Friday, April 11, 2014

Daily Schedule

This is a tentative schedule of events for this course throughout the semester. As anyone who has been in creative writing workshops will tell you, things very rarely go exactly as scheduled. So view this schedule as a rough guide; I’ll always announce any changes in advance.

Week 1

Monday, June 16: Second session begins. Introductions. Discuss basic terminology and some warm up poems. Assignment: start working on your first poem and read Always Danger by David Hernandez. Choose one of the poetry prompts off the blog; on your own, work on your first poem.

Tuesday, June 17: Copies of first poem due at the start of class! On your own, read through all the poems and make some comments. Finish discussing the warm up poems, if necessary. Watch some videos of poetry readings.

Wednesday, June 18: Workshop Poem #1. On your own, choose another prompt and complete Poem #2. Not trying to be self-promoting and douchey but I suggest reading a couple book reviews here and here if you want to see an alternate way to do this assignment (and maybe get published).

Thursday, June 19: Journal #1 due, over Always Danger. Discuss the book. Copies of Poem #2 due. Start workshop, time permitting.

Friday, June 20: Workshop Poem #2. On your own, read Folly by Norman Minnick.

Week 2

Monday, June 23: Summer Semester Course Withdrawal Ends. Journal #2 due, over Folly. Discuss the book. Discuss scansion (which will be crucial for your midterm). On your own, work on Poem #3 (an imitation of the style of any of the assigned poems we have read).

Tuesday, June 24: Copies of Poem #3 due in class. Start workshop. On your own, read What the Living Do by Marie Howe and work on Poem #4 (your choice of style and topic).

Wednesday, June 25: Discuss the midterm assignment--to perform scansion on two of your own poems, then write a two page double-spaced reflective journal on your style, aesthetic, goals, strengths and weaknesses, etc. Also, we'll discuss the two lessons off the blog (“forms and spacing in poetry” and “more on scansion”). Distribute copies of Poem #4.

Thursday, June 26: Workshop Poem #4.

Friday, June 27: In-class invention exercise that can take the place of Poem #5. For those who are interested, here's a crash course on publishing.

Week 3

Monday, June 30: NO CLASS! I have to be out of town for a wedding so sleep in and be merry.

Tuesday, July 1: NO CLASS! Instead, perform the observation exercise off the blog. On your own, work on Poem #5 (which can be the observation or invention exercise, which you're also free to use later, but must at least include in the portfolio).

Wednesday, July 2: Journal #3 due, over What the Living Do. Discuss the book. Distribute copies of Poem #5. This time, we'll try small groups so you only need to bring FOUR copies! Start workshop. On your own, read About the Dead by Travis Mossotti.

Discuss the presentations. Sign up for conferences.

Thursday, July 3: Conferences instead of class.

Friday, July 4: No class

Week 4

Monday, July 7: Conferences instead of class. In the meantime, here's a cool poem you should read, "Soldiering" by Daniel Langton (which I mentioned in class a couple times).

Tuesday, July 8: Journal #4 due, over About the Dead. Discuss the book. “Eastern” poetry lesson. On your own, work on Poem #6 (a page of “eastern” poems).

Wednesday, July 9: Copies of Poem #6 (the “eastern” poems) due in class. Start workshop. On your own, work on Poem #7 (your choice).

Thursday, July 10: Distribute copies of Poem #7. Workshop. Sign up for presentations.

Friday, July 11: In-class revision exercise in which you take one of your own pieces and write it backwards (last line first, second to last line second, etc) but edit it so that it makes sense. On your own own, work on Poem #8 (your choice). Midterm due. Extra credit opportunity: watch Howl and answer these questions in a journal.

Week 5

Monday, July 14: Distribute copies of Poem #8. Workshop. On your own, work on Journal #5.

Tuesday, July 15: Journal #5 (your final journal) due over The Book of Men. Discuss the book. Revision workshop; bring copies of a poem that you have revised. Time permitting, in class, we'll take a look at some of the worst poems I could find and discuss how to fix them.

Wednesday, July 16: Revision workshop; bring copies of another poem you have revised.

Thursday, July 17: Presentations!

Friday, July 18: PORTFOLIOS DUE! Portfolios should contain rough drafts of all eight poems, your observation and sound invention exercises (particularly if you didn't turn those into one of your workshop poems), and revisions of ALL EIGHT POEMS! At least THREE should be major revisions (marked "Major Revision"). Please mark the rest as "Minor Revision." Note: if you have multiple revisions of the same poem, mark them "Revision 1, Revision 2" etc, to show all the work you did.

Sound Invention Exercise

Here's an invention exercise that I typically use with my Advanced Poetry students. It's just meant to get the creative, subconscious wheels turning but I'm curious to see what you come up with!

