Everyday Things

In the Limbo of Lost Toys~Alison Stine

Someone stole his sister’s best
and speared them on street signs,
lamp posts, poles, in celebration
of the school year’s end.

A lion bisected by a stop sign,
the straw ticking of his insides
spilled. A doll with x’s
in her eyes. The plush

kingdom softened, lost to rain.
Some of these I took. Some
were taken back, and it was
celebratory, like it is now

when the spoils were once alive,
pausing in their winter pick
of bark and lower branches.
Now the deer have open eyes,

and whatever dreams they have
are dreams disturbed by highway
winds, lashed to truck hoods.
I am told not to look, but look.

How still the dead. How you
are dead, and dead, I might
liken you to the toy horse, drowned
in the fish pool, the way all toys

meet violent ends, legs crossed
in axis, eyes full of milk. I might
liken you to hunters who are
waking up only to lie again

against mold-black trees, so still
as to pass for always. In truth,
nothing will scare the deer,
not even death: unreadable,

roped to bike racks. I might
liken you to everything I lost.
The white dog disappearing
in a storm, and later, the black

running into hacked-off fields
behind which waited flushing
birds, new families. But then
I am forever linking things

to animals. All this I lost
before I lost you, and like you,
all of it changed under new snow,
rain which cored finger-wide

holes, the first grass rolling out
wet and curled from inside
your eyes, which are wider now
but not surprised.

http://www.swinkmag.com/index.html

I picked up Swink magazine recently while looking for design inspiration, and was pleasantly surprised to find three of Alison's poems in the Early 2005 issue. Alison was a sophomore at Denison University when I was a freshman there, and hung out with a talented crowd of writers that included a fellow I was dating (and who I mightily wanted to impress). They all worked/read for Denison's student lit mag, Exile, for which Colin (the erstwhile beau) was the managing editor. I never wanted to be published so badly in my life--I felt if I could just get one poem through the anonymous selection process, I would prove my worth. I was an exceedingly impossible 18-year-old, and the fact that I had never properly studied poetry did not seem a hindrance in the least to me. I wrote and wrote, much of it nonsense, and not until the second issue (Exile was biannual) did I sneak through a solitary poem--it involved Plato, Leibniz, and detachable arms, and was loosely based on the difficulty of sharing a single bed when four arms are present. This was my first published poem--I suppose it whetted my appetite, because here I am, seven years later, still tangled up in the beauty of this process.

Anyways, back to Alison--she was insanely talented, and had a poem published in the Kenyon Review while still at good old Dension--which is impressive. I suppose she might have had the KR Poetry Editor as a teacher, as he was on campus, but she was still wickedly talented even if she was given an insider's nudge. I used to read her stories and poems and marvel at her control and development and subtlety--it doesn't surprise me at all that she's doing well and still publishing.

What I'd like you to note in her poem (above) is her careful footsteps--sometimes when writing poetry, there is an impulse to link every noun with a metaphor or simile, until the poem is a complex muddle of comparisons that seem disjointed. Alison never falls into this trap of being "overly metaphoric." She is unafraid to use short sentences, or to repeat words (death, eyes, signs, look, etc). She wants you to get what she's seeing and to follow her mind's progression--she's very gentle, I find.

I LIVE IN A YELLOW ICE CREAM TRUCK~Molly Tenenbaum

Red script flourishes, circling itself.
A blue square, one per side, sets off a white swan.

It was the rubber gasket
compressing
that whispered the hither.

I wondered, at first,
was it all one space or did each door close
on its own small box?

At the back, a pull-down gate.
A little bed, two books, a pair of socks.
The inside walls are quilted tin.

The swan, dabbed gray for shadows,
jogs as the truck jogs, over a bump,

and who knows if that counts
as motion—not even the blue
she's painted moving through moves,
her angle depends on the truck, on where

it's going, and under it,
on streets ascending, and under them,
on the whole dark dirt world, a city itself,
of mica and sand, wire and pipe.

I don't believe one world is more real than another.

Remember when they sent people to caves
to see when they would sleep?

One little railing for earrings and a mirror,
and for the night, a wide-mouth jar.

It would be better, I admit, with windows.
At night, hatches latched, it's pitch till morning.

What do I miss? Air.
I love the quilted sides
and the rumble of warming.

Darling, why am I sad?
There's nothing like a cubby.

Nothing like a pair of boots
and a bed that folds up.


