Well, what a pleasant surprise today... an e-mail from Victoria Chang, in response to the posts below. I asked for -- and got -- permission from her to publish it here... so here it is.
Brian,
This is Victoria Chang. AD Thomas pointed me out to your blog posting about my book and I just wanted to drop you a quick note to tell you I really appreciate your careful analysis of my book, in particular your constructive criticism of the weaker poems. I too struggled with the exact poems (and many more) within the book, as they are such old poems, but ultimately decided they were central to the book's arc (I still agree with you, however :-) and that's why I never read those poems during readings! Anyway, thanks again for purchasing the book, reading it, and giving it your attention.
Hope you're doing well in Canada!
Victoria
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Monday, May 30, 2005
SYNECDOCHE & VICTORIA CHANG
As I was reading through Victoria Chang's Circle, a half-forgotten term from my U of T English Literature years -- my god! it's twenty-five years ago -- kept nudging its way persistently into consciousness: Synecdoche. My allergic reaction to the overly systematic use of terms like synecdoche, repetend, hypallage -- all part and parcel of the jargon-filled structuralist (it wasn't yet post-s.) criticism so much the academic rage in those days -- was one of a number of reasons I decided not to persue a post-graduate degree in English literature. Now, for all I care, synecdoche and its little brother, metonymy, could be wingers on the Czech Republic hockey team. (I can just hear it: Synecdoche, he passes the puck to Metonymy, back to Synecdoche, he shoots, he SCORES!) But here I kept thinking as I read Victoria Chang's poetry: "synecdoche".... "good synecdoche"... hmm.
Question : how the can one critically apply this stuff every day, have it uppermost in mind, and still write passionate, groundbreaking poetry?
Nope. Still not obvious to me. After all these years.
Answer that one for me if you can...
How weird, I thought.
Here's a simple example, from a simple poem (well, not so simple!) that I very much enjoy. I copied it from her website.
MORNING PORRIDGE
Before the pork buns steamed
in the pot, moisture in their
white folds, before the dried tofu
was trimmed into thin strips,
my father raked long-grain rice
out of the mesh bag, poured a bowl
of porridge, spread dried pork
shreds and salted peanuts into
a heap on top. Each morning
my grandmother listened for steam
rising up the stairs. She reclined
on her bed with the blue hydrangea
pattern I wanted. I handed her
the tray, glanced at the expanding
brown mass on her face. Day
after day, my father told me not to
wear white in my hair, not to leave
chopsticks vertical in a bowl of rice.
I did it anyway. One by one, the raisins
I stole from the box on her bedside table.
Don't you love that image of the vertical chopsticks in a bowl of rice? They stick persistantly into memory -- as I made dinner this evening (and it wasn't even rice), I thought of them. As I went to bed last night (no, I wasn't thinking about sex...), I thought of them. That they would be interpreted as bad, rude, whatever, and that she would be told not to leave them that way, but that she persisted in doing so anyway... isn't that emblematic of venerable Chinese custom, of restriction, of her nascent rebellion? And what of those little raisins she keeps stealing, "one by one"? The atmosphere -- her father's role is so deftly described, her grandmother, the expectations, the restraint, the self-regard.... The only thing that gives me pause (in a doubtful way) is the "expanding brown mass on her face". What is that? A smile? A cancer of some kind? I suppose the porridge...
But those chopsticks. Those raisins. Morning porridge -- morning being the beginning of life, + the pabulum we are all fed with... so emblematic! Yet so limpid, so simple...
Synecdoche. Synecdoche...
Because I am rusty on my rhetorical terminology I actually looked up synecdoche in my yellowing (and yes, dust-covered) Holman's Handbook to Literature, to see if I was remembering right. I am sure that many of you are also rusty -- or perhaps virgins to the intellectual rape that is hard-core structuralist criticism (please allow me the luxury of hard-won prejudices) -- so here, at the risk of being charged with a major offence, it is:
Synechdoche: A form of METAPHOR which in mentioning a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part. In order to be clear, a good synecdoche must be based on an important part of the whole and not a minor part and, usually, the part selected to stand for the whole must be the part most directly associated with the subject under discussion. Thus under the first restriction we say motor for automobile (rather than tire), and under the second we speak of infantry on the march as foot rather than as hands just as we use hands rather than foot for men who are at work at manual labor.