We’ve talked before about how a good poem (much like a Zen koan) can seem to pull you in two different logical and psychological directions at the same time. That’s part of the magic and, eventually, you want to be doing it while basically writing on auto-pilot. Initially, though, it often takes some conscious, concerted effort to get a feel for the rhythms and music that exist in all artistic language but seem to be heightened in poetry.

1) So for practice, begin by listing some 1 or 2 syllable words you like, then come up with words that have the same beginning and ending sounds in the reverse order. Examples: cedar and repose. Rabbit and temper. Fort and tariff. Risk and killdeer. Russet and tier. Donkey and yield. Feel and leaf. Fumble and bluff.

2) Come up with a few words that have the same internal sounds but different connotations. Examples: gloom and boon. Glow and drone. Bastard and happy. Jewel and coup. Rigor and cigarette.

3) List a few nouns and join them with seemingly unrelated adjectives. Examples: naked sunrise, screaming whisper, cellophane skyscraper, paper temple, lonesome anthill, purple stoplight, raspberry wrath, plexiglas salvation, disjointed symphony, prehistoric tuxedo, oscillating freeze.

4) Now, take something from #3 and turn it into a simile describing a seemingly unrelated noun. Examples: the setting sun blinked like a purple stoplight, she was lonesome as an anthill, typewriters rang like a disjointed symphony, he wore the earth like a prehistoric tuxedo.

5) Come up with some two syllable words that have both syllables stressed. These words add extra punch to your sentence. Examples: Riptide, whirlwind, whitewash, spendthrift, whiplash, toothpaste, snowmelt, ragtag, cupcake, laptop, stonewall, slapdash.

6) Come up with an elevated, sophisticated image or phrase (or even a bit of scientific terminology). Sandwich that next to something more guttural, pedestrian, etc. Another way to think about this: follow a pretentious statement (distinguished not just by overly elevated images or concepts but lots of unstressed syllables) with something blunt and plain-spoken.

7) Now, try weaving these together. With your words for #1, don’t just put them side by side. Put them a few words or even a whole line apart. This creates a subconscious feeling that your lines are connected by an internal rhythm. Don’t worry about literal meaning yet; you’re just trying to clear up your creative lens and hammer out some lines that have a sense of rhythm, music, and raw imagination.

Presentations: Please indicate who/what you're presenting on.

Name/Topic

Steph the Pifer - Bob Hicok

Syllabus

Poetry Writing (2^nd Summer Session, 2014)

Professor Michael Meyerhofer

Monday through Friday, 9:15 – 10:45 AM

www.bsuenglish308summer.blogspot.com
RB 115

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
—David McCullough

I think one of my early motivations for writing was that other people's versions of experience didn't gel with my own. It was a gesture toward sanity to try to get the world right for myself. I've since learned that if you get it right for yourself, it often has resonance for others.

—Stephen Dunn

Welcome to English 308! The easiest way to reach me is via email, mrmeyerhofer@bsu.edu. You can also drop by my office (RB246) during my office hours (Monday-Thursday, 10:45 to noon). When I am in my office, you can call me at 285-8573. If those times do not work, you are more than welcome to set up an appointment with me.

Texts:

"Always Danger" by David Hernandez (Southern Illinois University Press)

"Folly" by Norman Minnick (Wind Publications)

"What the Living Do" by Marie Howe (W. W. Norton)

"About the Dead" by Travis Mossotti (Utah State University Press)

"The Book of Men" by Dorianne Laux (W. W. Norton)

Class Description: This course is designed for aspiring poets and people seeking to increase their knowledge and understanding of poetry. Since we are all contemporary writers, I tend to focus primarily on contemporary (aka “living”) poets. I’ll push you to develop your own personal aesthetic—meaning, decide for yourself what makes a poem a poem. We will also discuss the formal elements of poetry like alliteration, assonance, extended metaphor, etc. This class also consists of intensive workshops in which we discuss each other’s poems, as well as the poetry of well-established contemporary poets like Sharon Olds, Dorianne Laux, Tony Hoagland, George Bilgere, Marie Howe, Kim Addonizio, Billy Collins, and others. Since no one is expected to consistently turn out great poems on the first or second draft, constructive feedback is also a vital component of the revision process, which factors heavily into the final portfolio. Each student in class will be expected to duplicate copies of his or her poems for class discussion.

Class Requirements:

—A portfolio of 8 poems, written over the course of the semester, ALL revised by semester’s end (30% of final grade)

—Journals (30% of final grade)

—Class Participation (20% of final grade)

—Midterm exam (10% of final grade)

—A class presentation on a contemporary poet and/or collection of poems or school of poetry not discussed in class (10% of final grade)

Class Rules: Plagiarism: Don’t do it. The point of this class is for you to create poetry that is unique to you and to learn about yourself as a writer in the process. Turning in someone else’s poetry as your own prevents that from happening, and is grounds for automatic failure of and dismissal from the class. As for turning in work from previous courses—in general, I frown on that because odds are, you’re a better writer now than you were then. I might be willing to make exceptions if you talk to me first, though. My philosophy on workshops is this: if you don’t care about what you’ve written, we probably won’t either, so please only turn in work that you care about.