FROM FIRE, THIS IS MY FIRST OF SEVEN LIVES IN WATER~Molly Tenenbaum

I thought swim meant to linger, splash toes.
The dog and I played Chase-the-Spray with the hose.
Leaping through sprinklers, a pose and a twirl—
Broke her leg, the neighbor girl.

My paintings were watercolor blots.
My chore, to douse fifty flowerpots.
The hose spilled the patio brick maroon.
I loved that word. Maroon, maroon.

At summer camp, last to lower in.
How could they stand it, shock on belly-skin?
What I really love at lakes? Pilings and docks.
Skinny dipping, I read, I lie on the rocks.

What I've known of pools: plugged ears,
And pounding a tilted head for years.
When it trickles out, it's hot.
Of showers: an ex who would not.

For him to undergo required serious debating,
Sympathy, and the house-heat to eighty.
Of baths: When it all gets intense,
Relax, they say, with candles and incense—

I wallow, but only in words of it—
Rill and rillet, guzzle, gullet—
Don't even care what they mean,
Stillicidous, ultramarine,

Pluvial, limnal, deliquesce.
I've never been in a boat, but took a class.
When I practiced on the rower,
The teacher criticized my hunkered shoulder.

The difference, I joke, is that jetsam is black,
As if marsh-talk and all the words for wrack
Don't rip, don't undertow.
Someday my mirror will melt, mercurial flow,

Someone will offer a drink, I'll tip up, slow,
A boat-friend will invite me, gulp, and I'll have to go.

http://thediagram.com/4_4/index.html

Molly is another poet I've met--she teaches at North Seattle Community College, and frequents local poetry events. I never had her as a professor, but I have always marveled at her work, and thoroughly enjoyed the reading she gave at Open Books in Seattle.

The above poems are good examples of how to bend sentence grammar to one's advantage--in my previous postings, I've been harping on grammar and sentence-level punctuation, but actually there are a number of poets who employ unusual structures to great effect. Molly fits this bill--some of her subjects seem implied, and many of her sentences are focused purely on an ongoing action. This gives her work a coversational feel, without drifting into confusion. The chance of confusing your reader is great when sentences are not carefully crafted--Molly shows another way to go about doing this. Plus, her poems are great fun! There's no boo-hoo-hooing here--just a quirky humor and a lively vocab.

Your assignment: All of these poems center around something from an everyday experience--toys, an ice cream truck, boating. Choose something from your own life that would not ordinarily seem poem-worthy, and see what you can build out of it. Sometimes simple beauty is enough.

Best,

Dani

Anaphoric

Rune of the Finland Woman~Marilyn Hacker

For Sára Karig

"You are so wise," the reindeer said, "you can bind the winds of the world in a single strand."—H. C. Andersen, "The Snow Queen"

She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.
She could find the world's words in a singing wind.
She could lend a weird will to a mottled hand.
She could wind a willed word from a muddled mind.

She could wend the wild woods on a saddled hind.
She could sound a wellspring with a rowan wand.
She could bind the wolf's wounds in a swaddling band.
She could bind a banned book in a silken skin.

She could spend a world war on invaded land.
She could pound the dry roots to a kind of bread.
She could feed a road gang on invented food.
She could find the spare parts of the severed dead.

She could find the stone limbs in a waste of sand.
She could stand the pit cold with a withered lung.
She could handle bad puns in the slang she learned.
She could dandle foundlings in their mother tongue.

She could plait a child's hair with a fishbone comb.
She could tend a coal fire in the Arctic wind.
She could mend an engine with a sewing pin.
She could warm the dark feet of a dying man.

She could drink the stone soup from a doubtful well.
She could breathe the green stink of a trench latrine.
She could drink a queen's share of important wine.
She could think a few things she would never tell.

She could learn the hand code of the deaf and blind.
She could earn the iron keys of the frozen queen.
She could wander uphill with a drunken friend.
She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.


...it's a joy to read this Hacker poem aloud--the meter sounds like a anapest/anapest/iamb in each line (that's UUS/UUS/US, with 'U' meaning unstressed and 'S' meaning stressed), and with alternating end-words that echo each others' sounds, and occasionally allow for a perfect rhyme (a la well/tell). Anapests and Dactyls ('SUU', such as in 'happily', or 'secondly') are telling--they really make a poem "skip" when read aloud.

An anaphoric poem is one that starts with the same word or phrase (or ends with the same word or phrase) in every line. Generally, every line is one full sentence. Anaphoric poems can be free verse, or can employ meter and rhyme, as Hacker does here. They give a poem a built-in rhythm and structure, and give you something to play with. Anaphoric poems are great for writer's block.

