First Person Writing, or Veiled First Person

I heard from my alma mater today via Facebook that poet and visiting writer Claudia Emerson read last night at College Hall (Vermont College MFA in Writing summer residency), commenting that her collection, Late Wife, was not written in the first person because the material was too painful. The question was asked (on FB) if any of us take that approach, veiling the first person for protective reasons. I did not have to think about that at all. The answer is a resounding yes. But I am thinking about the "why" of it, asking myself what my motives are when I change the "I" to "she" and whether that actually does obscure the first person for readers. Not such a clear yes or no here.

I do know that in many cases I have veiled the first person, including in a recent (unpublished at the moment) poem, Spousal Particular. For this poem, the subject matter is so dark and so challenging that I did not want to burden it with first person, thus making the reader so involved in sympathy that the poem loses its effectiveness as a crafted work. I did not change the approach because I think first person poetry is too personal and thus not inclusive of the universal reader. I changed it to protect the poem's own integrity. There has been a trend in recent times to eliminate the "I" and make the poem not so self-conscious, so self-effacing, or so exclusive. Bah to that. I believe that a well-written first person poem can stand on its own, does not have to be homogenized for the sake of SEEMING less confessional. However, when it comes to sensitive material, there often is a dilemma. How much should one expose? The sky's the limit there I believe. It is, for me, a matter of HOW to expose sensitive material. If I write a poem about maternal cruelty for example, most readers will assume I am either writing about my mother or myself. I may or may not be doing that at all. That judgement is out of my control entirely. I cannot give out disclaimers or add footnotes to poems in order to protect my mother or me. I know it is going to happen that readers will judge the poem's etiology. What I can do is to veil the first person by using third person, or by creating a persona (a pseudonym) for the speaker of the poem. As long as the person of the poem has an authentic voice and a deep involvement in the narrative, that ought to suffice. When I do author talks, I do make some kind of statement about the person of poems. I try to educate readers to see beyond their own need to identify with the poet. Works? Sometimes. Not always. This is because readers WANT to be involved with the poems and the poet. OK, fair enough.

Understand that sometimes a poet will also veil names of characters in poems to protect those people who are dear  and still living. Often those poems that might offend are withheld from submitting for the same reason, sent out after the demise of the character in question. But the fact is that when we write narrative poetry there are PEOPLE in our poems. Those real people will see themselves and react. It is true also that other people will THINK they are in the poems and react. Oftentimes a person is a minor character in a poem that is about so much more than her or him, and the reaction will happen there too. A good example is a poem in my first book Daughter of the Ardennes Forest, a verse memoir about my father's WWII experience and his resultant PTSD. In the collection is a poem, We Blame Our Dysfunction on Hitler. My sister is mentioned early in the poem as an anchor to the greater idea of not blaming our dad for his outbreaks of anger or depression. She read the poem and got very defensive. She was pretty mad at me for talking about her smoking and mentioning she went to counseling. Oh dear. My brother-in-law told her, "It's not ABOUT you," and she read the poem again and discovered the real thrust of the poem: Dad. I thought long and hard about the poem and using her as part of the narrative. Could I have somehow omitted her? I decided that I had to write it exactly as I did write it. I am satisfied that I did the job of telling that part of Dad's story in a truthful and sensitive way. And was I throwing my father under the bus by telling of his suffering and the suffering he caused as a result? No, I don't believe so. I wrote the poems to absolve and forgive him.

It's a fact that people are going to look at narrative poetry in a certain light, through their own experiences of the poems. Some will be able to filter out the personal or filter in the personal as the poet intends. Some simply will go to a place of connection that does not exist for the poet. One cannot fix or help this. It is important to keep writing, keep telling the stories and exposing truths.

I add the Hitler poem here so you can judge for yourselves if my sister ought to have been annoyed.

We Blame Our Dysfunction on Hitler


My sister chain smokes, blames
our parents
for her unhappy childhood.


I marry the wrong man,
a military man who cheats on me,
beats down my self-esteem,
says he hates me, and blames me
for getting myself pregnant.


Back in the hospital,
trying to smoke out her depression,
my sister coughs up
a new idea
suggested by Dr. Whoever:
"Blame your dysfunction on Hitler."


Well, you can stop smoking, Diane.
I've gotten my life back,
and Hitler is rotting in the grave.
We can blame him and forgive
Daddy for using the gun belt
to spank us, for sending us to bed
without supper
like the nights in the POW camp
when he went to bed without a crust
of black bread in his belly.


We can blame hitler
for our dysfunction
and take Daddy off the hook
for some parts of childhood
we'd just as soon forget.

Poets Work for Food (read "for free")

Have you been to a poetry reading lately? Have you attended an author talk or panel? It is a most pleasant thing really to go and listen to someone read aloud. Maybe we do this as a connection to childhood, to being read to by our parents or grandparents or a kindly babysitter. At any rate, we love to be read to. I admit I am a sucker for a reading. I love to sit there and let the words wash over me, to admire the turn of a phrase, the way the poet has put together images to make meaning, to tell a story. It is inspiring for me as a writer to listen to how another poet gets a message across. I leave a reading wanting to write better or more. I also leave readings with at least one book (unless I already have the book and then I will have brought my copy to be signed). I make it a point to step up and speak to the author, to tell him/her what EXACTLY I like about the work that was read. I want to support other writers. I know what it takes to make books happen. I know the hours of solitude and sweat over getting a poem just so, to make meaning that will say something important or fresh. I empathize with every late night at the keyboard, every meal missed to stay the course for the sake of the writing. I am there with my fellow writers at the mailbox when the rejection notes arrive, or when the acceptances show up (love the fat acceptance envelopes that say "we love you").

But here's the thing: have you bought books from the poets you've heard read?

It is a little frustrating to bring a stack of books along to a reading and have many people stop by the signing table to say how much they admire the writing but not buy a book. (By the way, thanks to the woman at a recent panel discussion and reading who bought one and had me sign it). We poets hear comments like "oh I love your poems, they are so well-written and mean a lot to me personally." This is often followed by "where can I get a copy?" or "are you in a bookstore?" or "can I get it online?" or "is it in the library?"  Now these folks are standing right next to the stack of books you've hauled from the trunk of your car, arranged neatly, and right next to the sign that announces the price. Yet they are asking. I say, "of course you can get a copy right here and I'd love to sign it for you." The normal response is "oh that's okay, I didn't bring my checkbook" or "oh I'll just get it online later." The other comment (request) is "Can you email me a copy of that poem you read about the dog so I can send it to my sister whose dog had to be put down? It would mean so much to her." I'm starting to think I should print out copies of the poems I'm going to read aloud and have them there for $1 at the signing table. At least there would be SOMETHING to take home other than the leftover cookies and the box of books. You laugh, but I am thinking of doing this, really I am.

Of course poets write to make art that will mean something to others, to get the creative work "out there" for people to enjoy. But you must remember that poets are not hobbyists. This making of art is a profession. Many of us have gone to school to learn or hone our craft. Graduate school was not cheap, not free. Would you go to your job every day if there was to be no paycheck? Does your doctor treat you for free because he is good at making people healthier? Can you get daycare for your children for free just because the babysitter loves children?

So how is it that most people at readings don't support the writing, the writers, by purchasing copies for themselves or to give to others?  I go to readings PREPARED to buy at least one book. I have the usual $15 at the ready. I will buy a copy for someone else even if I already have one myself (which I bring to get signed). In this way I do support my colleagues. I would hate to see that person who has worked so hard to create art lug her books back to her car, knowing she sold not even one book. I don't want that on my conscience. And there is the other part to the buying for me: I love reading the poems later and love having my very own copy of someone's book, someone I have met, talked to, heard read. When I read the poems later, I can hear the actual voice of the poet in my head. A joy to say the least.

On the larger scale, not financially supporting poets and poetry has led to a culture of avoidance by bookstores and publishers. I just got my copy of the latest Poets & Writers magazine which features four agents who are supposedly making a huge difference for writing/reading. Well, great. I mean it, GREAT for the writers whose books are being distributed and sold, read and enjoyed. But have you heard of a poet with an agent, other than someone wildly famous? Do you know a poet who has someone promoting and distributing his/her work for sale to bookstores? Agents typically do not take on poets as clients. This is because they cannot make big money from poetry. There is a financial bottom line. There is no financial upside for agents with poet clients. The husband of a poet friend once told us that we needed to put away the poetry long enough to become commercially successful writers. His solution "write smut novels."  He has a point. But really? Do I need to take a break from myself to do something just to survive? I am not a "smut novelist."