Absences: You can miss up to two without penalty. If you miss three classes, your final grade will be reduced by one letter grade. If you miss four classes, your final grade will be reduced by two letter grades. If you miss five classes, in accordance with university policy, you fail for the semester. However, attendance isn’t just a matter of being there on time; it’s a matter of good participation. I reserve the right to mark as absent any student who disrupts class or fails to be respectful to others.

Journals: I expect you to turn in a journal (two full, double spaced pages, typed) for each of the assigned texts. Don’t just say “I like this” or “I hate this.” Give me specific lines or techniques that caught your attention. You don’t have to like all the writers I assign, let alone all the poems in a given book. In fact, I welcome disagreements! Let’s get some good discussions/debates going so basically, look at the journals as prep for class discussion. Oh, and you can submit the journals either printed or over email, if you like. I grade journals ASAP so if you email your journal but don’t see a grade up on Gradebook by the next day, that means the email must not have gone through; in that case, contact me ASAP and we’ll figure something out. Finally, please be advised that the tradeoff for getting your journals graded so quickly is that I rarely have time to provide feedback on them, but I’m very willing to meet with you and discuss them if you like.

Class Participation: The way we improve as writers and critics is by practice and participation. In other words, this is a workshop class, not a lecture one. That means everyone must participate by giving feedback to class members. Both oral and written comments on poems by your classmates are required. This workshop is a writers’ community, and all members of the class are expected to give thoughtful, tactful, and serious consideration to work written by class members. Also, always feel free to ask questions about any aspect of the class. In terms of your final grade, strong class participation will help you greatly, especially if your grade is borderline. So don’t be afraid to speak up, and to speak your mind, but do it with consideration for the opinions and feelings of your classmates. Going along with this, you are expected to behave respectfully in class. That means please don’t chat, interrupt, play with cell phones or laptops, etc.

Midterm: Your midterm exam will cover some of the terminology and aesthetic philosophies discussed in class. If you pay attention (and ask questions), you’ll do fine.

Another Point About Workshops: We’re going to cover a lot of stuff in this class—the technical elements of contemporary poetry (especially free verse), different aesthetic philosophies, the various types of authorial risk, and naturally, all sorts of personal, political, and cultural topics that often inspire us to write in the first place. The best way to do this is through sincere but relaxed class discussions and workshops. You’ll find that rather than give formal lectures demanding rote memorization, I’ll dispense most of my lectures on craft through workshops. So please stay involved, even if your particular piece isn’t being discussed; often, a piece of advice or an observation that benefits someone else can benefit us, too.

About Your Instructor: I have published three books and five chapbooks of poetry and have won quite a few national prizes. I also have a literary fantasy novel forthcoming. Feel free to swing by my website and check out some of my work, if you're bored. This is my seventh year as an Assistant Professor at Ball State. Before this, I taught composition and creative writing, and worked as a tutor, at Southern Illinois University for four years. I am also the Poetry Editor for Atticus Review. As my prior students can attest to, I believe very strongly in being an advocate for my students. So if you have questions or concerns, let me know!

An Interview with Norman Minnick

Norman Minnick was kind enough to answer some interview questions for my Poetry Writing class a while back. I thought I'd repost his responses, in case you're interested.

1. What made you want to become a poet and is there a topic that you most prefer to write about?

It’s funny, when I was in my teens and twenties I wrote poems and songs and gave a couple poetry readings and performed in a band but never thought of myself as a poet. I wrote poems. How does that make me a poet? I wanted to be a novelist. I didn’t choose this.

2. Why did you decide to write some of your poems as just one long stanza, such as “The Problem of the Puer Aeternus” and “Stones”?

Is there a topic I most like to write about...? No, except that I find myself writing about human beings, especially human beings in situations that when viewed from a certain angle are rather odd. Ted Hughes has a wonderful essay about writing about people in his book Poetry Is. In it he writes about the art of choosing the right details about a person that will capture his or her entire life. He says, "The whole art of writing is to make your reader's imagination go into action." This is more difficult than it sounds, but I feel like my reader's imagination can conjure up a larger "story" of the woman climbing into the Peterbilt or the girl with freckles carrying a flat of azaleas in "A Week without Poetry", for example. Mine does, at least.