Question : how the can one critically apply this stuff every day, have it uppermost in mind, and still write passionate, groundbreaking poetry?
Nope. Still not obvious to me. After all these years.
Answer that one for me if you can...
Saturday, May 28, 2005
A PLUG FOR CIRCLE
Victoria Chang's Circle is one book I just had to order as soon as it came out. I just had to get to know the poetry of/within/behind that extraordinary poet blogger so many of us enjoyed and admired.
I finally got it last week, and finished a first read-through yesterday. (Seems it was delayed... so was another book in the same order, Janet Frame's Angel at My Table, which still hasn't arrived at this table...)
Anyway, it's nice to report that this is one book I'm really glad I did order. Every poem was engaging -- the standout poems, the OK poems, even the poems I felt could have been better realized. Each offered rewards. V Chang definitely offers significant things to learn from a poem-making point of view.
Certain poets make one feel the force of their mastery of one or two elements or strategems common to much good poetry, but which are particularly salient in theirs. Robyn Sarah, as I was saying a few weeks back, makes one feel the force of her concision, of her precise control of conversational language;Victoria Chang makes one feel the mastery of another element: the laying out intelligent clues.
The strongest poems in the collection -- excellent poems by any standard -- were, for me, Yang Gui Fe, Eva Braun at Bershtesgarden, Kitchen Aid Epicurean Stand Mixer, and Lantern Festival. In these a whole life or lives seemed to hang on an image or line, and in almost any given poem, a sequence of deftly placed lines or images outline a deliberate "story" or subtext.
If there are weaker poems in the collection, it seems to me that the clues provided are meagre, arbitary; they don't connect with a sufficiently strong necessity to satisfy me. "The Laws of the Garden" is one; "The Goal" and "Majority Rules" are two others. However, the poem that first appeared in Slate, Holiday Parties, struck me in an annoying way as one of these, but a careful re-reading reveals it to be a remarkable depiction of the social pressures faced by a young woman coming of age in a Chinese American family in the incongruous context of socially-disconnected North America. So at this point word is out on a number of these "insufficient" poems; for me, perhaps, all they deserve is a careful re-reading.
Anyway, I'll leave this as a sketch of a review -- a review in process, if you will, if I ever follow through. Clearly, though, Circle is well worth reading, and re-reading... & Victoria Chang a talented poet worth watching...
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
FROM CAMPBELL'S KITCHEN
TOFU SALAD
Take a bar of Tofu (I use a 16 ounce "Fine Herbs" type, because it's more interesting, but any type of tofu will do), chop it up fine. I find the best method is to use a cleaver and cut it up on a cutting board. Then transfer to a suitable bowl.
Add a few gloops of Miracle Whip (or other mayonnaise -- I use about a third of a 14-ounce jar), stir it around with a fork until it's mixed.
A few sprinkles of cayenne pepper, mix this in. (Optional: but to give it a bit of zest...)
Add green onions, chopped fine. (I use about three sprigs)
Add about half a red bell pepper, chopped (green will also do, of course, but I prefer red).
Add tomato, chopped. (I tend to prefer about 10 cherry tomatoes, cut up three or four ways -- but that's me).
Mix it all in, of course, and add salt & pepper to taste...
Other possible add-ins: chopped fresh parsely, chives, celery, baby carrots, or even adult carrots chopped small enough....
Serve with toasted English muffins, bagels, on rye toast, or just as a side-salad. It's actually quite filling...and truly delicious.
Monday, May 23, 2005
QUEBEC CITY
I got back from Quebec City last night. We had a beautiful time, despite gloomy weather. We found a lovely and reasonable bed and breakfast hotel on a picturesque street right downtown (it's called B & B a L'Augustine, and it can be found on the net -- highly recommend it), had a fantastic meal on rue St-Jean (a charming street with several excellent bring-your-own-wine restaurants where the Quebecois go, the Old City having been pretty well taken over by the tourists) , walked many walks, ducked into many shops, then took in some remarkable art by mostly Quebec artists at Musee de beaux arts, itself a remarkable building.