Poets are admired for their words, their attention to detail, their ability to show the world its truth. But because they are poets, there is the expectation that they ought to do this for free. Poets are supposed to be altruists. Should painters or sculptors give away their art? Have you been to an art exhibit where paintings are there for the taking? Oh sure, there are art galleries where you can go, look at the art, leave empty-handed. But we know that someone is indeed purchasing the art that has been created. Go to an art auction and hear the frantic bidding, people vying for the art they admire. What about poetry? Why should it be relegated to the freebie shelf?

It is also true that getting one's poems accepted by journals and anthologies is not at all a lucrative effort. Normal compensation for poets is a contributor's copy, two if the publisher is really generous. I treasure these copies and enjoy reading the work of others alongside my own. I spend time finding the poets I admire and then BUY a book or two if I find they have books. I follow their blogs, email them my admiration. I hope they feel good when they hear from me. I hope they are pleasantly surprised when amazon makes a direct deposit into their accounts for my book purchase.

You should know that journals and anthologies are SOLD to the reading public, The publisher gets money for them. Without the poems and stories and articles IN these publications, there would be NO publications. But the poets are expected to be grateful that the publisher has put their work out there to be read (of course we are grateful) and to not expect payment for their creative efforts (with some exceptions, and thanks to those). I had a horrible experience with a journal last year, The Goose River Anthology to name names. I had submitted poems and received an acceptance for publication. I knew I was not getting a check for my effort, but looked forward to getting my one copy when the anthology went to press. WRONG. I got a notice saying I could purchase a copy or copies at an "author discount."  Please understand that this anthology was not being given away to the reading public. It was most definitely for sale to the reading public. The publisher was going to get compensated for her efforts to gather the written material together between covers. Understand too that everyone who had submitted had paid a "reading fee" which was to offset the cost of printing the anthology. This is normal, no one thinks these things get printed for free. But the people who CREATED the work inside were not getting compensated, not even getting a copy to have for themselves. I called the publisher. I asked where was my contributor's copy. She said (BIG LESSON HERE) I should re-read the fine print. She was right. There were no contributors' copies for anyone. I could buy copies and should do so, because I would earn a royalty for every copy I bought or others bought because I was "in" the anthology. They'd have to mention my name of course when they ordered or no royalty for me. I think it was a whopping ten cents per copy royalty. Because I keep copies of all publications featuring my work, I did order a copy. I got my ten cents in the form of ten cents off my purchase price. I'd frankly rather have had the dime. It's the principle of the thing. Lesson learned. I check carefully before I submit to see what if anything I will receive for my creative efforts. I will never give my work away totally for free again to someone who will profit from that work. No I will only give it away mostly for free and be grateful to see my work in print. Journals don't even give out cookies.

OK, I sound a little bitter here. I don't mean to sound that way. It's just that from time to time the frustration bubbles to the surface. Poets work HARD to create ART, to make something lasting. We labor long over getting just the right words in just the right combinations. We WORK, just like any other artists. We want our creativity to be appreciated. We are happy that people come to our readings, our book launches, our panels and discussions. We love to be in the presence of people who read and enjoy poetry. We love the goodies on the snack table at readings  (though mostly we bring the goodies ourselves). We love it all. But we'd enjoy seeing a few books go home with people. It's sad to pack up the books and haul them back to the car.

So next time you go to a reading, please buy one book. Buy it and donate it to a school if you aren't going to put it on your bedside table or on your coffee table or next to your chair. Buy one book as a present and wrap it nicely and put it in the mail to a friend. Bring a plant to the next reading or a cutting from your favorite perennial and give it to the poet. At least she will have something to take home other than her box of books.

Enough now. Time to get to work on the line-up of poems for my next reading. Oh and there's that smut novel I should be working on. Sure to be a best seller! LOL

"Domestic" Writing

I just read (again) To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet. 12 lines of praise for her spouse, written in heroic couplets. I quote it herein:

To My Dear and Loving Husband


If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
The while we live, in love let's so persérver
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Reading the poem made me think about her life, how she became a poet despite the prohibitions imposed upon women of her era. She was an amazing writer, found the space in her days to write while taking care of a household that included a husband and several children. Women of her day "knew their place" and didn't stir the waters. The writing arts were thought to be, for women, a pleasant hobby, something to do once the household work was done. Anne did just that, producing poems seen as "domestic" and written to instruct her children in the ways of good Puritans, in order to lead them to God. She found time in the harshness of a land where heroism was an essential virtue for survival of individuals and communities. Caring for eight children and her frequent illnesses did not deter the expression of self-assertion and literary vitality. Indeed, I believe, it energized her whole life and attitude toward her lot in life.

In normal circumstance, Anne would not have been able to find publication for her writing and indeed intended it for private reading. However, since her poetry was seen as domestic writing, there was interest in it, even liberal praise for her turn of phrase, her rhyme. For the men of her husband's circle, there seemed no hint of scandal or subversion of the politics of the day in her poems, no threat to the status quo. Her writing was duly praiseful of her husband, thus honoring him. No times did she make overt complaint or show disappointment in her station. This was a typical stance for Puritan women where husband was head and sun and an arbiter of holiness for his wife. Domestic writing was, to polite society, an amusing pastime for women, no threat at all to the social order.

But look at the poem again. Look hard. She is suggesting that her station of life is satisfying, but her comparison of her husband to money is telling. She mentions money 4 times in 12 lines. She allows her paucity to show and does this by saying she has no need of any "thing" but her husband's love. She budgets her words carefully and lets her female readers know they are not as well off as she, because she has this perfect man to care for her heart. She extends this notion of love to the ultimate permanence, love even in the afterlife. Will the woman not claim even the privacy of the grave? We might read the last lines as ironic, that her life is so overburdened by service to this husband that her duty might extend beyond death. Does this mean that Anne did not love her husband fully and dearly? Not at all. She was clearly and absolutely devoted to him and to the family they made. She was able to use these acceptable emotions in a way that may be seen in some light as highly impersonal (set against the remarkable Puritanical standards of the day) while seeming personal and waxing praiseful of her spouse. What I love about the scope of poetry is its ability to become a platform for irony. The poet's message can be neatly embedded in the lines of innocuous versifying, appealing to like-minded readers in its codifications. It is my belief that Bradstreet took full advantage of this facet of writing poetry. She used it to comment on love, loss, and indeed the society in which she found herself thrust by her husband's public service as Governor.

In fact, Anne did not seek publication of her work, thought herself that the writing was not that accomplished. I wonder if she was up to something here, some brand of reverse psychology.  Did these poems, ostensibly written for family and friends, carry an overt shyness that led to her brother-in-law carrying her writings to England where he sought publication on her behalf yet without her knowledge? Did she in fact set him up to do exactly that? Was it his idea based upon his notion that poems by an American woman would be of curiosity to the British? He received praise for the curiosity of her work, and the work itself was deemed thusly:

[the book] is the Work of a Woman, honoured, and esteemed where she lives, for her gracious demeanour, her eminent parts, her pious conversation, her courteous disposition, her exact diligence in her place, and discreet managing of her Family occasions, and more than so, these Poems are but the fruit of some few houres, curtailed from her sleepe and other refreshments. (Nathaniel Ward 1650)

Anne Bradstreet was duly modest about the acceptance of her work abroad in England. But she was aslo understandably proud of herself, allowing for the creation of more poems, poems of deeper refinement in revision. To be sure, the early poems were not finely crafted. Bradstreet's early poems were certainly the work of a self-taught amateur. But it is this very quality that endears her to us even now. The early work was a sign at the fork of the road for women. We are led to other work and to other women writers by Bradstreet and her domestic writing. Adrienne Rich says of feminist writing, of writing that breaks out of the domestic into the world political:

any woman for whom the feminist breaking of silence has been a transforming force can also look back to a time when the faint, improbable outlines of unaskable questions, curling in her brain cells, triggered a shock of recognition at certain lines, phrases, images, in the work of this or that woman, long dead, whose life and experience she could only dimly imagine. (Rich, postcript, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence 1979)

Rich's The Works of Anne Bradstreet shows a connection with and an admiration for the assigning of place to women. She says: Like her, I had known the ambiguities of patronizing compliments from male critics. She goes on to say that her essay (about Bradstreet and her writing) shows the limitations of a point of the condescending references... limitations of a point of view which took masculine history and literature as its center and which tried from that perspective to view a woman's live and work. (Rich)

From my own perspective, Anne Bradstreet did three things that influence my work today:

1. she took on topics that might seem of little interest to men (childbirth for example) and made them acceptable topics for writing

2. she allowed herself the time to write despite her life in the mundane world

3. she opened up irony as a stance for women

In her male-centered world, literary pursuits were not common. Women were set down where their husbands or fathers put them — Anne was taken to America, expected to do her duties as a Puritan woman and wife, acting as a beacon or conduit for her family to the eternal God as represented on earth by husband. But Anne had a mind to bloom differently in this new land. She did. We should thank her.