When I write poems I pay very close attention to way line- and stanza-breaks work with the saying of the poem. (I have an essay about this that I wrote for the poetry month issue of Teachers & Writers Magazine that I’ll share with you later.) The one-stanza poems feel as if they do not need a pause, as if they are one thought.

3. What’s the inspiration behind your poem, “A Week Without Poetry?”

The irony is in the title. What most people would not consider poetry is all around us, in the trash heap, on the side of the street, the things people say at a Little League game, and so on. I sort of realized that after a frustrating week of not reading or writing poetry (I read at least a poem a day) that I had gathered these little nuggets that resembled poems (poem-blips!) just by looking around and listening. Maybe it’s not poetry, but it’s my world.

4. Are you the narrator in the “Angel Mounds State Historic Site” and “Oconaluftee Indian Village, A Cherokee Living History Museum” poems?

Yes. But I wouldn’t place too much trust in me as a narrator.

5. Were you able to visit Angel Mounds to research it?

Yes. It wasn’t research, though. I was just there.

6. Can you talk about the need to be willing to take risks in poetry, especially in a poem like “In the Parking Lot of the Dry Cleaners”?

If you aren’t taking risks in your poems then why are you writing? There are eight million poets writing today and only about five or six of them are really any good. Those are the ones who take risks. I probably don’t risk enough. (Thank you, especially, for this question. It really has me thinking.)

7. Did your family background influence your writing style? If so, how?

Growing up, I was surrounded by books. Books on shelves! They were my father’s books. Not just any books––they were books of great literature: mostly novels and poetry. A little history, philosophy, drama, humor. They seemed somehow sacred to me. I would look at them a lot. See my dad reading them. As I got older I would sometimes take one down (carefully!) and open it. Ah, the smell! I marveled at their bindings. The design of the pages. The typefaces (not fonts!). I would read the colophons. The novels I didn’t read. I felt that I somehow had to EARN them. I did sneak in a few of the poems from time to time. Rilke. Yeats. Ted Hughes. Berryman. Robert Lowell. Kinnell. Bly. Judith Minty! I knew that there were vast worlds––universes––in those books. More wisdom. More mind-expanding erudition than any drug could provide. Even without reading them at an early age, they were physically and tangibly within my reach. And I eventually did. Am still reading them. No academic or institution could have led me into such rich terrain. No. I was surrounded by books. My father read them.

8. Do you prefer writing in the day or at night?

I prefer writing whenever I can. If I am driving and a good line comes to me I need to write it down immediately. This is a dangerous practice and I don’t recommend it to anyone. Poems, or ideas for poems, do not come easily. I snatch them up greedily whenever they appear.

9. What’s your favorite poem in Folly?

That’s like asking which of your children is your favorite. I enjoy the response I get when I read “In the Parking Lot of the Dry Cleaners” or “Never-Never Land” or “Etc. Etc.”

10. What was your inspiration for the poem, “The Young Girl”?

“The Young Girl”, along with other poems like “Never-Never Land”, “Toes”, “Country Mark,” “Auto Repair Shop”, etc. are simply anecdotal. They are accounts of what I have witnessed by being in a certain place at a certain time and paying attention to the intricacies of the moment. This is my favorite kind of poem––one that doesn’t try to theorize or pontificate.

"Howl" Discussion Questions

"Usually during the composition, step by step, word by word and adjective by adjective, if it’s at all spontaneous, I don’t know whether it even makes sense sometimes. Sometimes I do know it makes complete sense, and I start crying. Because I realize I’m hitting some area which is absolutely true. And in that sense applicable universally, or understandable universally. In that sense able to survive through time—in that sense to be read by somebody and wept to, maybe, centuries later. In that sense prophecy, because it touches a common key . . . What prophecy actually is is not that you actually know that the bomb will fall in 1942. It’s that you know and feel something that somebody knows and feels in a hundred years. And maybe articulate it in a hint—a concrete way that they can pick up on in a hundred years." -Allen Ginsberg

According to Ginsberg and the film…

1) What is the problem with literature? In other words, what’s the major trouble that many would-be contemporary writers run into?

2) In the film, the prosecution says that the judge should take into account how the “average person” will respond to “Howl.” What’s the problem with this?

3) During World War One, Siegfried Sassoon and John Owen were extremely celebrated war heroes who started writing gritty, straightforward poems about what life was really like on the front lines. As soon as they did so, they became controversial figures and the object of ridicule. Eventually, though, majority opinion shifted. Are there any other instances that you can think of in which the majority view on an issue changed, but only after a fight?

4) “If you’re a foot fetishist, write about feet. If you’re a stock market freak, you can write about the rising sales curve erections of the Standard Oil chart.” What’s Ginsberg saying here?

5) What does “Moloch,” an ancient deity associated with child sacrifices, seem to represent in “Howl”?