In the Musee, it was great to see rooms full of paintings and sculptures by Jean-Paul Riopelle as well as other Quebec artists like Alfred Pellan and Robert Roussil (check out his Mother & Child), but what really blew me away was a masterpiece called Gravity/City/Clouds by Pierre Granche, a sculptor I really knew nothing about. The above link, which only shows the upper part of the scupture, doesn't do it justice: it's quite a big installation, mostly in marble (even the clouds are marble, although standing on "rain" of steel wires,), and the ethereal/apocalyptic city (recognizably downtown Montreal) rests on a tower and platform of crudely hewn marble stairs, only partly seen here, which itself rests on a wheeled wooden locomotive chassis on railway tracks, suggesting that the whole vision is gliding on the rails of industry and machinery... so whimsical, evocative and delightfully weird.
Researching Granche, I discovered that he was a truly major figure in the Quebec arts scene before his untimely death at 49 in 1997, and that he's responsible for a number of major public works in Montreal which I had already seen in passing, such as this, this , and this.
Perhaps though the most quintessentially "Quebecois" poetic moment was rereading Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912-43) in a cafe in the Old City. For some reason I was under the impression that this poet lived and wrote in Quebec City, but turns out he spent most of his brief life in Montreal.
Here's a poem of his that nevertheless captures the strange alacrity one feels walking those streets. Of course, it could be about walking anywere, and it turns out the poem was definitely written in Montreal (where one also frequently feels that kind of joy... one reason I choose to stay here!). The translation is by FR Scott. Much of the music, naturally, is lost. The original follows.
ACCOMPANIMENT
I walk beside a joy
Beside a joy that is not mine
A joy of mine which I cannot take
I walk beside myself in joy
I hear my footsteps in joy marching beside me
But I cannot put my feet in those steps and say
Look it is I
For the moment I am content with this company
But secretly I plot an exchange
By all sorts of devices, by alchemies
By blood transfusion
Displacement of atoms
by balancing tricks
So that one day, transposed,
I may be carried along by the dance of those steps of joy
With the noise of my footsteps dying away beside me
With the fall of my own lost step
fading to my left
Under the feet of a stranger
who turns down a side street.
ACCOMPAGNEMENT
Je marche à côté de d'une joie
D'une joie que n'est pas à moi
D'une joie à moi que je ne puis pas prendre
Je marche à côté de moi en joie
J'entends mon pas en joie qui marche à côté de moi
Mais je ne puis changer de place sur le trottoir
Je ne puis pas metre mes pies dans ces pas-là
et dire voilà c'est moi
Je me contente pour le moment de cette compagnie
Mais je machine en secret des échanges
Par toutes sortes d'opérations, des alchimies,
Par des transfusions de sang
Des démanagements d'atomes
par les jeux d'équilibre
Afin qu'un jour, transposé,
Je sois porté par la danse de ces pas de joie
Avec la bruit décroissant de mon pas à côté de moi
Avec la perte de mon pas perdu
s'étiolant à ma gauche
Sous les pieds d'un étranger
qui prend une rue transversale.
In the Musee, it was great to see rooms full of paintings and sculptures by Jean-Paul Riopelle as well as other Quebec artists like Alfred Pellan and Robert Roussil (check out his Mother & Child), but what really blew me away was a masterpiece called Gravity/City/Clouds by Pierre Granche, a sculptor I really knew nothing about. The above link, which only shows the upper part of the scupture, doesn't do it justice: it's quite a big installation, mostly in marble (even the clouds are marble, although standing on "rain" of steel wires,), and the ethereal/apocalyptic city (recognizably downtown Montreal) rests on a tower and platform of crudely hewn marble stairs, only partly seen here, which itself rests on a wheeled wooden locomotive chassis on railway tracks, suggesting that the whole vision is gliding on the rails of industry and machinery... so whimsical, evocative and delightfully weird.
Researching Granche, I discovered that he was a truly major figure in the Quebec arts scene before his untimely death at 49 in 1997, and that he's responsible for a number of major public works in Montreal which I had already seen in passing, such as this, this , and this.