Your assignment: Pick a flexible phrase and use it as the header or tail-end of every line in a poem. This should push you into unexpected directions. Try a few of these--start easy, with a phrase such as "When I was..." or "We were..." and build to more complex, colorful phrases, such as something like "She came to the door..." or "In simpler times..." or even "That time in the baby blue van.." whatever gets you going.

Happy Writing--

Dani

Simplicity

Poems by Kay Ryan:

Waste

Not even waste
is inviolate.
The day misspent,
the love misplaced,
has inside it
the seed of redemption.
Nothing is exempt
from resurrection.
It is tiresome
how the grass
re-ripens, greening
all along the punched
and mucked horizon
once the bison
have moved on,
leaning into hunger
and hard luck.

Blandeur

If it please God,
let less happen.
Even out Earth's
rondure, flatten
Eiger, blanden
the Grand Canyon.
Make valleys
slightly higher,
widen fissures
to arable land,
remand your
terrible glaciers
and silence
their calving,
halving or doubling
all geographical features
toward the mean.
Unlean against our hearts.
Withdraw your grandeur
from these parts.

Felix Crow

Crow school
is basic and
short as a rule—
just the rudiments
of quid pro crow
for most students.
Then each lives out
his unenlightened
span, adding his
bit of blight
to the collected
history of pushing out
the sweeter species;
briefly swaggering the
swagger of his
aggravating ancestors
down my street.
And every time
I like him
when we meet.

Repulsive Theory

Little has been made
of the soft, skirting action
of magnets reversed,
while much has been
made of attraction.
But is it not this pillowy
principle of repulsion
that produces the
doily edges of oceans
or the arabesques of thought?
And do these cutout coasts
and incurved rhetorical beaches
not baffle the onslaught
of the sea or objectionable people
and give private life
what small protection it's got?
Praise then the oiled motions
of avoidance, the pearly
convolutions of all that
slides off or takes a
wide berth; praise every
eddying vacancy of Earth,
all the dimpled depths
of pooling space, the whole
swirl set up by fending-off—
extending far beyond the personal,
I'm convinced—
immense and good
in a cosmological sense:
unpressing us against
each other, lending
the necessary never
to never-ending.

Kay Ryan handles the short linebreak with such aplomb...and, it never falls into faux-WCW-ville or nouveau-Dickinson, with just one sentence stretched taut on the page. Every Ryan linebreak plays with the sound and lightness of her work, and emphasizes whatever word or phrase she wants us looking at: Look at /swirl set up by fending off--/ or /or the arabesque of thought?/ Every tiny line is a gem. I've had the pleasure of seeing her read--I encourage everyone to catch her if she comes to town. Kay is tremendously witty, and admits to wanting to be a standup comedian in her youth. (Read this for a taste of her wit: http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0705/comment_171211.html)

Your assignment: Keep it simple. Take on small idea, flesh it out, turn it over, and allow yourself to write something small and delightful. This will be a good exercise in linebreaks and in selectivity--every line should glow in its own way. And, don't be afraid to "play"--Ryan is always prepared to pen a pun or a catchy rhyme here or there, to add to the overall joy of each piece. I mean, she couldn't help herself from writing "Quid Pro Crow"--I'm sure she still chuckles when she reads it. (Note Ryan's careful use of punctuation--she never allows a linebreak to substitute for a dash, or comma, or period. Short linebreaks sometimes seem to "remove" the need for punctuation in the writer's mind, but this affects the reader greatly--with short linebreaks, it becomes ever more important to ensure your reader can follow your sentence structure, and thus the logic of each phrase. So, punctuate carefully, and don't shy away from throwing in the occasional "Dickinson Dash.")

~Dani

Looking Under the Rock

Skinhead ~Patricia Smith

They call me skinhead, and I got my own beauty.
It is knife-scrawled across my back in sore, jagged letters,
it’s in the way my eyes snap away from the obvious.
I sit in my dim matchbox,
on the edge of a bed tousled with my ragged smell,
slide razors across my hair,
count how many ways
I can bring blood closer to the surface of my skin.
These are the duties of the righteous,
the ways of the anointed.

The face that moves in my mirror is huge and pockmarked,
scraped pink and brilliant, apple-cheeked,
I am filled with my own spit.
Two years ago, a machine that slices leather
sucked in my hand and held it,
whacking off three fingers at the root.
I didn’t feel nothing till I looked down
and saw one of them on the floor
next to my boot heel,
and I ain’t worked since then.