6) Ginsberg writes: “They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! … Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!” This seems to echo religious/philosophical views from Zen Buddhism (which states that our attachments to trivial things impedes our personal growth) and a passage from the Gospel of Thomas (one of many texts omitted from the canonized Bible) that says the following: “the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you… Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there.” How does this relate to the later, “holy holy holy” section of the poem? How does that conflict with traditional, conservative views of religion, the world, Heaven, etc?

7) The defense attorney equates parts of “Howl” to the Book of Job which (like Ecclesiastes) speaks openly of the suffering and despair of Man. According to the witness, Professor David Kirk (played in the film by Jeff Daniels), this is a bad comparison because (in Kirk’s view) Ginsberg is advocating the total destruction of society. Do you agree?

8) Did you notice any similarities among the trial witnesses who were either praising or deriding “Howl”?

9) Parallels are often drawn between “Howl” and a famous poem by 19^th century poet and abolitionist, Walt Whitman (especially Whitman's long poem, Song of Myself, which he kept expanding throughout his life). Ginsberg even addresses Whitman directly in his poem, A Supermarket in California. How are their styles similar and different? Quick aside: think of your writing as a conversation with the reader. You can also write poems or stories inspired by or even addressing other writers, other artists long gone.

Another quick aside: here's probably my favorite poem by Walt Whitman, called When I heard the learn'd astronomer (Whitman didn't title many of his poems so, for convenience, scholars later titled them by their first lines, something they also did with the poetry of Emily Dickinson).

More Examples of Scansion

Ignorance

by Joel Brouwer

The authors you haven't read are cooking over campfires in your backyard. They've pitched tents and dug a well. You knew they'd eventually come to haunt you in their frock coats and togas, wagging ink-stained fingers: shame, shame. But they don't seem irked: they sing as they peel potatoes, they've set up a volleyball net. You say / thought you'd be angry, which cracks them up. Hell no, they roar. Have some lunch! Your mind floods with the morphine of relief. Someone ladles you a plate of soup. You can see your face in there. You can see right through it.

The authors you haven't read are cooking over campfires in your backyard. They've pitched tents and dug a well. You knew they'd eventually come to haunt you in their frock coats and togas, wagging ink-stained fingers: shame, shame. But they don't seem irked: they sing as they peel potatoes, they've set up a volleyball net. You say I thought you'd be angry, which cracks them up. Hell no, they roar. Have some lunch! Your mind floods with the morphine of relief. Someone ladles you a plate of soup. You can see your face in there. You can see right through it.

Bold—what you’d stress (eh, probably).

Italics—might stress, depending on context/reading style.

Compound words (backyard, someone, campfire) might have both syllables slightly stressed, since each syllable would be a word on its own. Contrast that with words like author, cooking, morphine, etc.

Where the energy comes from: OK, obviously as a prose-poem, it isn’t gaining energy from line breaks, but it does gain energy from the format, i.e. the prose-poem structure might force you to read this a little faster and view this from the lens of a “traditional” short story (though in terms of content, it definitely isn’t). Otherwise, the piece gains energy from the weird/imaginative scene, plus the use of more stressed than unstressed syllables (which might be why it sounds surreal but slightly creepy).

Observation Exercise

I’ve noticed so far that people are doing quite well in terms of adding emotional and sometimes philosophical pull to their poems, as well as being personally invested in their writing, but we’re still a little lacking on the main ingredient: imagery. So with that in mind, we’ll try a little exercise.

1) Go to where people are (probably the Atrium).

2) Spy on them without being too obviously creepy.

3) Take note of their physical appearance, body language, etc.

4) Jot down any quotes you overhear.

5) You can observe as many people as you want, mix details, etc., to produce the one or two characters you want to write about.

6) Then, write a narrative poem giving as much physical description (and as little exposition) as possible.

7) The final requirement: if your overheard quote sounds silly, or is not grammatical, or seems to portray your character as shallow, you have to try and have them perform an action in the poem (even a small one) that redeems them. If the quote makes them appear kind or intellectual, try to have body language hint at the opposite.

Form and Spacing in Poetry

When it comes to the format of a poem, different approaches have different benefits and risks. One form might build energy by incorporating line breaks that slow the reader down and create the possibility for double-meanings. Another approach might sacrifice line breaks but build tension by forcing the reader to read more quickly, more frantically. Still another approach can isolate certain words and phrases for extra emphasis, irony, etc. What form you take is entirely up to you, of course, though experimenting with different forms can help you make an informed decision. To see what I mean, compare the original format of Stanley Kunitz's famous poem, "The Portrait," with some other versions I made.