Perhaps though the most quintessentially "Quebecois" poetic moment was rereading Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912-43) in a cafe in the Old City. For some reason I was under the impression that this poet lived and wrote in Quebec City, but turns out he spent most of his brief life in Montreal.
Here's a poem of his that nevertheless captures the strange alacrity one feels walking those streets. Of course, it could be about walking anywere, and it turns out the poem was definitely written in Montreal (where one also frequently feels that kind of joy... one reason I choose to stay here!). The translation is by FR Scott. Much of the music, naturally, is lost. The original follows.
ACCOMPANIMENT
I walk beside a joy
Beside a joy that is not mine
A joy of mine which I cannot take
I walk beside myself in joy
I hear my footsteps in joy marching beside me
But I cannot put my feet in those steps and say
Look it is I
For the moment I am content with this company
But secretly I plot an exchange
By all sorts of devices, by alchemies
By blood transfusion
Displacement of atoms
by balancing tricks
So that one day, transposed,
I may be carried along by the dance of those steps of joy
With the noise of my footsteps dying away beside me
With the fall of my own lost step
fading to my left
Under the feet of a stranger
who turns down a side street.
ACCOMPAGNEMENT
Je marche à côté de d'une joie
D'une joie que n'est pas à moi
D'une joie à moi que je ne puis pas prendre
Je marche à côté de moi en joie
J'entends mon pas en joie qui marche à côté de moi
Mais je ne puis changer de place sur le trottoir
Je ne puis pas metre mes pies dans ces pas-là
et dire voilà c'est moi
Je me contente pour le moment de cette compagnie
Mais je machine en secret des échanges
Par toutes sortes d'opérations, des alchimies,
Par des transfusions de sang
Des démanagements d'atomes
par les jeux d'équilibre
Afin qu'un jour, transposé,
Je sois porté par la danse de ces pas de joie
Avec la bruit décroissant de mon pas à côté de moi
Avec la perte de mon pas perdu
s'étiolant à ma gauche
Sous les pieds d'un étranger
qui prend une rue transversale.
Friday, May 20, 2005
The Glorious Age of Amphigory
Phrontistry is a fun little site (actually a fun gigantic site), a compendium of unusual (mostly) polysyllabic words.
One word I came across that bears some relevance to ongoing discussions:
Amphigory am'fi-ge-ree, n (French amphigouri, of unknown origin)
A nonsense verse. Specifically, a poem designed to look and sound good, but which has no meaning upon closer reading. The term 'amphigory' could be applied to large segments of modern poetry, except that its authors probably actually believe that what they are writing is something other than a meaningless trifle.
Some of us go on to amphiglory, I suppose.
But who is the glorious logogue, pray tell, to determine once and for all that a poem is truly amphigorious?
Accuse me of conphrontistry on this one, but this calls for serious logomachy!
By the way, I'm off for the weekend with my partner to Quebec City, to walk the cobbled streets, eat in a fabulous restaurant, stay in an 18th C. auberge, take in the Musee de Beaux Arts. A la prochaine!
One word I came across that bears some relevance to ongoing discussions:
Amphigory am'fi-ge-ree, n (French amphigouri, of unknown origin)
A nonsense verse. Specifically, a poem designed to look and sound good, but which has no meaning upon closer reading. The term 'amphigory' could be applied to large segments of modern poetry, except that its authors probably actually believe that what they are writing is something other than a meaningless trifle.
Some of us go on to amphiglory, I suppose.
But who is the glorious logogue, pray tell, to determine once and for all that a poem is truly amphigorious?
Accuse me of conphrontistry on this one, but this calls for serious logomachy!
By the way, I'm off for the weekend with my partner to Quebec City, to walk the cobbled streets, eat in a fabulous restaurant, stay in an 18th C. auberge, take in the Musee de Beaux Arts. A la prochaine!
Thursday, May 19, 2005
NICE REJECTIONS
Poets crowing about their latest triumph -- ah, we hear it quite a bit in blogland, & who can blame 'em, I do it too -- but let me crow about this rejection e-mail I got a few weeks (well, quite a few weeks) back:
Dear Poet,
Thank you so much for submitting poems to the Spring, 2005 Issue of Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine.