Luggage and Other Lost Items

A bit groggy this morning (it is 10 AM) as we did not get back from the airport until nearly 3AM. I will have (take) a low key approach to the day and recover. Daughter #1 is here safely, but a bit worse for the wear. Her luggage is somewhere else (at JFK? at Dulles?) and she is exhausted from a long week of travel and intense study. I tucked her into bed and told her to sleep as long as she needs to sleep. I'm so glad she is here. She needs a break from EVERYTHING stressful, everyONE stressful. We can provide that, a little love and care from us ought to help. If only the damned baggage would just arrive!

This lost luggage incident makes me think of other things lost, like good grammar and proper written language. In this fast-paced techno world, we are losing ends and chunks of words in favor of computer-jargonized abbreviations. U takes the place of you, brb has replaced be right back which was once I'll be right back. The list of language degradations is endless. When one texts (now a verb by the way, or BTW) one has only so much space, so these abbreviations seem appropriate. But what I don't like is the use of this lingo is that it has begun to creep into writing. To be sure, it is "common" and we tend toward the common. But I began to see this in the term papers and essays of my students. When I pointed out that papers and slang are incompatible,"huh?" was the response I got, along with the occasional hostile remark. In one case I was told rather abruptly that it was I who needed to change. Really?  I recall my literary criticism professor remarking that eventually the contraction would disappear in terms of the apostrophe. I insisted that wouldn't happen. She was of course right. How often I see cant rather than can't which of course had replaced the earlier use of cannot. Well, I am not advocating for being stiff about language and speech. We should have text language for texts and common, colloquial speech for conversations, slang terms for casual situations. But OMG, I can't take it in formal writing.

Tlk 2 U later.

No writing today is making me sad

Ever have one of those days when you KNOW that what you want to do is not going to happen? I feel that way today. I'm pretty sure no writing will happen today. Too much "stuff" to do to be creative in that way. I will of course stick a notebook in my bag in case.... I'm also feeling pretty much dead above the neck too. Oh well, there is nothing wrong with a day off. I'll do my normal 15 minute free write and put on some Pink Floyd and see what happens. Maybe writing will distract me from the "stuff" and I will be a happier person.

Right now, off to breakfast and church. The whole day is ahead.....

the fact of a wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down...

Robert Frost's poems are filled with "stuff" like walls, fences, snow, trees, horse-drawn carriages, etc. He was a master observer of the ordinary who wrote in an extraordinary way about the minutia of our world. His eye was not only keen, but directly connected to a mind equally keen. His ability to take readers on a journey into their inner "stuff" by way of items we take for granted is an amazing gift to all of us.

I've been thinking since yesterday about a comment made by a woman at the reading I gave with 3 other authors (I was the only poet). She said in essence that she likes poetry because poets have such a command of language, vocabulary, and imagination to make some thing new and exciting out of the ordinary. She went on to say that she heard some of the "ways you said things" and thought to herself that she would never have looked at it that way. This is heartening to me as a writer, as a lover of words and images. I cannot recall the example she used, but it felt mighty good to hear her respond that way. Truly it is a "holy challenge" to make images come alive by using fresh language. I do spend more than just a little time on revision, looking for "the best way to say" what I am writing. I have a technique that works for me. Let me share.

After I have "gotten down" the first draft, I print it out and circle all the nouns (read: images), I underline all the verbs. Then I go back and fuss over each circled or underlined word, trying on other choices like pairs of shoes, waiting for the right fit, the most exciting or appropriate choice. I go back and compare how the poem then reads, line by line, checking to see what happens to meaning and what happens to impact. Then I do a further draft with lines and stanzas moved into different positions. Again with the reading for change and impact. Then I look one more time at line breaks and stanza breaks to see if end words are "engines" or sloggers. The final tweaking is for the little things: too many or unneeded articles? too many or useless adjectives? are there adverbs that are padding not adding to the poem?

Sometimes, I just hit a wall (the one that something doesn't like!) and have to get distance. I need a vacation from my own work. Luckily, I am rarely working on one poem at a time. I can put the clogged piece in a folder and forget about it for a while. Often the poem that is not working so well is a John-the-Baptist poem (making a way in the desert of my writing for THE ONE that is coming). The next thing I work on can be standing on the shoulders of the one that wasn't getting done today, waiting for its voice. Not often, NOTHING seems to be working. In that case what I need is a wall around the work and a game-changer.

I put on some Pink Floyd (I like "The Wall" by the way, no surprise!) and change my whole outlook.

Walls are so useful. Ain't it grand? Ayuh.

It's Your Space... writing with setting as a consideration

Character, controlling metaphor, action, conflict, resolution of conflict. Sounds like the stuff of novels or memoir, right? Yes, of course. But what many people do not realize is that poets who write narrative poems deal with these too, but in a more condensed frame.

What I care about most of all (other than strong imagery) is that I set the poem somewhere. I recall teaching a class in community college where students questioned the importance of setting AT ALL, much less in a poem, especially in a poem. Of course there are schools of thought where the poets believe that it is all image and language and setting is not a factor. Bah! Double bah, I say.

One thing we all agree upon is that we want our readers to engage with what we write. We want a connection. I heard Billy Collins state emphatically that we must address the reader in some way, whether covertly or overtly. He went so far as to say that a collection of poems ought to begin with a "dear reader" kind of poem. I'm not so sure he is right about this, but...  What I believe is that we (poets) need to anchor our readers in some kind of locale, even if that place is not a place they have visited or inhabited. If we can act to include physical space in our poems, we can invite readers into that space with us.

What is the definition of place as it pertains to writing poems? Is it some grand locale, like the domes of Russia or the rocks of Zion National Park? Or can place be one small view of a larger space, like under a bed, in a car or closet or bed? Certainly. In fact, I suggest that poets ought to do what some great photographers do, squint a little to eliminate the "big picture" and focus on the minute detail IN the picture. What a daunting task it is to write about "the forest" for example, or "the sea." How limiting it is for the writer to have a seemingly unlimited topic. Better yet, write about a particular nest in a particular tree in a specific direction (the northernmost birch). Of course one of the most famous poems of place is a bit indefinite in its location, while appealing to the universal idea of its place. I refer here to Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Frost handles the nonspecific, the generic, by engaging the reader in speculation as he himself wonders. Whose wood these are I think I know lets the reader believe that these are woods of a specific person and place. The reader will suspend concern over the specific location and ownership in favor of having just clues to these. This is a good strategy for a poet to use. Leave 'em wanting more in a sense.

Most of all, the poet needs to become passionate about place, gain a certain intimacy with it. If he or she is writing a poem that takes place in a car for example, be very sure of the look, smell, feel, sounds of that car. Name it. Claim it. If the poem takes place in a kitchen, what items are there? What happens there will be believed only if the mise en scene is correct. In a recent poem, Lemon Cake, I was careful to include teacups and egg beaters to anchor the poem in space and time. In her poem, Girl in the Doorway, Dorianne Laux is very specific about the location of the speaker of the poem and the girl herself. She got it so right that when we read the poem, we are THERE hearing the dryer, seeing the V of light between her legs as the girl goes out into the sunshine. We are not told ABOUT what is happening (internally for the mother or externally for both mother and daughter). We get the poem, the incident, fully present,fully engaged. It is in large part because Laux understands setting in a poem, is fully passionate about the details so that we can become impassioned too. Ask yourself if the poem would have been as intense, so poignant, if the setting had been different. I think not. The mother's place just outside the daughter's room lends the whole poem a deep intimacy that would not exist if the mother was in the kitchen thinking about things. Richard Wilbur takes a similar stance in his wonderful poem, The Writer. The father, presumably Wilbur, is on the outside, overhearing and speculating about his daughter's activity (my daughter is writing a story). Again, the details of place reinforce and amplify the meaning of the poem. There is a window, desk, typewriter, typewriter keys, chair, desk, all of the things that belong in the place of the poem (mise en scene). Again, the wedge of time and space we are permitted to observe makes the poem solid and universal, invites us in and keeps us there until the final lines. Again, the poem would not have impact on our deeper selves if it were not set in the particular small vantage point of the  closed door and the overhearing father. Both Laux and Wilbur chose a small spot and a big issue and made them work together. These poems are not just musings of parents whose children are embarking on life without needing them. They are instead, poems of physical and emotional place. They both use setting to platform feeling.

I can't help but think of Wordsworth and Coleridge here. Both Tintern Abbey and Frost at Midnight occupy specific spaces.

