet and I went to this farm to get some chicken manure for my garden. It was a shovel-your-own place, but the price was right - only twenty-five cents a bag. I'd purchased green plastic garbage bags, but it turned out that they weren't intended for hauling the soggy, rather heavy, chicken shit.
When I lifted the first fully packed bag, I had a premonition. Still I hugged it to my chest and staggered off toward the car. Suddenly I felt my fingers go through the plastic and sink into the warm, wet contents. Then as the rich aroma wafted up to my nose, the whole bag tore to shreds, leaving me holding a few scraps of green plastic and a couple handfuls of what-helps-your-garden-grow. The manure poured down my legs and buried my feet.
The Other Poet came running up. "I know you'll want to, but don't write about this incident without making a few critical changes," he said. I asked him why. "It's an imperfect parable," he replied. Standing shin deep in ripe chicken shit, I wasn't feeling very quick witted, so once again I asked for an explanation. "Because," he said as though speaking to a child, "for a poet, it should have been bullshit."
(Excerpt from “The Art Of Prosody” chapter of my book Cold Pigging Poetics)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Poems (2015-07-22)
What We Expect Of The Poet: Poems (2015-07-22)
So I should get back to giving my next poetry book my full attention. Be seein’ ya.
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