Regrettably the editors either did not choose your poems or they were edited out because of space issues. Please do not be discouraged as the number of poems submitted this quarter was over 1500 from many points of Canada and there are different editors for next issue. Feel free to resubmit the same poems again or send new ones for the Summer Issue. The deadline for submissions is May 1st.
Well, I resubmitted the same pomes.
Frankly I find the Quills name and image far more cloying than the contents of this independent and unpretentious little journal, which takes email submissions excusively. (Maybe it should be called Electronic Quill, E-Quill for short.) If you click on that link, you'll see also that not only does it accept poems from "young and old, published or unpublished", it accepts submissions from poets who have died in the current year (or rather, from publishers of said poets), with DEAD POETS SUBMISSION in the subject line.
So if you've just died and happen to be reading this, take note.
For those who have not yet croaked, there's a yearly lust issue with pretty steamy cover pic under that trite insignia. Talk about dual personality. Or multiple. Hmmm.
Again, you have to be Canadian to submit to this one. None of you nasty Americans allowed.
We'll see if I win the Quills lottery this time. If not, well, I can keep on submitting ... even after I pass on into the next realm. Although I can only do so for a year after giving up my last breath.
Talk about a deadline!
Dear Poet,
Thank you so much for submitting poems to the Spring, 2005 Issue of Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine.
Regrettably the editors either did not choose your poems or they were edited out because of space issues. Please do not be discouraged as the number of poems submitted this quarter was over 1500 from many points of Canada and there are different editors for next issue. Feel free to resubmit the same poems again or send new ones for the Summer Issue. The deadline for submissions is May 1st.
Well, I resubmitted the same pomes.
Frankly I find the Quills name and image far more cloying than the contents of this independent and unpretentious little journal, which takes email submissions excusively. (Maybe it should be called Electronic Quill, E-Quill for short.) If you click on that link, you'll see also that not only does it accept poems from "young and old, published or unpublished", it accepts submissions from poets who have died in the current year (or rather, from publishers of said poets), with DEAD POETS SUBMISSION in the subject line.
So if you've just died and happen to be reading this, take note.
For those who have not yet croaked, there's a yearly lust issue with pretty steamy cover pic under that trite insignia. Talk about dual personality. Or multiple. Hmmm.
Again, you have to be Canadian to submit to this one. None of you nasty Americans allowed.
We'll see if I win the Quills lottery this time. If not, well, I can keep on submitting ... even after I pass on into the next realm. Although I can only do so for a year after giving up my last breath.
Talk about a deadline!
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
THE WRITER'S WORKSHOP
Didn't know that this hilarious send-up on comments made in writer's workshops that appeared in last summer's Poets & Writers was written by poet & blogger Jane Roper. Very unusual and original work, Jane. Loved the language...
Also courtesy of Jane, a poetry contest I may well enter....
Also courtesy of Jane, a poetry contest I may well enter....
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Save Cow Pastor - More From Kamau Brathwaite in Barbados
Thanks to Lorna Dee Cervantes' blog, here's an update on the plight (as well as struggle) of Kamau Braithwaite (I've gotten quite a number of google searches about this, by the way...)
Thanks toJordan Stempleman's First Nation here's the latest from poet, Kamau Brathwaite at Cow Pastor thanks to a site set up by Tom Raworth.
For more information:
Jean atOKIR has a sample of Kamau Brathwaite's poetry from "Stone" in Middle Passages. Click on the link to his name and you'll find a great site on him from the Online Poetry Classroom.
Night Jar (earlier short prose pieces.)