The Portrait (original version)

by Stanley Kunitz

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

The Portrait (non-Kunitz version 2)

My mother never forgave my father for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time and in a public park,

that spring when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name in her deepest cabinet

and would not let him out, though I could hear him

thumping. When I came down from the attic

with the pastel portrait in my hand of a long-lipped

stranger with a brave moustache and deep brown level eyes,

she ripped it into shreds without a single word
and slapped me hard. In my sixty-fourth year

I can feel my cheek still burning.

The Portrait (non-Kunitz version 3)

My mother never forgave

my father

for killing himself,

especially

at such an awkward time

and in a public park, that spring when

I was waiting

to be born. She locked his name in her

deepest cabinet and would not

let him out,

though I could

hear him

thumping.

When I came down from the attic

with the pastel portrait in my hand

of a long-lipped stranger

with a brave

moustache and deep brown

level eyes, she ripped it

into shreds

without a single word

and slapped me hard.

In my sixty-fourth year

I can feel

my cheek

still burning.

The Portrait (non-Kunitz version 4)

My mother never forgave my father for killing himself, especially at such an awkward time and in a public park, that spring when I was waiting to be born. She locked his name in her deepest cabinet and would not let him out, though I could hear him thumping. When I came down from the attic with the pastel portrait in my hand of a long-lipped stranger with a brave moustache and deep brown level eyes, she ripped it into shreds without a single word and slapped me hard. In my sixty-fourth year I can feel my cheek still burning.

An Advanced Lesson on Sound

We've talked a bit about the psychological impact of sound as it relates to poetry (in other words, how different sounds, on their own, invoke a certain subconscious feeling).

Basically, this is an extension of what happens when we listen to music. This is a hard lesson to absorb but paying attention to the frequency (high, medium, low) of your vowel sounds can help you work your magic on the reader's subconscious. You can also invoke that through the use of "high, medium, or low" alliteration and/or imagery. More on that later.

Let's look at this from a purely musical angle. If you have the know-how and an instrument, now's the time to use 'em. Otherwise, here's a simple little program that will work fine for what I'm trying to illustrate.

Basically, you just click on a box from each column to play a note (press space bar to clear and start over). Boxes that are higher in the column produce higher notes, and vice versa. Mess around with this. Your goal: produce a sequence of notes that sounds melancholy, or downright sad, versus one that sounds more uplifting.

Once you've done that, look at the placement of those notes. You'll probably notice that a melancholy tune starts low or high, goes high, then ends lower. That last part creates the descending emotional feeling that can sound sad, or bittersweet, melancholy, etc. On the other hand, an uplifting tune might be all over the place but probably ends on an ascending note, and may have higher notes throughout.

The $50,000 point: it's entirely possible to replicate this with word choice. It's not easy, but it's what distinguishes lyrical from tone-deaf poetry.

Now, you may be thinking that if there are only 3 basic vowel frequencies (high = E and I, middle = A and Y, low = U and O), how can you get that kind of range? Well, first thing’s first. If you want to write an uplifting poem, basic limitations of language and spelling won’t let you use only words that have E and I vowel sounds. So don’t go nuts. You’re just going for a simple majority here. Also, you don’t have to restrict yourself to vowel frequencies. Mix in images whose denotation and/or connotation furthers what you’re going for.

So in practical terms: if you want an ominous poem, back up your lower frequency vowel sounds with some ominous imagery. Or maybe you use uplifting imagery but low vowel sounds to create a trapped feeling, a tension between the two. If you want a derisive and slightly hopeful poem, maybe you use ominous connotations but higher vowel sounds (or vice versa).

On the other hand, an uplifting poem with high frequency vowel sounds AND uplifting imagery might seem a bit cheesy—meaning, it doesn’t have enough grit in it, so throw in some lower frequency vowel sounds and less cheery imagery. And it's also worth pointing out that a poem with high frequency vowel sounds AND "happy" imagery can't really invoke a negative feeling, EXCEPT the feeling that it's cliche and/or cheesy, and two dimensional.

OK, now consider alliteration. Obviously, a hard K sound invokes a different feeling (all else being equal) than a smooth S sound. So if you want to invoke a soothing, steady feeling, you’re probably not going to use lots of hard alliteration (hard K, hard G, etc). On the other hand, you might use lots of hard alliteration if you want to build suspense, make things seem a little more chaotic.

Think of all these different factors (the psychological impact/connotation of your word choice, vowel sounds, and alliteration) as ingredients. How you mix them is based entirely on your lyrical aesthetic.

As with anything, there are plenty of exceptions to the rules. In fact, you might do exactly the opposite of everything I’ve said and still get from A to B with good results. Either way, though, developing an ear for this will greatly help your writing (whether you’re talking about poetry or prose) and I’d wager that on a subconscious level, this is exactly what all great writers and songwriters are doing.

General Discussion Questions

1) Given the subjective nature of art, what can we actually do in terms of objective diagnosis when we read a poem or story? Phrased more bluntly, how can you tell if the writer actually invested real time and effort into her/his piece?