What about setting the negative in place, a setting that is dark, dangerous, or regret-filled? OK, so Dante took his main character to the underworld and let him see the horrors that a wasted life might bring. I'm not talking about the kind of epic locale he used (though he did it brilliantly). I'm talking about space that is unlovely, dreary, boring, frightening. For example what about setting a poem in a kitchen, putting the character's dreadful situation of abuse on that black and white patterned floor, adding in normal utensils and furnishings. Can setting that is "normal" work for action that is not? Oh most definitely, in fact wonderfully. Then you are using setting for contrast, to make metaphor for secrets. In my first collection, Daughter of the Ardennes Forest (a verse memoir published by Main Street Rag in 2007), I set the poems in and around WWII and the Belgian-German theatre. In this way, I could write persona poems as well as poems that comment upon the nature of post-war PTSD and its effects on families. Without the setting, the poems would simply have been artifice. I was able to place myself and my parents, especially my father, into the place where the PTSD had its origins. The longish poem, Lines Composed Upon A Visit to Maddingly Cemetery was literally a visit to a spot, and the imaginings evoked from what was found there. Combined with a "tolling of the names," the place, the setting, makes for a clear view on the part of the reader as to the price of war. This poem is certainly not a celebration of place, yet it is an honoring of what led to the place's existence. The poem, In My Foxhole Again is a poem that uses place and time to recreate the hellishness of war. the final stanza illustrates my point:

In my foxhole again,
refuse of fifty years brushed away,
exact location calculated as we once did it,
I stop and listen for the click of the camera.
For one shitty second, it's not the camera at all
but that click you hear just before
you die, the shell hitting bone or ripping you
into pieces small enough to mail home
to your mother who's been watching the door
and lighting enough candles to burn down the world.

The bottom line here is this: write with an eye and ear to setting. Consider that setting may indeed be a character in the narrative you wish to tell. Your poems will take on an irresistible quality and will satisfy the truth.

Nature Writing and May Swenson

I am reading May Swenson again. I was fortunate enough to find an uncorrected proof of her book, Nature in a used bookstore. I have NOT looked up the poems as they appeared in a corrected version to see if there were revisions before final printing.

In part I am reading Swenson to prepare for the panel I'm on tomorrow at the Cary Memorial Library in Wayne, Maine. (The rain in Maine stays mainly in Wayne? FORGIVE this horrible parody!) Reading May Swenson's poems, one can see that they convey a sense of human place within geographical place. I hope my poems do that. I try to make poems do that. Swenson's poems are a great barometer for me and for anyone who writes about the natural world. Her poems have been variously praised by Robert Lowell, Anthony Hecht, Richard Wilbur (you KNOW how I feel about him!), and Maxine Kumin. Wilbur says she has  a great relish for wild nature and a knowing sympathy with wild creatures. Not to diminish Wilbur's analysis, but I think she has much more than that. I think her poems show a great connection between humanity and its roots: the land and everything on it, under it, in it, above it. Mona Van Duyn says Swenson has an ability to see and love each form of the world. Yes. And again, yes.

I wish I'd have known her personally. I'd loved to have been able to have great discussions on writing place. But lucky me, I have her poems. Her fifty years of work is my conversation with her. I'll share a poem that I love and leave you to glory in the connections she makes between the natural and the human:

Hearing the Wind at Midnight


I heard the wind coming,
transferring from tree to tree.
I heard the leaves
swish, wishing to be free


to come with the wind, yet wanting to stay
with the boughs like sleeves.
The wind was a green ghost.
Possessed of tearing breath


the body of each tree
whined, a whipping post,
then straightened and resumed
its vegetable oath.


I heard the wind going,
and it went wild.
Somewhere the forest threw itself
into tantrum like a child.


I heard the trees tossing
in punishment or grief,
then sighing, and soughing,
soothing themselves to sleep.


This poem does so much. Primarily it is a nocturne, a dream poem, a musing. But it is so much more. Notice the connections she makes to the human behaviors we all recognize and pay particular attention to how she does this. I am keenly interested in her second stanza, where she notes that the wind wants "to stay with the boughs like sleeves." I immediately made a connection to the Wilbur poem, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World where laundry on a clothesline is filled with angels (the wind). Surely Swenson's line was a direct result of having read the Wilbur poem. Or is there a grand collective consciousness that allows us to tap into one another? Maybe, but surely Swenson would have been aware of Wilbur's fine poem and was struck by its imagery. I love this about poetry. The lineage of poets, our holy "begats" if you will. We stand on the shoulders of those who also write and they on ours. So if someone asks, "who's your daddy?" answer with the name of a poet who influences you!

It is notable that in this same stanza Swenson leaves the rhyming pattern of the rest of the poem, and its 2nd and 4th lines do not rhyme. This is no accident at all. Rather this is the heart of the poem and she gives it a subtle place as such by avoiding the schema she employs for the rest of the poem. This is where she points us to our own connections to nature and its to us. There can be no confusion about her stance.

It is a little bit amusing to me that the poem is written in first person, something that was being highly criticized during the bulk of Swenson's writing years. But she had to do that. The connection to the world outside was too strong for the poem to work in a neutralized persona. It had to be her own connection (the "I" of the poem, if not the poet herself).

Swenson moves the action of the poem, like the wind, from coming to going. Brilliant. We are more "there" with her because she does this. The wind blows in from the forest, which is throwing a temper fit like a 2 year old, and then it blows away, leaving everything to cope. The poem ends on a lullaby image, and so does the wind's terror. We have wrap-up without reduction. Swenson does this with flair, sticking to the natural world, but making the connection to we who try to soothe ourselves in it.

The poem, as many of Swenson's other poems, leaves me hopeful for my own work. I have never believed that nature and humanity are separate or in competition. I feel as much a tree as a woman, as much a flower as a wife, as much a tidal surge as a tempered being. I am sometimes steady (rock) and sometimes flighty (bird) and sometimes angry (nimbus). It is comforting to know the legacy, the connection. It's raining today. I awoke to it and to tears running down my cheeks from a dream. How can I deny the connection when it is right here for me. I will make a few notes today for my part in the panel discussion tomorrow. I welcome the chance to say how place and my poetry are cousins, sisters, parent and child.

launching a new book

Last night was the launch of my new book, I Write in the Greenhouse. My two friends, Gayle and Wendy launched their first books. In a busy world where there is so much competing for time and attention, I am heartened by the big crowd. Over 30 people came and supported the books and us. We had wonderful snacks: fresh fruit platter with blueberries, cheese (Maine cheese!) and crackers, lemon-limeade, and a lemon cake I made FROM SCRATCH. My husband is still talking about the snacks. POINT: serve great food at a launch. LOL

But for me the whole experience was about way more than food or even reading. It was clear to me and to Gayle and Wendy that it was about love. We felt warm in the presence of one another's words. We chose a format that included each of us reading a favorite poem by the others. I loved doing that. Hearing my words from Gayle and Wendy made them come alive for me. And getting to put my voice to their words was humbling. Add to that the delight of seeing people respond to our poems as they did, sighing at the serious poems, laughing like crazy at the comical ones. I surprised my friends by reading two funny poems, Hiding Your Money and There's Something Not Quite Right at Crayola. Because my poetry is generally on the literary side, a bit serious by topic, these poems were a rarity. I did not have time to read Red: a Modern Tale, which is a parody of the classic Red Riding Hood story, which is funny too. I post it here for your reading pleasure. It is written in 14 lines of rhymed iambic tetrameter for those of you who are scanning.

Red: a modern tale

If I could be Red Riding Hood

strolling through that famous wood 

in my cape of color rosey,

bringing Gram a fresh-picked posey,

I wouldn’t dally, stop to chat

with some guy in a furry hat.

I’d never give out Gram’s address 

to someone who stalks the wilderness.

I wouldn’t weaken, wail, or waffle.

I’d prevent an end that’s awful,

spray my mace and blow my whistle,

knock down the beast, snap his gristle. 

I’d give the tale a brand-new spin:

Wolf goes down. Red Riding Hood wins!

I really enjoy reading this one. It was fun to write too.

After the reading and launch we headed over to Waterfront for dinner and chatter. We sat outside by the harbor (yes, I did get chewed upon by some hungry mosquitos, but no matter) Oh my, what fun we had. We stayed until 10 PM and I must say I haven't laughed that much in a long time. Gayle's daughter Samara and my husband, Bill were with us. The conversation ranged from golf (my hubby's recent hole-in-one) to Conway Twitty (Bill looked up his music on his iPhone and we listened a bit), Elvis and Barry White, to raccoons dropping from trees in northern CA attacking a woman. We were having so much fun that the couple at the next table started taking pictures of us! They really kinda got into it with us! What fun.