Jordan adds these suggestions: Hi, More info can be found here:
http://www.tomraworth.com/wordpress/
Letters to those responsible might help, as well as letters to the editors at Counterpunch:
counterpunch@counterpunch.org
&
Truthout:
http://www.truthout.org/contact.htm
& Native Forest Council:
http://www.forestcouncil.org/aboutus/contact.php
Thanks to
For more information:
Jean at
Jordan adds these suggestions: Hi, More info can be found here:
http://www.tomraworth.com/wordpress/
Letters to those responsible might help, as well as letters to the editors at Counterpunch:
counterpunch@counterpunch.org
&
Truthout:
http://www.truthout.org/contact.htm
& Native Forest Council:
http://www.forestcouncil.org/aboutus/contact.php
Thursday, May 12, 2005
DOING MY BEST AT WHAT I DO BEST
In this highly thought-provoking post about competition in poetry on Emily Lloyd's blog (one day old and superceded by several other entries, it's already nearing its expiry date!), the string of discussion went 22 comments before I joined the fun, and touched on such themes as writing to be remembered and the futility of that ambition in a time when we can practically taste that the end is near. Here how I weighed in (with a couple a' tiny revisions):
I'm a VERY late comer to this party. Maybe everybody's already left! But this might be the most appropriate time to say what I've got to say. About writing "to be remembered"... I've pretty well given up on that idea, as achieving it is pretty well completely "out of my control". When I write, it's out of an overriding need to do my best at what I do best, and believe me, if & when I manage it, there's got to be a certain eternity in that!
Felt good, saying that.
Eternity being timelessness.
Yah know what I mean?
That transcendental quality, where even caring about whether I, you, we live or die is part of the beauty.
Whether the "transcendence" is "imaginary" or "real" hardly matters -- it even goes beyond those categories!
But getting back to the categorical, Emily Lloyd's blog is a lively one. Today I've vaulted it up to one of my faves, as a blog to be watched.
I'm a VERY late comer to this party. Maybe everybody's already left! But this might be the most appropriate time to say what I've got to say. About writing "to be remembered"... I've pretty well given up on that idea, as achieving it is pretty well completely "out of my control". When I write, it's out of an overriding need to do my best at what I do best, and believe me, if & when I manage it, there's got to be a certain eternity in that!
Felt good, saying that.
Eternity being timelessness.
Yah know what I mean?
That transcendental quality, where even caring about whether I, you, we live or die is part of the beauty.
Whether the "transcendence" is "imaginary" or "real" hardly matters -- it even goes beyond those categories!
But getting back to the categorical, Emily Lloyd's blog is a lively one. Today I've vaulted it up to one of my faves, as a blog to be watched.
Monday, May 09, 2005
THE LARGEST SINGLE ORGANISM ON EARTH
Found, by chance, this surprising fact here :
What is the largest known single organism on Earth? A blue whale? A giant redwood? Actually the largest single organism known is a fungus (an individual of Armillaria ostoyae - one of the "honey mushrooms") growing in western Washington state. This organism consists mostly of underground mycelia and covers 2,200 acres. It is estimated to weigh perhaps 4,000 tons ( 8 million pounds) and is thought to be about 2,400 years old. A smaller individual (covering only 40 acres) of a related species, Armillaria bulbosa , which is growing in northern Michigan is thought to be as much as 10,000 years old, which if true, would make it the oldest known living organism on the planet.
Poetry workshop assignment: Write a sonnet from the point of view of that fungus. Make it an acrostic, so that the first letters spell out HUMONGUSFUNGUS. (Or if you must spell humongous properly, make it GREATBIGFUNGUS.) You have 20 minutes.
What is the largest known single organism on Earth? A blue whale? A giant redwood? Actually the largest single organism known is a fungus (an individual of Armillaria ostoyae - one of the "honey mushrooms") growing in western Washington state. This organism consists mostly of underground mycelia and covers 2,200 acres. It is estimated to weigh perhaps 4,000 tons ( 8 million pounds) and is thought to be about 2,400 years old. A smaller individual (covering only 40 acres) of a related species, Armillaria bulbosa , which is growing in northern Michigan is thought to be as much as 10,000 years old, which if true, would make it the oldest known living organism on the planet.
Poetry workshop assignment: Write a sonnet from the point of view of that fungus. Make it an acrostic, so that the first letters spell out HUMONGUSFUNGUS. (Or if you must spell humongous properly, make it GREATBIGFUNGUS.) You have 20 minutes.
KAMAU BRAITHWAITE
Bill Allegrezza's blog alerted me to this account of the plight of poet and scholar Kamau Braithwaite. Check in and do what you can to express your support and if you can do anything to help beyond that, please do so. (Anyone have any more info about this?)