I sit here and watch niggers take over my TV set,
walking like kings up and down the sidewalks in my head,
walking like their fat black mamas named them Freedom.
My shoulders tell me that ain’t right.
So I move out into the sun
where my beauty makes them lower their heads,
or into the night
with a lead pipe up my sleeve,
a razor tucked in my boot.
I was born to make things right.

It’s easy now to move my big body into shadows,
to move from a place where there was nothing
into the stark circle of a streetlight,
the pipe raised up high over my head.
It’s a kick to watch their eyes get big,
round and gleaming like cartoon jungle boys,
right in that second when they know
the pipe’s gonna come down, and I got this thing
I like to say, listen to this, I like to say
“Hey, nigger, Abe Lincoln’s been dead a long time.”

I get hard listening to their skin burst.
I was born to make things right.

Then this newspaper guy comes around,
seems I was a little sloppy kicking some fag’s ass
and he opened his hole and screamed about it.
This reporter finds me curled up in my bed,
those TV flashes licking my face clean.
Same ol’ shit.
Ain’t got no job, the coloreds and spics got ’em all.
Why ain’t I working? Look at my hand, asshole.
No, I ain’t part of no organized group,
I’m just a white boy who loves his race,
fighting for a pure country.
Sometimes it’s just me. Sometimes three. Sometimes 30.
AIDS will take care of the faggots,
then it’s gon’ be white on black in the streets.
Then there’ll be three million.
I tell him that.

So he writes it up
and I come off looking like some kind of freak,
like I’m Hitler himself. I ain’t that lucky,
but I got my own beauty.
It is in my steel-toed boots,
in the hard corners of my shaved head.

I look in the mirror and hold up my mangled hand,
only the baby finger left, sticking straight up,
I know it’s the wrong goddamned finger,
but fuck you all anyway.
I’m riding the top rung of the perfect race,
my face scraped pink and brilliant.
I’m your baby, America, your boy,
drunk on my own spit, I am goddamned fuckin’ beautiful.

And I was born

and raised

right here.


...This probably counts among the most powerful of poems, and powerful of poets, I have ever been introduced to. Patricia Smith is a four-time winner of the National Grand Slam for performance poetry, and she exemplifies everything that can make performance poetry spectacular--much of slam poetry can be categorized as extended whining or lamenting, and often "tells" instead of "shows," but Smith never falls into that trap. In fact, very few of her poems focus on herself--she likes to put herself in other's shoes. (Par example: Medusa http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=14307&poem=182254). (For a short dialogue on showing v. telling: http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9912). Smith shows the anger of this man through his actions and dialogue--she doesn't ever state to the reader "This man is angry! He's really mad!" That's the power of good poetry--the message comes through implicitly.

Just imagine the above poem being read by a firey black woman, spitting each word into the mic with the same level of hate she illustrates in the skinhead she has created. I've never seen her perform this, but apparently it brings the house down. This does not surprise me in the least--it is explicitly an American poem, with American dialogue, character, theme, and issues, written to the hilt and filled with one of our more ugly cultural truths. Many of her poems are this way; indeed, if I were asked to point out an American-themed poet worth reading, she'd probably be it.

Your assignment: This one is tricky. Many, many poets try to write about the "underbelly" topics--suicide, cutting, violent death, abuse, rape--and often only succeed as a catharsis for the author, and not as a poem for general consumption. But, when an "ugly" topic finds an able writer, sometimes something tremendous emerges, such as Smith's poem. So--try writing about something painful or controversial-- many poets gravitate towards these topics naturally--but keep in mind what makes Smith's poem "work." Her poem never reads as a journal entry, or as a whine. She finds a way to channel her energy towards this topic in an unbelievably powerful way--through the eyes of a tormentor. Try on different hats, and perspectives, and tones, and metaphors--and know that if you try and tell a painful story through a poem, true or not, you cannot just trust that the reader will "get" the pain--you have to suck them into it somehow.

Unusual Forms

Ghazal~ Michael Collier

When I was young I couldn't wait to leave home
and then I went away to make the world my home.

In England a poet's wife suggested a word for what I felt,
"heimweh." German for homesickness even when you're home.

The agoraphobe and claustrophobe respectively
cannot bear to leave or stay inside their home.

Our day-old son wrapped in a blanket in your arms
and I'm in the car waiting to take you both home.

Mortgage means "dead pledge." To buy a house
you need one. A house can be mistaken for a home.

It won't be hard to name the poet who wrote a sonnet sequence
about his mother and father. He called it "The Broken Home."

