| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31630 Registered: 11-1998 |
From The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser: "Don't weigh down your poem with spare parts. When engineers design lawn mowers they don't throw in a lot of extra doodads. Extras in lawn mowers don't help do the work of mowing, and they can make the mower heavier than it ought to be, too hard to push around the yard. And extras can get in the way, can come loose and fall down inside and jam the belt. Extras are also expensive. When it comes to poems, too many extras, too much froufrou and falderal can cost you a reader. Have you ever seen one of those illustrated books or articles, drawn from U.S. Patent Office archives, about quaint and curious inventions that never caught on? I remember a drawing of a system of jacks and levers that would tip a man's hat as he approached a woman on the street. I'd guess the inventor thought he had a pretty cool idea. But we all know that unless people see the need to purchase mechanical devices to tip their hats, they won't support an inventor by buying his hat-tipping thingamajigs, no matter how beautifully they are constructed, no matter if they are built as carefully as (dare I say it?) a poem. There are thousands of writers among us, and each is an inventor. For each invention that catches on with the public -- each electric light bulb, each jet turbine engine, each "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" -- there are hundred of poems -- poems that will automatically tip a gentleman's hat -- that fail to engage their readers, primarily because their authors never give their readers' possible needs and interests enough thought. Nobody is going to make use of a mechanical hat-tipping poem for which he doesn't recognize a use." Love, M | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4129 Registered: 10-2005 |
Thanks ~M~, this is a great reminder. I have a problem with repeating things in different ways, and while that might make for an interesting pattern to do on purpose, you don't want to get caught doing it by accident. -Laz | ||
| brenda morisse
Senior Member Username: moritric Post Number: 2502 Registered: 04-2007 |
Dearest M, mi hermana, I want a hat tipper. Can't imagine why it didn't catch on. Maybe the directions were too difficult to follow and it was easier to just tip your own hat without a device. I think the world is a much sadder place because we don't have the hat tipper. No one tips a hat any more. No one says Good day either. Whenever I say Good day, people look at me like I have two sets of teeth in my mouth. When I smile at strangers they think I'm making overtures. Oh well. Imagine what a pleasant world it would be if we had the Hat Tipper. Then someone might invent the Handshaker and the Friendly kiss smoocher and Eye Contact Magnet and the Cell phone Zapper. love, love, borrachita tipping} (Message edited by moritric on October 08, 2008) | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4558 Registered: 05-2006 |
I was reading a friend's poems a few days ago over at Starbucks (Lestat's being too noisy.) I noticed that several of her poems were flat. "What does 'flat' mean?" she wondered. "An effective poem should create a disturbance right off the bat. The poem then rides that disturbance. The disturbance needs to be something of consequence to the reader. A flat poem doesn't set up this tension. The poem comes off like plunging your hands into luke-warm-water." Fred | ||
| sue kay
Moderator Username: suekay Post Number: 964 Registered: 11-2005 |
Have you ever seen one of those illustrated books or articles, drawn from U.S. Patent Office archives, about quaint and curious inventions that never caught on? I remember a drawing of a system of jacks and levers that would tip a man's hat as he approached a woman on the street. M. I have not only seen them, we had an entire attic full of presentation models for such things, full of levers, tubes and wires, and usually a piano key somewhere to initiate the process. Yes, my family was strange, lots of mad inventors. Uncle Otto was always coming by with great ideas,(two sided sandpaper type things)and a need for $50.00 or so, which usually kept him gone for a while. LOL. Although my father actually had a couple of serious patents on chemical processes. But I do remember the legacy of cases. I used to go up and even though there were wasps up there, I always liked that little thrill, of expecting an explosion or something........ Anyway, my brother and I once blew up something in our basement lab. But the house with its presentation cases survived, as did we. Maybe I should try something less challenging than writing poetry, like hat tipping. Seriously good advice. Funny, when you see a poem where something big happens, you know it. Hard to cut out the clever lever that just looks great when tripped but makes the path more tortuous...LOL I have lots of levers. Good advice. I think when I critique I probably am annoying because I almost always recommend a cut. Well, I also think that used lines are always available for other use. Starts with the piano key. LOL. regards Sue | ||
| Ron. Lavalette
Advanced Member Username: dellfarmer Post Number: 1187 Registered: 05-2007 |
Kooser is God. --Ron. Eggs Over Tokyo | ||
| Bren
Moderator Username: bren Post Number: 1435 Registered: 12-2001 |
Brenda there you are and as funny and thoughtful as ever in your reply to M I think you should scoop it up for a poem. I'd love a hat tipper for just the same reasons that you mention and most certainly sign me up for that phone zapper. And Fred I know flat probably better than anyone at Wild. The endings are always what make me think I should never begin. For me writing long is difficult but if one writes too short it ain't sensible outside the brain. What a dilemma. I love the mower analogy M, especially "too much froufrou and falderal." If I need to spell some difficult words that are fun to use I'm calling Ted! Bren | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4141 Registered: 10-2005 |