Sunday, May 08, 2005
MY FIRST RIFF
AN APOLOGY
Sorry
I told them your secret
but it was chittering in my brain, and
itching in my abdomen like
suppressed laughter, yearning
to be drained out.
Sorry, I apologize,
but the opalescence of
all their startled then mirthful eyes, gazing
on me, as I was telling it, felt
so good
and
as I was spilling it out, every
precious detail,
I even thought once of your
desperate, brown intent face
as you imparted it to me
as we walked
in that cloudy, puddle-filled day.
Sorry
it felt so maliciously wonderful, though,
so deliciously exhilarating
I can't even regret it
I hope you'll understand.
This was my first published poem, written when I was sixteen. It was published in some teen magazine called Young Generation (I think my teacher sent it in), and later in Acta Victoriana, a mostly undergrad mag put out by Victoria College, University of Toronto. Interesting thing is, I still like the poem. I think I would take out "an" from the title, but that's as it was published then. As I said a couple of posts back, this was a riff -- modeled loosely on the idea of the William Carlos Williams poem below. (I think it was done in class...) Fellow classmates asked me what the secret was about, and couldn't believe it when I told them the incident was out of my imagination: I was obviously drawing on some similar experience, but I myself can't remember what it was.
THIS IS JUST TO SAY
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicioius
so sweet
and so cold
Friday, May 06, 2005
EVEN WHITMAN SAYS... DON'T BE A POET!
Here's the latest scoop, an interview with Walt Whitman where he says, don't be a poet! For some reason, this made the CBC... probably thwarted poets in their editorial rooms still trying to justify their unfortunate career choices...
Thursday, May 05, 2005
SPURS & RIFFS
A few days back Charles put up a highly engaging post about spurs to creativity -- whether our poems are spurred by events, "real causes in the world" or simply riffing on language itself. Lately he has been riffing, and after expressing some uneasiness about the authenticity of his "riff" poems, asked for others' opinions on how many of their poems were "riffs" as opposed to" spurred". Man, that man has a talent for eliciting feedback! This was my belated response, #12 of 13 in his comments box (& many of those other comments are well worth reading...):
I think when I was younger (i.e. in my 20's) specific spurs, as you call them, would inspire me and I frequently would be overcome with the urge to write about and from them.... like many I fell prey to dry periods when I became dependent on those kinds of involuntary urges to get me going and nothing else seemed a legitimate way to go about it. As I have gotten older, hate to say, a certain "seen it/done it" syndrome has reduced the frequency of those inspiring provocations. With accumulated experience, tho, I have found that riffing has definitely gotten richer -- that is, I can more consistently tap into surprising depths by simply playing with language itself. Good question, one that I still think about quite a bit. I guess I miss my once frequent rides on those mind-blowing brainwaves kicked up by groundswells of experience...
I guess his post made me feel nostalgiac and a bit sad.
Funny, though... today I went over my 50 most recent poems (or pretty fair attempts at poems), all written within the last year and a half or so, and how do they tally? 34 are definitely "spurred" by events or real circumstances, and 16 I would classify as "riffs". That's in percentage terms (easy to calculate, even for me!) 68% spurred, and 32% riff. Of course, as others pointed out there's a good deal of riffing within many spurred poems and events or actual circumstances that are drawn upon in riff poems, but mainly, we're talking point of departure here.
When I look back at earlier years, I see a lot of riffin' goin' on. In fact, my first "real poem", written when I was 16, was a riff. It was an apology about revealing somebody's secret, sort of modeled on the the WCW poem "This is Just to Say" apologizing for eating those plums from the icebox that were "so sweet and so cold". People asked me what the secret was about, and I had to admit the whole experience was made up, as it were, "by the poem". The poem later got published in Acta Victoriana, a lit mag put out by University of Toronto. I still recall it as a good one (the poem I mean, not necessarily the mag). If I find it (I'm sure I've got it somewhere) I'll post it.
There's also a whole other category of poems, dramatic monologues, a kind of riff on the spur of someone else's experience (whether literary, or "real"). I've written quite a few of those. . .
Where though did I get the impression that with age "riff poems" have somehow eclipsed "spur poems" in frequency and intensity?