We will be doing more readings together this summer. Coming next is a teatime reading at the Personal Bookshop in Thomaston on July 16 from 1-3 PM.  

Long Days will now recede

No, this is not a downer of a blogpost. It is simple fact: we are in solstice today and we roll slowly to short days from this point. Can you feel this in your body?

I am prepping for tonight's reading/book launch in Camden, Maine at the library. My book is being launched along with the inaugural books of two of my poet friends: Gayle Portnow will read from and sign fog and other atmospheric conditions and Wendy Rapaport will do likewise from her collection, On the Couch with the "good enough" poet.


When I read from a new book, I try to keep the poems from it to a minimum, adding in poems from older and newer work to mix up things a bit. I have made a list of poems to read OUTSIDE the book, choosing a few funny-ish ones to lighten the mood. The three of us will begin the evening with a summer poem each (we are billed as Three Poets of Summer). Then we will each read for up to ten minutes, and end with each of us reading a poem we admire by the other two of us. I think that is a lovely way to show connectedness of the community of poets.

We will have refreshments, including a lemon cake that I am making this morning. I will be reading my new poem, Lemon Cake and it seemed like the thing to do. We will serve lemonade, ice water, and a veggie/fruit tray. Yummy Summer!

Whenever I do a reading, I get very excited. I love sharing poems with strangers. Once people hear your work, they are not really strangers any more. Poetry is a great blender of psyches. I hope we have an active crowd.

I am also giving a door prize, a copy of my favorite book in the world: The Outermost House by Henry Beston. This is the book that, although it is not a book of poems, made me dream of doing this writing thing as my life's work. I have probably given away 30 copies. I find them in used bookstores and get them for a song. I have paid at most $10 for a copy, usually around $3. Totally worth it.

I also will read a poem tonight by another poet. I like to do this for the same reason I like reading poems by my friends. It opens up the room, lends a bit of context to why we do this poetry thing. Tonight I will read The Quarry, by James McKean. It is a lovely father/daughter poem by a poet who was a mentor long ago at Iowa. I usually read a Wilbur poem, and had thought to read The Writer tonight, but changed my mind only because we just celebrated Fathers Day. Well, it is a father/daughter poem too. Maybe I will bring it, just in case.

So, I hope the crowd is big and friendly. I hope books get sold. I hope the cake does not fall.

Editing, tinkering, trashing

Just read the Chicago Manual of Style's blog about copyediting and want to share this with you (and I quote, from Carol Saller):

Can the mere possession of a red pencil make someone so trigger-happy she loses all restraint?

H. G. Wells famously quipped that “no passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft,” and there’s something in that. Once the tracking is turned on, you’re itching to leave some tracks. Competent prose can be downright irritating when you’re young and energetic and on a mission to whip the literary world into shape. Come on, come on, you think—surely I know something this writer doesn’t! Sure you do. But it isn’t that. Or that. Or that.

You sit with a dictionary and search engine close at hand. Then why oh why aren’t they your weapons of choice? If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times:

First, do no harm.

Look it up.

And when in doubt, keep your hands in the air.

So I ask you: how does this relate to poetry groups? What happens when we excessively tinker with one another's first drafts? I don't think the answer is undoubtedly that we ought to leave well enough alone... operative phrase "well enough" which is for me the reason why writing groups are exempt in some ways from accusations of trashing. Oh sure, there are people who are not satisfied with any poem they see in group. There are those who will tinker endlessly with one minute phrase. Maybe there is someone in your group who wants everything to be literally TRUE and would not recognize irony or metaphor if handed to him/her on a platter.

But basically there is loads of room (and hopefully PERMISSION) in writing groups for healthy chatter about possibilities. It is pretty exciting really to present a poem to your colleagues and have them sit there devouring every morsel, pencils paused over the draft like rescue helicopters. And what is the harm done to have suggestions, even if they seem off at the time? I love to go home from my group and ponder every detail of what has been offered. Maybe I will not heed 90%, but find one or two things that light up the poem. Oh my, does it feel great when that happens.

I've been asked many many times if a poem that is edited, tweaked, altered, is still the poem the author intended, if it has become  someone else's poem. Truly, sometimes it seems like a wholly new poem once all the ideas for revision have been employed. But the suggested edits are not the poem. And its author is still in charge of the final product. But the bottom line is this: did the editor alter the ideas or thrust of the poem? Did your colleague change the poem's purpose or feeling? I'm not talking here of changes in verb tense that make the poem's place in time more or less immediate. I mean that the poem is more changed than tweaked, less of YOU in there than some new voice. 

I have poems sent to me frequently, authors seeking their publication in my literary zine. I love the chance to work with poets who submit, making salient suggestions such as line break, punctuation, and even verb tense. What I do NOT do, is make any kind of radical alterations. If the poem is not good enough to exist without that kind of purge/replace activity, I need to (and do) refuse the poem for publication. And my key is to "suggest," not change. I love working in concert with the poets on revision. I emphasize to each and all that these are not MY poems and they have final say. I do not ever micro-manage poets or their poems. As editor I have final say only insofar as the choice to publish or not. The rest is up to the poets. My hands are up in the air, or are clapping with happiness.

reading: The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman

I think there may be a number of posts on this one, though I promise not to beat up my readers with an abundance, need I say a flood of them.

I started reading this text yesterday (in the car on the way home from dropping our grandson Christopher at his college). I borrowed this book, a collection of essays by John Henry Newman,(Frank M. Turner, ed.), and was engaged immediately by the ideas Newman expressed about liberal (read liberal arts) education and literature and the notion of religious education.

To be sure, this book, meant to foster the spiritual education of Catholics along with their secular education, has a decidedly religious character. If you want to stop reading this post because that is offensive to you, go ahead. Come back tomorrow when the topic will be something decidedly poetic.

I do, however, feel the necessity to post on this topic FOR myself and those who are interested. I believe that, even for nonCatholics, it is a good read because of how Newman explains and explores the differences between focused, job-seeking education and a deeper knowledge-seeking education. I am only just scratching the surface at this point, but will report back from time to time on what I discover and how my own ideas fit or don't. You might just open up to a few ideas that ring bells in YOUR head too and not be put off by the parochiality herein.

What initially struck me was that the worries Newman expressed about how universities fail to be transformative on a broader basis are some of the very concerns we have now in terms of how universities function and how they succeed or don't in preparing their students for the world ahead. (Add "colleges" here as Newman did not delineate between the two— remember he wrote his series of essays in the mid to late 1800s.) The concerns we face now beg the argument of whether college is even necessary or is worth the huge money it takes to acquire a college degree. We wonder if jobs will be available for graduates or where those jobs will be found. We worry about getting a leg up on other graduates for the fewer jobs that seem to be there. Newman's issues circled the job vs human citizenship (and the question of morality). Is the question of university tied to dollars or to morality? Is the coin being flipped here two-sided or heads-only with little hope for wholeness?

So we are still fighting the battles fought in the mid nineteenth century. Hmmm. Why are we not making better progress? Have we indeed sunk to new lows? Remember as you read this blog entry that this text by Newman is from an entirely Catholic perspective and notably biased in this respect. But if you read between the parochial lines, you may find that many of his basic ideas work for others in sheer force of the virtues of goodness and civility.

Please note that when he speaks of "fallen" human beings, one may choose to read this as if surveying the local news or watching TV, hearing of people who commit social and moral evils. One does not have to believe in "sin" from a religious construct to be able to make a connection to evil in the world. We'd all likely agree that Osama bin Laden was the personification of evil, like Sadam Hussein, like Hitler and the Nazis. We also hear too often of parents taking the lives of their own children, and might read that as "local" evil. So, in that respect, one might read Newman's text in the light of modern criminal trends. One might question if our focus on crime and punishment is a factor which has lead directly to the  highly carceral society we have in the US, with far more people incarcerated that any other country in the world. We need to ask if education, liberal education in specific, can make a difference? Newman believes so, and wrote most eloquently about this.

I quote from the intro (by the editor, Frank M. Turner):

Newman sees the university as a human institution that may and should produce [persons] of broad knowledge, critical intelligence, moral decency, and social sensitivity... (Turner xv.)


and later:

Newman urges a maximally expansive view of the knowledge that should be present in a university while warning that such knowledge must not displace in the human imagination the necessity for receiving religious truth... to produce persons capable of active contributions to society, the university must educate them in history and literature, from which they will be exposed to the recored of the moral evil of fallen human beings. They should also become familiar with the physical sciences, which if pursued too exclusively will lead to an indifference to religion. (xvi.)