2) Pointed question: for those who don't necessarily plan to pursue an MFA in poetry and/or continue writing it, what possible benefit can poetry have on their fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting, and general human existence?

3) Another pointed question: how long does it take you to finish a ROUGH DRAFT of a 10-15 page story or piece of creative nonfiction?

4) Given the soaring number of journals out there (both online and in print), the odds are pretty good that even a "bad" piece can get published. Adding to this the subjective nature of art, what's the point in spending so much time crafting and refining a piece?

5) Here's a harsh truth: the majority of creative writing instructors (at both the undergrad and graduate level) do NOT offer very much honest, constructive criticism, instead relying mostly on praise or avoidance. Why is that?

6) Bearing all that in mind, let's work together to critique, compare, and contrast the following three poems by former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins.

The First Dream
by Billy Collins

The wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

Shoveling Snow with Buddha
by Billy Collins

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

(This last poem was written in response to 9/11)

The Names
by Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Schools of Poetry

Professor Meyerhofer

Schools of Poetry

There are many different schools of poetry reflecting (or reacting to) major shifts in history and culture. Here are just some of the different classifications and schools that affect us as contemporary writers. Some poets’ individual poems might fit into different schools, obviously, but here’s the general layout.

The Romantics (late 18^th and early to mid 19^th century)—these are probably the poets you read in high school. Romantic poets tended to write formally—that is, with strict rhyme and meter. Examples: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, Mary Shelley, Samuel Coleridge, etc.

The Imagists (early 1900s)—these poets reacted to the lofty language of the Romantics by stressing clear, “simple” imagery (hence the name). Examples: T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, etc. Eliot’s famous poems, The Waste Land and The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock come out of this movement. Imagist poems are often a bit more overtly “personal”, but not quite confessional. This is often seen as the dawn of English free verse (although its granddaddy, Walt Whitman, died in 1892).

The Beats (1940s)—Examples: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Mostly New York poets known for more political and social commentary, bawdy subject matter, free association, etc. Ginsberg’s famous poem, Howl, fits in here. Subjects like drug use, rebellion, and sexuality (also homosexuality) are often graphically addressed in Beat poetry. The Beat poets are known for high energy work that signaled an increase in the accessibility of poetry to a wider audience.

The Confessionalists (50s, 60s)—U.S. poets who drew off their own personal experience in a more direct manner. Examples: Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, John Berryman (famous for The Dream Songs), etc. Some would say that Sharon Olds and Marie Howe fit into this category. Note: this is when we start seeing female poets gain respect (and criticism). Before the Confessionalists, poetry was often considered a man’s game.

The New York School—seen as a reaction to the Confessionalists, started close to the same time (maybe a bit later). Their writing is often more abstract (maybe less “I”), more cosmopolitan (a little more focus on the world than on the inner self), although they had quite a bit in common with the Beats. Some drew inspiration from art, especially surrealist painters like Jackson Pollock. Examples of “New York School” poets: John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koche and Frank O’Hara.

Deep Image (latter half of the 20^th century to present)—these poets rely on concrete images, allowing the imagery to tell the story (Deep Image poems are usually narrative) and generate the feeling (they often have a strong lyrical component as well). Examples: James Wright, Galway Kinnell, maybe George Bilgere.

There are many other schools—the Black Mountain poets, the San Francisco Renaissance, etc.—that are a little obscure. You also have Language Poets (inspired by Gertrude Stein, who died in ’46), who push the boundaries of form and syntax. Slam Poets, very popular right now, focus almost entirely on presentation rather than how a poem actually looks/reads on the page. The closer we get to the present, the harder it becomes to lump poets into categories or define the prevailing school of thought. You also have a lot of poets who might seem, say, Confessional on one page then Deep Image on the next.

All we can really say about now is that we’re living right smack dab in this hyper-social/super-political/mega-technological confusion we call the Postmodern Age. As with music—more than ever—there are countless different genres, forms, theories, reactions, and reactions to the reactions all floating around (and competing) simultaneously. Basically, you have to establish (and often reassess) your own Personal Aesthetic—that is, what you like, what you don’t like, and why—and go with it.

Sample Prose-Poems

Prose-poetry is pretty similar to flash fiction (or flash nonfiction, if you prefer). Essentially, a prose-poem is a poem without line breaks. So what makes it poetry? Well, ask ten people and you’ll get ten different answers; personally, though, I think the difference between prose-poetry and flash fiction is that flash fiction has multiple paragraphs and prose-poetry is [usually] just one paragraph, but still has poetry’s super-emphasis on lyricism. Here are some examples:

Ignorance

by Joel Brouwer

Two untitled Prose-Poems by Gary Young

I discovered a journal in the children's ward, and read, I'm a mother, my little boy has cancer. Further on, a girl has written, this is my nineteenth operation. She says, sometimes it's easier to write than to talk, and I'm so afraid. She's offered me a page in the book. My son is sleeping in the room next door. This afternoon, I held my whole weight to his body while a doctor drove needles deep into his leg. My son screamed, Daddy, they're hurting me, don't let them hurt me, make them stop. I want to write, how brave you are, but I need a little courage of my own, so I write, forgive me, I know I let them hurt you, please don't worry. If I have to, I can do it again.