A shovel, rake, and pickax hang inside my neighbors garage.
Like a god he has ordered the chaos of his home.

Never let me forget: colliers mine coal. Michael's an angel.
In heaven as on earth the coal of grief warms the soul's home.


...caught on to the scheme of the Ghazal? It's this:
AA/BA/CA/DA etc... (with A representing the repetend).

There is no meter to speak of--the poem is focused around tight couplets, and one repeating word (in this case, home). This latter word is what makes Ghazals so tricky--finding the right word and finessing its placement can be irksome. But the end result is like snapshots of one thing from many perspectives, esp. if the chosen repetition is a noun.

And can I just say--I love couplets.

Here's another Ghazal--I like this better than Collier's, but it is a less traditional use of the form, as it rhymes, and McHugh has spaced out the couplets to emphasize this. That's just fine, IMHO--her use of the linebreak is very, very strong. The splitting of a word on a break is difficult to do successfully, after all.

Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun ~Heather McHugh

Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person?
I blame the soup: I'm a primordially
stirred person.

Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings.
The apparatus of his selves made an ab-
surd person.

The sound I make is sympathy's: sad dogs are tied afar.
But howling I become an ever more un-
heard person.

I need a hundred more of you to make a likelihood.
The mirror's not convincing-- that at-best in-
ferred person.

As time's revealing gets revolting, I start looking out.
Look in and what you see is one unholy
blurred person.

The only cure for birth one doesn't love to contemplate.
Better to be an unsung song, an unoc-
curred person.

McHugh, you'll be the death of me -- each self and second studied!
Addressing you like this, I'm halfway to the
third person.

McHugh's is an excellent example of wordplay, and double meanings--she's wickedly clever, a trait I adore in a poet.

Two assignments: 1. Try for a Ghazal. You'll probably have to write more than 7 or 8 couplets to get the ones that will build into a poem--aim for 10-15, and cull from there. Take care in choosing your word--you can try a very malleable word, such as 'person' or 'home,' or you can go for the gusto and try something more difficult, such as 'avocado' or 'sunscreen.' Whatever gets you writing--you'll know when you have the right word. Don't worry so much about the couplets being thematically linked--concentrate on being crafty and descriptive with your chosen repetend. Try rhyming only if you're feeling as crafty as McHugh, because it'll be really tricky to do well in this form.

2. Just try writing couplets. This form will force you to be more careful with words and linebreaks. Try taking an old poem of yours and putting it into couplets--you'll probably be surprised at how much of the text you've written suddenly seems extraneous and worth cutting out. Couplets force the writer to really pay attenton to every single line, and help focus images. Consider this series of couplets by my fave Aussie, Les Murray:

Where humans can't leave and mustn't complain~Les Murray

Where humans can't leave and mustn't complain,
There some will emerge who enjoy giving pain.

A dreary intense groove leads them to each one
they pick to torment, and the rest will then shun.

Some who might have been picked, and natural police,
do routine hurt, the catcalling, the giving-no-peace,

but dull brilliance evolves the betrayals and names
that sear dignity and life like interior flames.

Whole circles get enlisted, and blood loyalties reversed
by self-avengers and failures-getting-in-first

but this is the eye of fashion. Its sniggering stare
breeds silenced accomplices. Courage proves rare.

This powers revolution; this draws flies to sad pools;
this is the true curriculum of schools.


..again, rhymed--hard to do, and he appears to have some meter in there (almost like iambic hexameter, but don't quote me--it doesn't seem overly regular)--and look at his linebreaks! Many poets try to endstop all end-rhymes (meaning every line ends with a comma or period); this can make a poem seem stilted and amateurish. Murray has whole rhyming couplets that require no periods, commas or semi-colons--that's the mark of a talented fellow. Note: the punctuation is not missing--most modern poetry is written in full, grammatically correct sentences. Writing without sentence-level grammar is insanely difficult to do well. We're not all ee cummings or WCW here. So, only remove your commas and periods with good reason when penning a poem. Missing punctuation rarely adds to writing when there is no greater purpose at hand.

Play with Words

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
~Wallace Stevens

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

Forget for a moment about what this poem may "mean." When reading poetry, I often let the sensation of the work wash over me, without worrying so much about what the author's intent was. It's a good exercise in reading relaxation, really--after all, poems are not essays. You don't need to spend all your time looking for the main thrust, or argument, or themes. Sometimes, all you pull from one poem is a line--just one killer line, or phrase, or metaphor. Of course, if you really want to dissect this piece, more power to you. But what I'd like to call your attention to is the language.