So what we have here is a now-classic clash (or at least controversy) between organized religion and secular behaviors and ideas. I think that no matter what side of the fence one might inhabit, it is a healthy discussion to be having. With a surge in religious fervor (real or politically engendered), we need to be well-informed as to the ideologies or proffered arguments of those who are making them. I look forward to a deep read of this text to see where I land. My pluralistic brain is revved up and ready to roll.


From his discourse "Knowledge in Relation to Learning, Newman says this:

And now if I may take for granted that the true and adequate end of intellectual training and of a University is not Learning or Acquirement, but rather is Thought or Reason exercised upon Knowledge, or what may be called Philosophy, I shall be in a position to explain the various mistakes which at the present day beset the subject of University Education. (Discourse 6, #6, p.101) 


and...

...if we would improve the intellect, first of all, we must ascend; we cannot gain real knowledge on a level; we must generalize, we must reduce to method, we must have a grasp of principles, and group and shape our acquisitions by means of them. It matters not whether our field of operation be wide or limited; in every case, to command it, is to mount above it. (Discourse 6, #6, p.101)

This is fascinating stuff. We need to be in command by way of Thought and Reason. I'm good with that.

Solstice

It's nearly here again, after a full moon, a lunar eclipse (not visible here though): summer solstice (June 21). It rained in the night as if the earth was preparing herself, cleansing herself. I wait for what will be different. You may think I am a real "nut job," but since I was a young girl, I have been aware of time, tide, changes in weather. I feel them in my body sometimes but more often than not it is a subtle shift in perception, a slight turn in my mood, a click of attitude. In fact, even if I am not focused on the calendar, I am aware of something going on that sends me TO the calendar to check it out. One thing that happens is a need to sleep in another direction, like with my head down at the bottom of the bed, or along the bottom of the bed. Scratching your head now? I understand that. But it is true. I recall many times when, in the middle of the night, I'd feel the need to rearrange my bedroom, moving my bed to "feel better." This activity would often awaken my mother who would come in and ask what I was doing. I'd explain I wanted to sleep in another direction and she'd just shake her head and go back to bed. I'd call this phenomenon Feng Shui if it weren't so changeable. As I understand FS, it is placement of things to allow for a good flow of chi. Well, can chi flow change? Not sure. All I know is that my flow of positive energy, of peace and good dreams, depends in part on which way my head is when I sleep. I tend to "feel something coming" and make a shift in position. I do have a big dream catcher over my bed, but that is a story for another day.

I ought to be doing some research on this, but I am satisfied that I know my own place (last night I shifted to sleeping with my head at the bottom of the bed). I do think writing about it is interesting and fruitful. Here is a poem about one aspect of my "feelings for the natural" from my yet unpublished manuscript, Native Moons, Native Days:

In the Abenaki Manner (Alnôbaiwi)

We turn to the sea, feel the tide pulling, 

see something coming. We turn our hands in the earth 

to the corn growing greener day by day, 

spending time with her sisters, ready to feed us. 

In our manner, Alnôbaiwi, it is best to sleep with the head 

in the east, making it easy to see the coming sun.

In our way, we are always facing something, 

seeing what others don’t see coming.

And yes, I am Abenaki. I like to think I am plugged in to the cosmic memory of my culture, to the memories of the ancestors. I don't know if this is so at all. I just know how I FEEL. 

Tonight I will go downtown to Rockland's "summer solstice celebration," wander the street with my neighbors, listening to music, sampling tasty treats, enjoy the demarcation of time. Then I'll go home and sleep with my head facing east.

Fathers

Writing a blog for an "occasion" like Fathers Day seems a little mundane, a bit predictable. There are topics in the writing world that may be more exciting. But having had a great father (deceased in 1993) and being married to a great father (thanks honey for taking on a woman with four girls!) I feel the need to make a few comments.

I just read Li-Young Lee's poem Little Father. It is sweet and a lovely tribute to a deceased father. I also re-read Roethke's My Papa's Waltz and got the same feeling of tender sadness from it as when first I read it. I recall dancing around the dining room on my dad's feet and feeling like a princess. Now that he is gone, I can say that, though he was no saintly father, he was just right. His love for me and more importantly his obvious love for and respect for my mother led me to know I could have that kind of a life as a grown-up. It's funny though that I have written so little about my father (oh yes, there is that first book, but I mean individual poems beyond the poems about his WWII service and consequent PTSD). I have written many poems about my mother, about her death, her obsessive housecleaning, and her temper. But Dad remains somewhat absent in my current poetry. Why?

I think I don't write much about my dad because in some ways he is still here, more than my mother who has only been dead since 2005. I certainly feel him around me in just about every activity I do. I certainly feel him in the car when some "driver" does a nutty on the road or when I am passing parked cars (look for the slightest opening of a door, look for some kid to run out from between the cars) I feel him around me when I do some kind of bone-headed something (Little Girl, did you think that through?) I feel him in church (Mom too there). And then there are the glitter hearts that show up in times of special celebration or in times of heavy stress or sadness. Long story short, I placed red glitter hearts in his niche at Arlington when he was inurned there. He had told me before he died that he would never really leave me. Now these hearts show up all over my life. And when times get tough, I can literally hear his voice in my heart, letting me know that I am tougher than the toughest times.

I do write a fair amount about my husband. He is a great dad to his two kids and my four (we don't really delineate his/mine kids. I say this for clarity). He is a fantastic grandfather. I see in him shreds of what kind of a man my own dad was. I laugh sometimes at how alike they are. Of course they are different too, but I see my dad in my husband and smile. My favorite poems about my husband (or for my husband) are Tea Time and Polaris (in the new book).

Here is Tea Time:

Tea Time

The china teapot brews dust

in your absence, your one cup

turned down on its lips, mine

face up, waiting for your return.

Should you come in this evening

while I’m asleep, turn the cobwebs

out of the pot and brew us some

camomile. Watch the steam rise up

from the spout while you undress

in the low light of the flame. When

the tea’s done, steeping in slow swirls

by our bed, drizzle honey into my cup

and stir me into your mouth.

This poem has a haunting quality, a tenderness. I read it now and can get back to the actual physical feelings that I had when I wrote in back in the early 90s. Funny how poems can do that. It is one of the perks we poets get: revisiting our original impulses.

So what does this blog/musing say about Fathers Day and poetry? As it turns out, it makes me want to write more about my dad. It makes me want to write a poem about how he hitchhiked 12 miles to be able to make it to my fly-ups to Girl Scouts (even though he used to mock that organization). It makes me want to write about him teaching me to read on Sundays by putting me on his lap to "read" the funny papers (we don't call them that now, too bad). So this little FD blog may be an opening for me into a group of new poems. Stay tuned.

Thursday

Have I mentioned that Thursday is my favorite day of the week? It is. I've often wondered if there is some kind of cosmic connection to this day because I was born on a Thursday. Oh before you laugh at me too hard, consider how the universe is, all things connected in delicate threads of time and molecules. In many indigenous cultures, the names of days meant something. In my Abenaki culture this is surely so. Even in the anglo culture there are assigned meanings to days and months. We've all heard the rhyme about Monday's Child, etc. (Thursday's Child has far to go apparently). In my writing I have relied heavily upon the culture of my ancestors and this is true of a new collection, Native Moons, Native Days, as yet unpublished. I share with you here one of the days poems: the Thursday poem. Note the meaning at the end. Don't worry over trying to pronounce the Abenaki words... just roll them around in your mouth as they seem to be for you.

Ktsi Wliwini (great thanks)

Cowissewachook

Rough mountain, windfall mountain 

what can you see from there? 

Can you see me here in the meadow, 

worrying in the afternoon heat?

See where the eagle nests, 

pair of eggs delicate and vulnerable,

ready to split — kaamoji! 

So the line continues, flying off the lists 

we made to save them.  Rough mountain,

windfall mountain, what will I find there 

where you cover the sky?

Yawda alokan, Thursday. Full of questions.

Win win

Whew, for the first time since 1972 The Bruins have won the Stanley Cup. This has been an amazing season! I recently wrote a hockey poem dedicated to my poet-friend Lenora. I share it here. Nuf said.

Poetry as hockey, hockey as poetry

for Lenora

The dance we do, to the moan

of the crowds, is poetry,

the scrape of blade, the knocked out

tooth — it’s poetry.

Beads of ice shimmer overhead,

necklace of stones so cold

they seem prehistoric, some age

of ice and glacial mystery

is at play here. Poetry at times

seems iced too and ancient,

beads of words strung above

the page, waiting to come down 

from another time, waiting

for the score to be called, the pages

to be printed.  It’s all the same to me.