I think it's because the last six poems I've written -- over the last two months -- have been very riffy, derived from automatic handwriting -- actually a couple of exercises from Behn & Twitchell's The Practice of Poetry, a very useful book, by the way, especially if you're feeling stuck. The desire to go back to those so-called "frequent rides" on the "mindblowing brainwaves from groundswells of experience" probably comes from my nostalgia for those early days where every poem seemed so ground-breaking, so momentous... along with the feeling that after six riffin' exercise poems, I already wanna get back on my spurs.
Ride 'em, cowboy!!
I think when I was younger (i.e. in my 20's) specific spurs, as you call them, would inspire me and I frequently would be overcome with the urge to write about and from them.... like many I fell prey to dry periods when I became dependent on those kinds of involuntary urges to get me going and nothing else seemed a legitimate way to go about it. As I have gotten older, hate to say, a certain "seen it/done it" syndrome has reduced the frequency of those inspiring provocations. With accumulated experience, tho, I have found that riffing has definitely gotten richer -- that is, I can more consistently tap into surprising depths by simply playing with language itself. Good question, one that I still think about quite a bit. I guess I miss my once frequent rides on those mind-blowing brainwaves kicked up by groundswells of experience...
I guess his post made me feel nostalgiac and a bit sad.
Funny, though... today I went over my 50 most recent poems (or pretty fair attempts at poems), all written within the last year and a half or so, and how do they tally? 34 are definitely "spurred" by events or real circumstances, and 16 I would classify as "riffs". That's in percentage terms (easy to calculate, even for me!) 68% spurred, and 32% riff. Of course, as others pointed out there's a good deal of riffing within many spurred poems and events or actual circumstances that are drawn upon in riff poems, but mainly, we're talking point of departure here.
When I look back at earlier years, I see a lot of riffin' goin' on. In fact, my first "real poem", written when I was 16, was a riff. It was an apology about revealing somebody's secret, sort of modeled on the the WCW poem "This is Just to Say" apologizing for eating those plums from the icebox that were "so sweet and so cold". People asked me what the secret was about, and I had to admit the whole experience was made up, as it were, "by the poem". The poem later got published in Acta Victoriana, a lit mag put out by University of Toronto. I still recall it as a good one (the poem I mean, not necessarily the mag). If I find it (I'm sure I've got it somewhere) I'll post it.
There's also a whole other category of poems, dramatic monologues, a kind of riff on the spur of someone else's experience (whether literary, or "real"). I've written quite a few of those. . .
Where though did I get the impression that with age "riff poems" have somehow eclipsed "spur poems" in frequency and intensity?
I think it's because the last six poems I've written -- over the last two months -- have been very riffy, derived from automatic handwriting -- actually a couple of exercises from Behn & Twitchell's The Practice of Poetry, a very useful book, by the way, especially if you're feeling stuck. The desire to go back to those so-called "frequent rides" on the "mindblowing brainwaves from groundswells of experience" probably comes from my nostalgia for those early days where every poem seemed so ground-breaking, so momentous... along with the feeling that after six riffin' exercise poems, I already wanna get back on my spurs.
Ride 'em, cowboy!!
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
ESPERANZA
Just came back from Cafe Pharmacie Esperanza, our favourite writing haunt of late in this fortunately cafe-filled Mile-end neighborhood ... this one a youthful studenty place with mostly crappy art on the walls and marvellous homemade soups and bowls of cafe au lait served by pierced and tatood young waitresses. Choice of music: alternately raw independent hip hop or lost lonely twang twang with reedy voices or summer of luv throwback (Donovan-Beatles etc) or even (today in particular) dustbowl Woody recorded on cracked wheat toast. Style: funky gentle, turquoise, raw blonde wood. A place of tippy yardsale tables & low-slung mid-twentieth C. sofas & nevertheless an outlet at almost every wallside table where the young and the wired can plug in their laptops and do their homework. Where I just wrote a prose poem. & Hey, it looks good!! & my partner wrote a page of her novel. & it looks good too! & as always with new writing, we're letting them idle for now, our respective pieces, to steep in semi-subconsciousness...on to other things...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)