"[We] all know that unless people see the need to purchase mechanical devices to tip their hats, they won't support an inventor by buying his hat-tipping thingamajigs, no matter how beautifully they are constructed, no matter if they are built as carefully as (dare I say it?) a poem.- Kooser M~ I just want to say that this bit of advice has been hanging around my keyboard and pen ever since I read it. Do you think we can stop the process of inventing a hat-tipping poem before it begins? Or is it better to just write them and then deal with them appropriately after (cement shoes and the East River come to mind). What I find myself doing during poem interruptus is asking if the world needs a poem about this. Often the answer is a resounding NO! But then there are those poems that ask to be revised over and over because they have some great revelation in them that I'm certain has value, but as a poem, they are just not working! These are mostly rhetorical questions, perhaps I'm just venting, or maybe there are others around that feel the same way and we can commiserate. -Laz | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31670 Registered: 11-1998 |
Although this is a bit of extrapolation on my part, Laz, I believe that Ted Kooser is not against writing hat-tipping poems, and that he is only cautioning against the poet's expectations that hat-tipping poems will be accepted and embraced by journals and the general public. Write anything you wish, Laz, anything that pops into your head. In fact, take that as an order. Just don't expect that every poem you write will go somewhere beyond you. However, even if the hat-tipping poem isn't publishable, it may spawn ideas for a poem that is. A line, a word, a thought, an image may be fodder for a poem that will be highly regarded by the public. I know I've excerpted lines from relatively worthless poems I've written and found homes for them in poems that have a wider appeal. Those relatively worthless poems provide great practice and sometimes a marketable idea or two. All writing is valuable to the person who writes it. I believe Ted is only questioning the general value of a hat-tipping poem that no one really wants to read as a piece of literature that needs a wider audience beyond its creator. As a poet, you have to learn to distinguish between what's marketable and what's just writing practice that no one beyond you needs to see. The more you write, and more importantly, the more you read the work of published others, the better able you will be to do that. Love, M | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4144 Registered: 10-2005 |
"As a poet, you have to learn to distinguish between what's marketable and what's just writing practice that no one beyond you needs to see." -M Got it! And I think he says why here: "poems...that fail to engage their readers, primarily because their authors never give their readers' possible needs and interests enough thought." I guess there will always be those failed poems around to learn from and improve on. There's no big mystery there. What I wanted, if I could find it, was a way to recognise there's a problem before I spend too much time on it. But even my sister comes home with terrible paintings and has to start all over again. Thanks for your thoughts about where a poem is ultimately headed, either to a wider audience or to the reclamation bin. -Laz | ||
| Judy Thompson
Advanced Member Username: judyt54 Post Number: 1288 Registered: 11-2007 |
someone once told me his theory of poem writing; it all, he says, needs to be written. It's like beads on a string. You have to write ALL of them down (get back in the closet, Editor), as they demand to be written, good bad and truly awful. If you dont get the bad ones out too the good ones will never emerge. Have you ever noticed, that often after you've written a howler, you'll find yourself with a pretty good Next Poem? His theory seems to hold up... Every time we write a poem we learn something. And you don't learn from your successes as much as you do the failures. you write a good poem, you say, cool, and move on. You write a bad one, you think about it, you try to figure out why it's flat or boring or overdone. Afraid of the Dark | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31671 Registered: 11-1998 |
Thanks for your additional thoughts, Judy. I quite agree with you and your someone! I wish I could tell you there was some magic, Laz, for determining there's a problem before spending too much time on a poem. But I don't think there is. I've been known to work on poems for decades. *sigh* And sometimes, a poem I thought was lost or trash years ago, turns into something publishable many years later (since I continue to work on them). I just had that happen, as a matter of fact. A poem of mine accepted by The Rose & Thorn was one I worked and re-worked and re-worked again for ten years. Ten years ago, I would have said there was no hope for it. Turns out I was wrong. I'm kinda glad I didn't trash it or stop working on it. So, I don't think you should necessarily trash anything. Sure, some will never prove viable. But every once in a while, one of them does. Writing and editing, for me anyway, are an endless process. I even edit poems after they've been published. I guess some people (me) just can't stop fiddling. *LOL* Love, M | ||
| Jane Røken
Advanced Member Username: magpie Post Number: 2064 Registered: 03-2007 |
(deleted) (Message edited by magpie on October 12, 2008) | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4578 Registered: 05-2006 |
I suppose I'm a sadist. Sometimes when I'm in a "creative" mood, I strap an old poem to a table and go at it with a scalpel . . . severing old lines, grafting new lines in . . . like Dr. Frankenstein. When I'm done, my poem calls me "Master" and terrorizes the villagers.  I've made a CD of poems screaming for mercy. If anyone wants one, the CD is $19.95 plus $5.95 shipping. I take all major credit cards and Pay Pal. Fred | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31676 Registered: 11-1998 |
Do you offer quantity discounts, Fred? I was thinking of standing across the street from the guy in downtown Portland who has a sign that reads, "I am a POeT," and yells his poems at passersby. But I need a gimmick to compete with him. Your CD sounds like just the right draw. I'll take a gross if we can work out a deal. Love, M | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4581 Registered: 05-2006 |
Cool, ~M~. Gross is the word most commonly used to describe the CD. I also have a DVD video of a short story trying to extricate itself from a half a dozen sheets of paper and make a run for it, only to be stopped in its tracks by a vigilant bottle of white-out. Fred | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31678 Registered: 11-1998 |
I need some clarification, Fred. Is that a vigilant bottle of white-out in the video, or a vigilante bottle? I'd only be interested if it was the latter, of course. Love, M |
