Education

Ellen Bass gave an excellent talk today on the importance of discovery in both the creation and development of narrative poetry. She pointed out that as much as detail matters on the tactical level, strategically, it is discovery that can answer the “so what?” of a narrative poem. She offered a number of useful, practical suggestions on how to move a poem from simple recount into the realm of discovery, including:

• Shift the time frame, vantage point, or speaker.
• Explore the opposite of the “expected” viewpoint or tone.
• Take wild associative leaps.
• Link the story to other stories, or a “story behind the story.”
• Ask why this is being told now; why it is necessary?

During the question and answer portion, she admitted that, in her own process, she will often not resist the temptation to become heavy-handed or draw too-neat conclusions in her poems; instead, she writes them down as a kind of platform on which to rest momentarily, knowing that in the final version the line must go. I found her candor, practicality, and commitment to craft both refreshing and inspirational.

“You must be careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin.”

-Stanley Kunitz

Peter Sears gave a dense and compelling talk today on the larger aim of revision — which is not only to add and subtract from a work, but to also to re-envision. Drawing on numerous specific examples from talented poets, including himself, he held up a litany of mediocre poems made great through craft — from minor tinkering to dramatic shifts in perspective and tone.

The most striking example to me was one of Peter’s own poems, which he expanded by pushing it out beyond the bounds of the natural ending of a decent poem, into far more personal territory. Then, he pared down again, and those newfound details caused the poem to fuse into something at once both more specific and universal than before. It galvanized the poem.

It occurs to me, fresh from workshop, that one of the inherent perils of taking feedback about one’s own work from a group, is that the primary instrument at the group’s disposal is subtractive. That is, they can cut — but it would be presumptuous to actually add lines to someone else’s poem. Also, as Marvin Bell points out, groups often naturally tend toward compromise, the stuff of mediocrity.

Fortunately, at the Pacific residency workshops, the faculty encourage us to look at the work more holistically, and often use certain elements of a poem to address larger themes in the group’s work, or poetry in general. In the end, it is on us authors to discover the ultimate destination behind every wild impulse that starts a poem. But having, rather than a trail guide to follow through specific terrain, instead tips from experienced travelers who have walked many trails — is what makes this process invaluable.

“A writer is a reader moved to emulation”

I have been preparing notes for my upcoming talk on “Emulation, Originality, And The Writing Tradition” at the Ojai Center For The Arts. There is no better place than London to have spent time thinking about the English literary tradition. In this talk I intend to use concrete examples from my own relationship to the writing life, including poems and anecdotes, to show how emulation — as defined by a desire to imitate and transcend the spirit and tactical successes of works one admires — can actually enhance originality.

So many poets are concerned about losing their voice, and so many poets and non-poets hold the misbelief that art can exist in a vacuum — or that inspiration strikes best in a sealed cave, cut off from tradition. My hope is to inspire the audience into participating in the continuity of literary tradition through reading widely and responding genuinely to our rich heritage of literary arts.

That is the comment someone left on one of my posts about Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29. Their IP address came from Panama. Based on the email address (amigas por siempre), the commenter is likely young and female - probably a student.

You see, posts I made about Shakespeare or Wallace Stevens are placing high in Google searches. And these days, a remarkable number of students use Google as a means to gather materials for English essays. In fact, a lot of them simply plagiarize what they find. Cut. Paste. Grade.

I received a letter last night from Shelley Washburn, director of the MFA in Writing Program at Pacific University, accepting me into the program starting in January. Over the next two years, in addition to twenty-five hours per week of study independently and via correspondence, I will also attend one ten-day intensive in Oregon each semester and one at the end of the degree (five total). I’m really looking forward to studying with some poets whose work and approach I resonate with, and committing to my writing in this greater way.

That’s why I’m keeping my options open. Plus, writing poetry pays so much better than writing software.

My mother, a public school teacher, was explaining last night that her school can’t afford to give her more than one small stack of post-its per year. After all, they can run up to ninety cents per pack.

It never ceases to amaze me how profoundly our culture undervalues the things we need to remain human — like good teachers and good poems. Yet we have always needed them, and always will. So people do it anyway, through almost comic undervaluing.

I guess those moments when a child learns something or a person takes in a poem make it worthwhile. I guess those moments must have been happening continuously for centuries, to carry us through adversity and give hope. If so, the best thing we can do is to keep noticing.

I had the opportunity to chat with my former teacher, Suzanne Lummis, at the Café Solo celebration. It is always stimulating to talk shop with her, but in this case something she said really got my wheels spinning. She mentioned that she is currently using the Open Windows anthology in her introductory poetry classes. Because one of my poems is featured in that anthology, this means her students are reading my work very carefully as part of their studies. What greater satisfaction could a writer want than to know others are reading their work with care? Somewhere I heard the average amount of time spent admiring a painting in a gallery is something like six seconds. Likewise, it seems all too common that we leaf through poetry books in a quick and cursory way. I know I am guilty of this as well.

But for all my rhapsodizing on the positive implications of Suzanne teaching one of my poems, it suddenly occured to me: my art has been assigned as homework. The dreaded drudgery of academic life that prevents parties, curtails social interaction, and keeps you from remaining in college forever: is homework. The moment turned sour at the thought of someone having to read what I wrote.

Yet thankfully, I recall the moment during a lecture at Mt. St. Mary’s (so far my only, but still treasured, poetry teaching experience) when I had the privilege of introducing a young college student to Pablo Neruda. She read Amor, America out loud in Spanish, and I could see a deep chord had been struck in her psyche as she described her ancestral homeland through Neruda’s eyes. To think my own homage to Neruda anthologized in Open Windows might possibly have a chance in itself of connecting some future student to the great legacy of poetry — well, that washes the bad taste from my mouth at the thought that my work has now become homework.

Since it has been several years since the excellent master class in poetry I took with Suzanne Lummis through the UCLA Extension, I decided it was time to get myself back into a workshop. Even though Sarah has recently accepted a position with Loyola Marymount University to teach creative writing, she still conducts small private workshops in her home. It was great to exercise my poetic thinking in this way again with Sarah and six of her monthly “regulars”. If you are serious about advancing your craft and are in the LA area, I highly recommend these workshops. And if you’re a student at LMU studying creative writing, you are in for a treat.

I am planning to select a new poem each Monday and write about it. I figure most people could use a dose of poetry on that day more than any other in the week, and it’s high time I say more about things worth talking about. My plan is to present the poem (or a link to the poem) and then talk about what is so great about the poem and what is so great about the poet responsible. That’s all.