Here it is: the sun

I just finished reading Dawn Potter's blog post for today and am in a funk. She comments on the recent murders of an entire family (mother, two kids, and the sick father who killed them all and himself) in Dexter, Maine. It is heartbreaking to say the least. I am inclined to rant on here about the need for women and kids to speak up loudly and long about their abuse, about the need for courts and the whole legal world to stop playing legal games and H-E-L-P them. But I will not. I grieve for this helpless family, now erased from their own lives. I may never erase the image of their family photo from my mind's eye. But I will promise to speak out wherever and whenever I can on behalf of ending domestic violence. Abuse comes in many shades, people. We need to take off our dark glasses and see it.


Now... the sun is out and I will get dressed and move toward the light.

The Power of Reading, the Power of Words

One thing to love about "dim days" is the chance to call a bit of a halt to one's busy schedule and tuck into a favorite chair with something to read. People who take advantage of these breaks are doing something wonderful for themselves. For me, reading is not just limited to "breaks" in my activities however. It is an integral part of the day. I learned to read at age 3 watching my father read the "funny papers" to me as I sat on his lap. I'd ask him about specific words and pretty soon I knew them myself, could recognize them on my own. By the time I entered kindergarten, I was reading the funny papers and much more. I could not get enough of what books had to offer. In grammar school, reading was my favorite subject and my library card my prized possession. I took books out of the library weekly, walking there from school and then home. I had my "nose in a book" on car trips, late into the night by flashlight, and would have read at the dinner table if my parents had permitted that. One of my favorite books as a child was Little Women, another Heidi of the Alps. I returned to those time after time. I also loved Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and moved quickly to The Diary of Anne Frank by the time I was 12 or so. I thought that one thing I would surely do as a grown-up would be to have a house full of books. Funny, I did not desire a career as a librarian. Maybe I thought they were so busy at the check-out desk that reading time would not be plentiful enough for my tastes. How funny is that!? What I did desire was to become an English teacher. After a roundabout route, I did that. Now I write. I have also fostered a love of reading in my kids, and the grandkids have followed suit. My 12 year old granddaughter, Alyssa is like me: nose in a book at all possible moments. So wonderful! I know she is having quite a time in this endeavor.

In this age of electronic interactions, there are many new ways to access reading materials. I had a kindle, now have an iPad, and use that frequently for both kindle books and iBooks. One can read a book on a smart phone, on the computer, and audio books have been around for a long while now. Braille books have been around longer than that. The point is that reading has never been more possible. Hoop-dee-doo!

Mostly I prefer the paper and ink kind of reading. I love opening a new book and feeling the rush of discovery. I get very excited to find a new book store when I travel I think I probably get a strange look in my eyes and flush on my cheeks. It is THAT great a feeling. I like to keep stacks of books everywhere (no I am not one of those folks whom they'll find dead in a house of stacked up stuff). But I do like to have books in every room, and in my car. I never go anywhere without a book (or my iPad collection of books). There is no moment of boredom when a book is within reach. I am never bored. I do admit to letting other tasks go a bit in order to read. So sue me. I've never skipped school or church or work to read, but ... I generally store my fiction and nonfiction reading on my iPad, saving my shelf space for poetry and literary criticism and a few specialty books.

I read aloud to my kids and two favorite grandkid memories involve reading. Justin (the oldest of 14) loved to sit on my lap and have me read God Made the Puppies when he was only 2 or 3. He'd follow along, making appropriate sounds and gestures as I read. Pretty soon he was "reading" it from memory. He never missed a word or expression. I recently found a copy of that little book and had it shipped to him as a surprise. Now I must say that this guy is 22 years old and had not read the book in many years, but he immediately realized and mentioned to me that this book I'd sent him had a page and an event missing from the story. Wow. The power of reading to our kids is amazing. The other story involves grandson #3 who was in my morning care as a small child due to his mom's early departure for her teaching job. He'd come to my house in his jammies and I'd do the breakfast, bath thing before taking him to preschool or kindergarten. I read to him from the same book every morning as he took his bath: Muskrat Will Be Swimming (Cheryl Savageau). He'd dive down in the tub as I read the parts where the girl or the muskrat dove into the pond. Christopher (now nearly 19 and a sophomore in college) loved that book, and no matter what else I suggested we read, he always wanted that one. I kept that book safe for him and he stated the other day that he will one day read it to his own kids. I feel very good that when their other grandparents were buying "stuff" for birthdays and Christmas, I was buying books. I am the Book Grandmother. A very good thing to be I'd say. Last fall I became part of a pilot program via one of our local libraries, started by my friend Alice. She formed an intergenerational book group which was comprised of adult women and high school girls. We met monthly throughout the school year and read books that were chosen by all of us, some classics like Fahrenheit 451 and some YA books like Speak. It was so great to have our lively discussions on what we had all read. I treasure the experience and the girls.

But once again I digress.

I keep a little file box on my desk for new words that I discover in my reading. Words. What a treasure trove we have in our language. We have words for whatever moves us, annoys us, excites us, drives us. Our language is complex and interesting. As a poet, I'd say that words are my tools. But it is not enough to simply collect them. I am not saying it is a bad thing to collect words, but that it is only one small part of the fascination for me. What really thrills me is the opportunity that presents itself when I learn a new word. I look at every new word as a possibility for a new piece of writing. Each new word is like a point on a map, leading to a new town or city, to an amusement park of poetry. I found a new word this morning, sent to me in an email by doctor dictionary (great word-a-day site) and promptly filed it away in my box. I know that the word will find its way into my writing (beyond this blog). The word for today is ORISON (n.) meaning a prayer. I've just finished (?) a collection of contemporary psalms (Psalms From the Commons, invocations for every day life) and am excited to have this new word to describe in part what these poems are. I'm already thinking of a new poem that uses the word itself.

I am grateful that I am a poet. By the very nature of this profession, I am immersed in words on a daily basis. I am "allowed" and expected to know words and to work with them to create art. I am fascinated by how simple words used in unexpected ways can alter mood, change perspective, create a new world for my readers. I love manipulating language and syntax, get a real rush when a word achieves deeper meaning by where I place it in a line. I think that the power of words is the power of seeing and visa versa. It is amazing to me how changing a single word in a line, or altering its tense, or moving it to another location can create something fresh. I glory in that.

Some of my favorite writers knew/know this power very well. Coming to mind is Richard Wilbur. If you have not read this man's poetry, you have missed out on something beautiful in your reading. His use of words, his placement of words, his deep understanding of their power infuses his poetry with beauty, even when the topic of the poem is less than beautiful. Take for example First Snow in Alsace. This poem is powerful in its look at the beauty of ugliness. FYI, it is a terza rima (discussion on form in a subsequent series of blogs)

the poem:

The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths.


Absolute snow lies rumpled on
What shellbursts scattered and deranged,
Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.


As if it did not know they'd changed
Snow smoothly clasps the roofs of homes
Fear-gutted, trustless and estranged.


The ration stackes are milky domes;
Across the ammunition pile
The snow has climbed in sparkling combs.


You think: beyond the town a mile
Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes
Of soldiers dead a little while.


Persons and persons in disguise,
Walking the new air white and fine,
Trade glances quick with shared surprise.


At children's windows, heaped, benign,
As always, winter shines the most,
And frost makes marvelous designs.


The night guard coming from his post,
Ten first-snows back in thought, walks slow
And warms him with a boyish boast:


He was the first to see the snow.


This great poem, one of my top five favorites, is a combination of simple words, common sights, and the almost  unspeakable tragedy of war. What it does is make meaning from word placement and image. There is not a single complex word herein. Crevassed is the closest thing to that. But look at how Wilbur puts his words in just the right places to make meaning: he talks about the kids at the windows looking out at beauty, while a mile or two away are dead soldiers, scattered and deranged. He combines the sparkling combs (drifts) of snow with the ammunition pile to make the contrast between the beauty and the beastly. And the end of the poem is striking in its simple contrast between a young soldier (ten first-snows back which probably means he is now barely out of his teens) and what the soldier must surely see that is not so lovely. We get to see this soldier in his innocence as he boasts (like a child would) that he was the first to see this new snow. Words: the right words in the right spot in a poem. And suddenly we are there, we are feeling the meaning. We have chills running down our spines. The impact is pure, like the snow as it first falls.

Other Wilbur poems do this too. I recommend the following for your reading and word-loving enjoyment:

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World (my all-time favorite)
The Writer
A World without Objects is a Sensible Emptiness
Boy at the Window
He Was
To An American Poet Just Dead
The Catch


These ought to keep your attention on words and their power. Happy reading on this foggy day and beyond.

