A couple poetry exercises (Beginnings)

Hey all,

I know we're going to meet up tomorrow to do some writing together, but I thought I might share some exercises with you early, in case you want to do something on your own time.

So here's two exercises I like, borrowed from John Drury's book, Creating Poetry, both from the section on "Beginnings." The first one is nice,because it doesn't actually require any writing, which, as we all know, can be awful awful hard. The second one fits well with it, so I include them together.

1. Look through a book of poems, at how the poems begin. Ask yourself - do these poems welcome in the reader, or are they forbidding? If they don't seem effective (whatever that means to you), how would you rephrase them? If they do seem effective, how could you emulate the effect?

extra credit!! - use one of the rephrasings/emulations that you come up with to start a poem of your own.

2. Try out a series of beginnings on the same topic -- you can write about anything, but if it's hard to come up with something, try describing a place you knew in childhood that now seems evocative (garage, soda fountain, vacant lot). Write a set of opening lines in the form of: a setting, a time, a statement, a question, an exclamation, an image, a metaphor, or some comparison, a bit of conversation. Choose your favorite one, and continue on into the poem itself, incorporating as many of the other lines as you like along the way.

If you like, post what you find from these exercises in the blog, or you can keep them to yourself.

(note, words and phrases in this post borrowed quite gratuitously from John Drury. thank you JD)

It's a Quote

"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way."

~Mark Twain

Thoughts on giving feedback?

here's a thought + question I have about poetry criticism + commenting.

I was struck by Jessica's feeling pressured to respond in a certain way, struck by her comment about lit criticism being a contest of "whose dick is bigger".

I was struck -- and then I remembered my actual experience with literary criticism, poetry workshops, commenting, and then I thought "oh yeah, that's how it is a lot of the time."

Criticism and poem commenting seems pretty touchy to me -- a lot of the stuff that I've sent to y'all, and shared in workshops has been pretty raw (maybe generally somewhere between first and third drafts? with most things being first drafts) -- and in a sense, not exactly ready for comments. I mean, if you were trying to make an awesome cake, you wouldn't taste the batter five minutes after putting the thing in the oven! Or maybe you would, because it would probably be delicious (but use gloves, it's hot!) -- but you wouldn't then ask, "Does this work as a cake?", would you?

And of course, different people have different ideas of what makes a poem good -- or even what makes a poem at all! What is one man's jibber jabber is another woman's poetry, and vice versa (with all the genders!). I remember Ken Mikolowski strongly encouraging me not to take critical comments of other's too seriously, because of this fact.

If everyone in a poetry workshop took all of the critical comments to heart, he said, the resulting poetry would be some sort of bland average of everyone's poetic sensibilities. Of course, he said it without using a term less pretentious than "poetic sensibilities," -- but the end idea is that uniqueness would disappear, completely! [hyperbole]

And of course, there's the problem that critical feedback can discourage poets (poets are reputed to be of variable self-esteem) from writing poems at all! Of course, this is hard too, because you gotta write some shabby stuff to get to the good stuff -- but what if you're sensitive to feedback (as I often am) and someone says "this is a shabby poem!" You might stop writing before getting to the good stuff!

So then the question I have for you right now is -- what do you think is a helpful way to respond to a poem? Of course I have my own thoughts about this, and I'd be glad to share them, but I'm a different person than most of you, and I'm more excited to hear what you think.

What makes a helpful poetry comment for you? And do you have any other thoughts about commenting that you'd like the share?

Andrew's Recipe for Writing Marathons

borrowed with gratitude from natalie goldberg

Ingredients:

-Writing prompts (write them yourself, get them from books, use other texts, pics, art as inspiration)
-People
-A writing instrument that you like
-Lots of paper (or hard drive space, if using a text document ;)
-some kind of timer

1) Decide how long you want the session to be [recommended 1-4 hours]
2) Decide how long your first writing segment will be (10-60 min. rec'd)
3) Pick your first prompt out of the hat/book/magic prompt portal
4) Start the timer, start writing, and don't stop writing until the timer runs out.
5) After each segment, people may share what they've written
6) No commenting/prefacing!
7) Repeat steps 2-6 until session is over!

Some tips:

- you don't have to write as fast as you can -- we want to take care of our hands
- beginner marathoner's might want to start with shorter time segments -- 10-30 minutes, maybe
- resist the urge to comment! if you have something you need to express, use it as a prompt for your next segment
- you don't have to follow the prompt
- if you get stuck, write nonsense, sound babble, the word "carrot" over and over again, "I can't figure out what to write about, my brain is so dead, my life is so boring," until you find something new.
-if the timer runs out, and you still got writing fire in your belly, things you must get out, keep on writing.
-no editing! Writing marathons are way way before any semblance of a revision/editing process - this is create for the sake of creating
-self consciousness and anxiety are ok, expected

i think that's all the tips

Why a writing marathon?

-it's fun
-good tonic for writer's block
-good practice for your writerly brain
-good for your hands
-good for your self esteem
-puts hair on your chest
-puts hair on your head
-puts hair on your dad's head
(some of those are not true)

Superman

radiant lines of broad

sweeping light strike 5 pm skin;

they fragment & reflect, scatter a thousand different ways

to give your cheek depth. sleepy crust of morning

our bags packed for Montreal, a thimble of our atoms collide,

increasing your heartbeat

by one hummingbird’s flutter.

I breathe a salamander’s breath

to notice and stare