Read this poem outloud--the sonic play here is tremendous, esp. in the last few lines. These words were chosen for impact, for resonance--as most words in a poem should be. We don't always remember to read poems outloud, esp. when the poem does not rhyme. But, I think you'll agree that this poem cries to be read aloud.

Two assignments: 1. This poem starts sort of as a lecture, or instructions. It's very commanding--"take this, do that." It's a fun style to employ in a poem, because it is so hands-on--most poems are written for the reader to observe, whereas this poem demands that the reader "do" something--whether or not the thing is actually "do-able" is not the point. The tone, clip, and voice are all propelled forwards by this demand for action. So, try it on--demand something of your reader.

#2: Language. When poets try and get crafty with language, we often fall into the trap of getting too wordy, or using lots of multisyllabic latinates (such as: despondent, disconsolate, advantageous, appropriate, detrimental, unpropitious). These words are fine in fiction and in academic writing, but can bog down a poem quickly, making it sound stuffy and over-important (latinates tend to be "ee" heavy). Plus, their sound is uninteresting; compare the latinate word list I gave to these from the Stevens' poem: muzzy, nave, hankering, peristyle, masque. Much better-sounding, eh? Stevens' words are much punchier, and have more hard "cks" and soft "zzs" or "vvhs." These types of words make the sound of the poem more dynamic, and can add to the tone--lots of soft sounds can be soothing, and lots of quick, clippy sounds or "rrrs" can add an element of anger or frantic energy. Next time you're around someone who is speaking emotionally, try listening to their sounds instead of their words--you'll be able to pick up on their emotion just by the way they speak.

So, play with language--try starting with a few startling words, and build a poem around them. I recommend thesaurus.com for turning up unexpected words. And, don't be afraid to create words--it doesn't always work, but sometimes adding an -ness or -ic or proto- to a known word can create surprising meaning and usages. Aim to give your reader a phrase or two they'll really have to chew on, a la Stevens' "jovial hullabaloo among the spheres," or "our bawdiness,/Unpurged by epitaph."

Have fun!

~Dani

Free Association

RED LICORICE ~BOB HICOK

Turns out the universe is an accordion.
I take this as vindication of the polka.
If it began with the Big Bang
will it end with the Big Suck? I like
physics more than psychics. These days
there are psychics all night on TV.
Nostradamus would be ashamed.
Why predict sexual dysfunction
when there are tidal waves in the offing?
If we didn't die we wouldn't care
about time. We'd make and break
appointments with a shrug. The top half
of calendars with pretty pictures
would be enough. Ansel Adams aimed
a slow exposure at the Rockies
but didn't know they were running away.
Maybe all matter is shy. This hubbub
makes me stay at home. Stop signs
have no effect on entropy. I'm saddened
by the eventual demise of red licorice
but not black. Yet consider how often
you've wanted a second chance.
Nietzsche said we do the whole thing
again and again. That life's
an endless waltz to a patient band.
If I come back I hope gravity's
reversed. To fall up. To be
with my wife but not have to shop
for shoes. Somewhere is the first atom
that existed. The next time
you feel nostalgic wait your turn.

Brainstorming and freewriting are some of the best methods of finding 'surprise'--to quote Robert Frost, "no surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." If we sit down with a plan for a poem, often we end up sounding derivative, or rigid--"planned" poems can come off more essay-like in tone, with each line so logically following the previous in terms of sense that the reader is lulled gently to sleep, and not challenged in the slightest.

Hicok is a genius at this--his poems are carefully crafted, and do not read like a brainstorm (in terms of messiness) but still celebrate expansiveness, and a willingness to play. Yet, his language is careful--he moves from image to image, idea to idea, rather abruptly, not pulling the reader into anything more elaborate than what can be opened up in a line or two. This is a poem of "emergent properties"--the author never tells the reader what to think, or even takes the reader in any particular direction. It's more of a cumulative effect, with a richness that grows from multiple readings. Again, note the use of first person-- Hicok uses "I," but it hardly intrudes--most sentences, he avoids it entirely. Using "I" too much in a poem such as this would remove the focus from the ideas to the writer--which would be a real shame.