My son is learning about death, about the possibilities. His cat was killed. Then Mark died, then Ernesto. He watched the news, and saw soldiers bulldozed into the earth after battle. Down the road, a boy his age was found floating in a pond. My son says, we're careful about water, and splashes in his own warm bath. We don't want to die, he says, we want to live forever. We only just die later, he says, and nods his head. Death is comprehensible; what comes later is a week away, or two, and never arrives.

The Real Politics of Lipstick
by Mary Carroll-Hackett

She learned the secret authority of her mouth at a young age, too young to form the words, but she understood the looks men gave at the innocence of the Tootsie Pop in her lips, a generous mouth her mother called it, easily sliding from a smile to a sulk, that ice cream cone a weapon that she wielded easily by the age of fourteen, the sweet cream of it deliberately left on the cushion of her bottom lip as she watched them stare, sweat, shift away from their wives. Look up at me, look up at me, they said, and she did, especially after she discovered the ultimate power of lipstick, blood red for regular guys her age, who wanted to rush, wanted to own the cleft of her upper lip, the tangle of hair they fisted at the crown of her head, but she switched to blushing pink for older men, that sweet slow youth they struggled to remember, cotton candy, candy apple smeared across her cheek as they mouthed thank you thank you thank—. They all thought they were taking her, as she knelt, eyes lifted, thinking of nothing more than how for that moment, she owned them, branded each forever with the tip of her tongue, shadowy traces of lipstick that would never completely wash away.

It Doesn’t

by Randall Brown

They come up to tell me what a good person I am, for letting the cook’s daughter swim with us. The girls build a village of sand hamlets—and a man carries chairs, sets them up, covers each one with a towel, adjusts the umbrella. I ask him about his own kids. They live in Canada with their mother while he works. “It must be hard,” I say and press money into his hand. He can’t thank me enough. The same with the woman bringing me the mango-banana daiquiri. I make a joke about wanting a tiny umbrella, and she returns with one and some pineapple and cherries. The girls build a moat to protect their town. I read the condensed New York Times, listen to an Elton John playlist. A chicken now and then runs from the bushes to the gravel to the sand and then back. Someone wants to know if it bothers me. He will kill the chicken if it does.

The Straightforward Mermaid

by Matthea Harvey

The straightforward mermaid starts every sentence with “Look . . . ” This comes from being raised in a sea full of hooks. She wants to get points 1, 2, and 3 across, doesn’t want to disappear like a river into the ocean. When she’s feeling despairing, she goes to eddies at the mouth of the river and tries to comb the water apart with her fingers. The straightforward mermaid has already said to five sailors, “Look, I don’t think this is going to work,” before sinking like a sullen stone. She’s supposed to teach Rock Impersonation to the younger mermaids, but every beach field trip devolves into them trying to find shells to match their tail scales. They really love braiding. “Look,” says the straightforward mermaid. “Your high ponytails make you look like fountains, not rocks.” Sometimes she feels like a third gender—preferring primary colors to pastels, the radio to singing. At least she’s all mermaid: never gets tired of swimming, hates the thought of socks.

The Plains

by Larry Levis

I put down my detective novel and look out, over the plains. So much light. If anything was out there, I would see it. But there are only a few nervous farmers and their wives. It occurs to me that one of these families could be my own, lost in bitterness, like a sideshow at a county fair. This way they live and tell nobody. This way the few elms that are left get back their leaves. This way, whenever I look up, somebody else is missing.

Lullaby for the Elderly

by David Young

Under the hum and whir of night, under the covers, deep in the bed, beyond all the calling of doves, past the great flares of love and pain, the daily bread and grind, it's warm as a pot, soft as a breast. It's the deep woods, the place where you come to a clearing, find the still pool, and slip gently into it—to bathe, to dive, to drown.

Your mother is there, under the leaves, smelling of milk, and your father is hiding among the trees. A giant hand tousles your hair, and the mouse is there with its dangerous eyes, the bear with his shimmering fur, the rivers that thunder off ledges and spill into gorges as mist.

When you wake, refreshed, murmur a blessing for those who have never returned. Say a word to the corn and the wheat, to the deer and squirrels and whistling toads, who brought you right up to the edge of the woods and let you go in on your own.