Throwaway Words & Line Breaks

Well, this is going to be a tough one for some I think. I will get up right now and stand my ground while admitting it is personal choice in large part that determines the "right or wrong" of using throwaway words at the ends of lines of poetry. Certainly you will find great poems wherein the poet has throwaway words at the ends of lines and it works just fine.

Defining throwaways (my term I think, though I might have heard it from someone brilliant): a throwaway is any end word in a line of poetry that is not a noun or a verb, not an image or an action (or in some cases a state of mind or being). This includes conjunctions, such as and, but, or, etc, articles such as the, a, an and prepositions and possessives such as when, of, there, his hers, ours, my, through, during, and so on.

Why are these used? Very good question. I think they are used much the way a comma is used: too much and for the wrong reasons.

Personally I try to use articles as sparingly as possible, unless clarification or positioning is needed regarding the particular of an image. It is more often than not an unnecessary clarification. Why say "the sun" when we only have one? The big issue I have is not these words themselves, but where they are placed in a poem. I believe that every word ought to lead readers to the next word, every line to the next line, every stanza to the next stanza. I get many poems sent to me for review. I admit that one of the first things I do (a personal bias I admit) is to scan the ends of lines to see what kinds of words are being used. If I find a poem with of or and hanging off the ends of many lines, I am less warm to reading the whole poem. I DO read the whole poem of course, but with a bit of a question in my mind as to why the poet broke the line at one of these words.

Here is a made-up example of lines with throwaways:

Gone are summer days, nights of
you and me and music.
Gone are fireflies and moths to
flame that burn my brain and
call us done.


Here is the same piece with the throwaways gone:

Gone are summer days, nights
of you and me and music.
Gone are fireflies and moths
to flame, that burn my brain
and call us done.


In my opinion, the second "stanza" is more compelling. Oh sure you might say that having of at the end of line one makes the reader ask "of what?" before moving to the answer. I think that is a cheap thing to do to a reader. I also think that line two gets a nice image on its own with "of you and me and music." One might argue (reasonably too) that the of could disappear altogether. I'd agree with that on some level. If you simply had you and me and music as line two, it would work well, would be very strong. Maybe we need to discuss throwaways at beginnings of lines too! But I digress.

I believe that lines ought to end with images or actions, or at least with strong nouns that make a reader go onward. I also believe that there is something to be said for a noun that seems to convey one thing at the end of a line and does double duty be enriching meaning as the next line is unveiled.

Here is an example of that kind of enrichment of meaning from my poem, Sabbath (from Breakfast at the Brass Compass, 2009):

The point of it all is faith: that one woman's son
will come home from the storm...


Since the line makes a strong statement that everything is faith, and we know the title is Sabbath, one might leap to the notion that the one woman is Christ's mother and her son is Jesus, UNTIL we get to the next line.

Of course there is double meaning at work here, with both Mary and Jesus and the mother of a sailor being accurate or at least reasonable connotations of the lines. THAT is the power of having strong end words.

Here is an example (from my poem Storm) of how a well-placed end adjective (yes, I said adjective!) can be a strong lead to a surprise:

Sailing to windward is pure
folly....


I don't think the line would be as powerful if the line ended with is. One must conclude that the surprise is finding out what noun the adjective modifies here, or is it both? Double duty — ta-da! Later in the same poem I show that sometimes a throwaway word is just the right word, creating impact.

with coffins and urns: someone's
sons and daughters. The beacon is out,
overspilled with oil. It's a drowned thing.


Here are two cases of seemingly unimportant end words that do something great. someone's seems to refer to the coffins and urns until you get to the next line where you find it is sons and daughters. Double duty. At the end of that same line, out is a natural way to end a powerful image. The beacon is indeed OUT. No need to wait for that idea until the next line, and the next line becomes a power line on its own with the clause leading to the final statement, "It's a drowned thing."

So what to do with these throwaways? How much time should one spend worrying about the end words? The answer is individual, because it is your poem. I do think however that loads of time ought to be spent on deciding what is happening at the ends of lines. It is a revisionary moment to be sure, one where the poet can gain ground or lose it in any given poem. Personally, this is the big moment for me in revision. I look forward to working on line breaks and figuring out just the right (hopefully right) word to do what the poem wants to do. I want my readers to find surprise, but not shock, when lines do something new and fresh. I want my enjambments to work, to not be or seem arbitrary. To this end, I try nearly every line a few ways to test the power of the end word. I tweak and re-tweak until it seems right. Often I have to go back to earlier lines once I have created a power line nearer the end of the poem. An example comes to mind from my poem, Water Psalm. Let's look at the first stanza. Pay particular attention to lines four and six and seven.

Bless the water,
the flow, the ebb, the seep.
Bubble it, keep it clear.
Rinse your divine face in it, salty or fresh,
fast or pooled. Feel it in your hair
beneath the storm, hear it
outside your window, running in your dreams.


Originally I had broken line four at face, but found that the next line was weaker that way. I had also broken line six at storm, with the next line hear it outside your window. In revision, because I wanted to emphasize the sensory, I broke at a command phrase: hear it. Later in the poem is a line that caused this whole line-break revision. The line is this: let every molecule of water say its name. I realized that I wanted a series of seeming command statements (in part because this is a psalm) and the line above it is a seeming command. The speaker of the poem, the person addressing the divine YOU, is making blatant command type statements in entreaty for the desired. There are, in fact, eleven command/entreaty statements in 14 lines of the poem. This is jam-packed, dense. What it does is set up a tone for the plea. The poem is not overly demanding, but firmly pleading. If the line breaks had been different, the tone would have been different. It is of course always a choice. But the point here is that the choice should not be an arbitrary one, but one made after careful looking at the poem as a whole, and line by line.

I must say that this revision I do may not appeal to you at all. You might point out (and rightly) that some of the best poets in the world have throwaway words at the ends of their lines. There may be a whole cadre of poets out there who argue these little, seemingly insignificant words DO lead to surprise at the next lines. OK. I agree there is room for discussion here. I hold my opinion here though that FOR ME, and for the poems I look at for publishing purposes, the throwaways are beacons of concern. I will always take these as signals of possible weakness of a particular poem. But know this: I am flexible too. I judge each line on its ability to make meaning in the larger scope of the poem. The issue here is line and word and meaning. If these come together in such a way as to empower a poem, I am all for embracing however the poet managed that.

What do YOU say?

so let's talk about adverbs

Yesterday was the day for discussing the value of adjectives in poetry. I feel the need to balance that with a bit about adverbs, mostly the "ly" words that some novice poets seem to use as crutches in their poems, propping up lines that are weak and lacking in strong image or activity.

Oh yes, I have been as guilty as anyone, not just in poems but also in my prose. It is so easy to say "he looked lovingly at.." rather than to search for a way to show it with action, either via a strong verb or other imagistic mechanism. So how to do this?

He gazed at her lovingly, fell for her in that moment

                       vs

His eyes softened as he held her face
in his hands, love leaped up and overtook him.


Which do YOU think is better?

Here is a list of to-be-avoided adverbs ("ly" words)

lovingly, softly, earnestly, carefully, sparingly (there is irony in this one!), terribly, greatly, lavishly, etc etc. You get the idea. Cast those adverbs "deeply" into the sea1 Ha Ha!




There is also a problem for many with the non-"ly" adverbs, those which modify and supposedly enhance adjectives. WELL.... if you are overusing adjectives, my guess is that you are tacking on a few very and really boosters to some of those.

her dress was really red
his speech was very aggressive
they bought a very huge gas-guzzlin'  truck


What do the adverbs add in these? NOTHING that a great image wouldn't serve better.

Her dress, scarlet as her cheeks, shone in the half light of the dance hall...


His voice, an assault on everything decent...


They thundered off the lot in their blue F-10, tank draining as they drove away. She only cared that it matched 
the color of her eyes.


Which seems more interesting to YOU?


As an editor and poetry coach, I see these problems all the time. I have worked to remove adverbs from my own poems, sometimes falling into the trap, but this happens more when I am being a lazy poet. It is easy to do, a quick fix so to speak for a bigger problem: weak poem.

I believe that it is one thing to let the dam burst in a first draft where one is getting down the essence of the ideas in a poem, another to take the easy route and not revise them out of existence. A good plan is to write everything that you think might want to be said. Give yourself permission to over-write. But then, and this is where the wheat and the chaff separate, do the work of revision: eliminate, trim, cut, slice. Get those adverbs gone. Try this:

Take a poem you have already written and circle all the adverbs. Rewrite with none of them. What has happened to the poem? If it is strong enough, you might be done. If it seems to flatten out or if what you wanted to say seems to have become vague, you have more to do. You need to strengthen your images and activate your verbs. This is a wonderful way to diagnose adverb sickness.



Tomorrow we will talk about "throwaway words." Stay tuned.