Your assignment: Just start writing. (Using lots of "I" in the free-write is fine, but plan to remove most "I" and "my" from any re-write.) Free-associate from one idea to another. Don't allow yourself to get too enmeshed in any one idea--just hop about, and see what emerges. After getting between 10-25 ideas down, start editing--make your language precise, your juxtapositions more surprising. The point is not to keep all of your ideas rigidly in the order they came to your brain--it's more to create a unique pathway for your reader to follow. Whip the reader through a thought process that involves many surprises--cut out all of the bulky, everyday thoughts that strike you as plebian or cliche upon a second read-through. (Note how Hicok uses the Big Bang, psychics and stop signs in unusual ways.) In this poem, do not allow yourself to say anything ordinary. Good luck!

~Dani

Something Unexpected

The Hug
by Tess Gallagher

A woman is reading a poem on the street
and another woman stops to listen. We stop too
with our arms around each other. The poem
is being read and listened to out here
in the open. Behind us
no one is entering or leaving the houses.

Suddenly a hug comes over me and I'm
giving it to you, like a variable star shooting light
off to make itself comfortable, then
subsiding. I finish but keep on holding
you. A man walks up to us and we know he hasn't
come out of nowhere, but if he could, he
would have. He looks homeless because of how
he needs. "Can I have one of those?" he asks you,
and I feel you nod. I'm surprised,
surprised you don't tell him how
it is - that I'm yours, only
yours, etc, exclusive as a nose to
its face. Love - that's what we're talking about, love
that nabs you with "for me
only" and holds on.

So I walk over to him and put my
arms around him and try to
hug him like I mean it. He's got an overcoat on
so thick I can't feel
him past it. I'm starting the hug
and thinking, "How big a hug is this supposed to be?
How long shall I hold this hug?" Already
we could be eternal, his arms falling over my
shoulders, my hands not
meeting behind his back, he is so big!

I put my head into his chest and snuggle
in. I lean into him. I lean my blood and my wishes
into him. He stands for it. This is his
and he's starting to give it back so well I know he's
getting it. This hug. So truly, so tenderly
we stop having arms and I don't know if
my lover has walked away or what, or
if the woman is still reading the poem, or the houses -
what about them? - the houses.

Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing.
But when you hug someone you want it
to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button
on his coat will leave the imprint of
a planet in my cheek
when I walk away. When I try to find some place
to go back to.


Tess' poem is striking--the "rabbit of the plot" hops from a fairly non-controversial scene, to something completely surreal and unexpected. And yet, you believe her--the poem never dips into sci-fi- non-reality, but rather revolves around a believable level of weirdness that sucks the reader into a delicious series of "maybes."

Your assignment: Take an everyday activity and "make it weird." You can start or end the poem that way--start surreal and end in the everyday, or do it like Tess, and evolve the poem away from the ordinary. You can go sci-fi, which sometimes works, or you can keep it on a do-able level--something that you probably would not do, but could if you wanted. Especially take note of Tess' use of first-person; it's very subtle and does not distract from the actions and images going on. While the poem is written through the eyes of "I," the poem focuses entirely on the hug. This is how to keep a poem from devolving into a "me, me, me" journal-entry--focus on the action, not the inner monologue.

~Dani

An exercise in amusement

Cartoon Physics, part 1

Nick Flynn

Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning

the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down -- earthbound, tangible

disasters, arenas

where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships

have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump

you will be saved. A child

places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
& drives across a city of sand. She knows

the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
& who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn

that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall

until he notices his mistake.

...I find that my favorite poems have enjoy a certain
bittersweet quality--a pull-tug between something
amusing, and something reflective, or even dour.
There's nothing dour about this poem--the poem has as
much fun as its subject, but still ends on a
contemplative note, bringing to mind the ways in which
children are often introduced to the subjects of
death, dying or accidents--that they are something
easily bounced back from, or something mysterious,
colorful or funny. I actually find a slightly macabre
undercurrent here, but that might have more to do with
the subject matter than the tone or intent of the
poem.

Your assignment: Write about something we see everyday
that, upon reflection, is highly amusing and surreal.
This can work for just about anything--how people wait
patiently for a crosswalk sign when there is no
traffic for miles, or how no one will look at each
other in an elevator, or how accustomed we are to TV
laugh tracks--whatever.

There are lots of everyday moments that are actually
pretty ridiculous if a poet shines a light on them.
So, shine your light, dear poet--find juxtaposed
images and unusual series of events that the reader
can do nothing but chortle at (and in the process,
chortle at themselves.) There is way too much
depressing poetry, and not nearly enough lighthearted
verse--so, get crackin'!

Favorite Poem

...well, one of them. I'll add a little discussion about why it works for me at the end.

Why Fool Around? ~Stephen Dobyns

How smart is smart? thinks Heart. Is smart
what's in the brain or the size of the container?
What do I know about what I do not know?
Such thoughts soon send Heart back to school.
Metaphysics, biophysics, economics, and history-
Heart takes them all. His back develops a crick
from lugging fifty books. He stays in the library
till it shuts down at night. The purpose of life,
says a prof, is to expand your horizons. Another says
it's to shrink existence to manageable proportions.
In astronomy, Heart studies spots through a telescope.
In biology, he sees the same spots with a microscope.
Heart absorbs so much that his brain aches. No
ski weekends for him, no joining the bridge club.
Ideas are nuts to be cracked open, Heart thinks.
History's the story of snatch and grab, says a prof.
The record of mankind, says another, is a striving
for the light. But Heart is beginning to catch on:
If knowledge is noise to which meaning is given,
then the words used to label sundry facts are like
horns honking before a collision: more forewarning
than explanation. Then what meaning, asks Heart,
can be given to meaning? Life's a pearl, says a prof.
It's a grizzly bear, says another. Heart's conclusion
is that to define the world decreases its dimensions
while to name a thing creates a sense of possession.
Heart admires their intention but why fool around?
He picks up a pebble and states: The world is like
this rock. He puts it in his pocket for safe keeping.
Having settled at last the nature of learning, Heart
goes fishing. He leans back against an oak. The sun
toasts his feet. Heart feels the pebble in his pocket.
Its touch is like the comfort of money in the bank.
There are big ones to be caught, big ones to be eaten.
In morning light, trout swim within the tree's shadow.
Smart or stupid they circle the hook: their education.


...this almost falls into the category of prose poem; Dobyns is not overly concerned with linebreaks, although he does generally follow the oft-stated "it is best to break on a noun or verb" rule. Why it works for me? What a crazy idea--to take something like the word "heart," so over-used in general, and make it a character that stumbles about and gets into scrapes--I mean, really, what a phenomenal idea. He has a whole book of these. What I also enjoy are his use of questions--questions don't often work in poems, I find, because they end up sounding overly plaintive or philosophical. Here, he has Heart acting as a student--so, all of the broad-stroke questions fit right in with the theme. Finally, the last line/image--priceless. Very Rilke-esque, how it turns the previous narrative on its head (When I say Rilke-esque, I refer to the Archaic Torso of Apollo, and this famous last line: "for here, there is no place/that does not see you. You must change your life." (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4486/).


Your assignment: Create a character. Try a name that you have no associations with (Harold, Bluey, Finn the Swashbuckler, whatever). Build this person/character from scratch. Base your poem around their actions--not on who they are, or who they think they are, but what it is they do. Let the meaning emerge from the pictures you paint (yes, an exercise in show vs tell). Try for third person, like above--we tend to default to writing in first person, so it is good to break this habit now and again.

If you're a bit more avant-garde, go for weird associations and unexpected word pairings--surprise the reader.

Feel free to post any resultant poems in the comment section for general reading, or send them my way.

~Dani

Hello folks!

I've started this blog for fellow UW-Bothell student and alum writers, who are looking to chat with someone about their creative works, find inspiration to start a poem or two, and possibly submit their works to the literary magazine, paperbox, this winter.

A little about me: I'm a senior at UW-Bothell. I have been the managing editor of two local literary magazines, Licton Springs Review (2003 issue, for which we won a few awards) and paperbox (2005 issue). I have sat on many selection committees for these and other lit mags, and done my fair share of workshopping--most notably with Rick Kenney on the annual UW Rome trip (http://depts.washington.edu/engl/abroad/romesummer.html) which I highly, highly recommend for any aspiring poet looking for a transformational experience. I've had poems published in Mare Nostrum, Bricolage, LSR, paperbox, Twice-Bloomed Wistaria (award-winning poem 'Socrates,') and Exile. All of these are college-based magazines--I've not attempted the national circuit.

...most of my "poetry education" has been self-education; mostly, this consists of cross-pollination among interested parties. I give much credit to PFFA (http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/), an online workshop that really stresses poetry as a craft; they don't take no mess, so if you check them out, lurk for a week or two before posting. And only broach those waters if you're interested in some (often caustic) criticism.

...that's not what this site is about, though--this blog is intended to be more cuddly than PFFA, although as vigorous and interested in craft and quality as the latter site. I'll be posting poems here, and ideas for poems, and musings on this and that. I heartily encourage people to contact me, or ask me questions, or otherwise participate in this poetry dialogue.

Best,

Dani