| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31727 Registered: 11-1998 |
More words of wisdom from The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser: -- Serbian proverb "You've written your poem. The first step in spotting its flaws is a simple one. Set aside what you've written and let it cool off for a while, the longer the better. Take a look at it after twenty-four hours if you must, tinker with it a little. Does there seem to be an awkward rhythm in one of the lines? Are there places that could use more specific detail? And so on. Then set it aside again for as long as you can stand to. Like a petri dish, the longer you leave a poem by itself the more stinky fungus will surface. As Edward Weeks said, "When the ideas begin to run smoothly, they can so easily run away with us, leaving behind pages which in a colder mood seem full of extravagance." Extravagance, certainly, but just plain stupidity, too. If you can manage to do it, leave your poem alone till it begins to look as if somebody else might have written it. Then you can see it for what it is, a creation independent of you, out on its own. A poem must be equipped to thrive by itself in a largely indifferent world. You can't be there with it, like its parent, offering explanations, saying to a confused reader, "Yes, but here's what I meant!" A poem has to do all of its own explaining. What's the hurry? The truth is, nobody's waiting for you to press your poetry into their hands. Nobody knows you're writing it, nobody's hungry for it, nobody's dying to get at it. Not a living soul has big expectations for the success of your poem other than you. Of course, you want it to be wonderful -- pure genius, beautiful, heartbreaking, memorable -- and by coincidence that's just the kind of writing your audience would like to be reading. So let time show you some of the things you've done wrong before you show your poem to somebody and are embarrassed by a problem, or two or three problems, that you just couldn't see in the exhilaration of just having written it. When you finish a draft or get stuck, put it out of your sight in a drawer. After a month or so, you can take out that poem and others with it and starting looking through them. You'll be amazed at the way in which the passage of time has helped you come up with solutions to problems you had during those early drafts. You'll also be surprised at how awkward some of it may seem." Love, M | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4622 Registered: 05-2006 |
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| Ros Badcoe (Rosemary)
Intermediate Member Username: endolith Post Number: 573 Registered: 03-2008 |
So churning 'em out, slinging 'em on the board and waiting for the cheers and acclamation to roll in may not be the correct approach, then?  | ||
| Ann Metlay
Senior Member Username: wordsrworthy Post Number: 5640 Registered: 08-2007 |
Yes, but there are those weekly challenges. | ||
| Ros Badcoe (Rosemary)
Intermediate Member Username: endolith Post Number: 576 Registered: 03-2008 |
Too true. And sometimes I may post something I know to be a 'minor work', cos the feedback etc keeps me going and makes me write more. | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31739 Registered: 11-1998 |
Yes, Ann -- those weekly Challenges are rather inconsistent with Ted's message. However, I never intended the Challenges to produce "finished" work in the week in which they are composed. I am well aware they are written under pressure and in a too limited time frame. My hope with the Challenges is that they inspire people to create and that people will take their time refining those poems long after the Challenge is over. In fact, many people work on the Challenge inspirations, but don't actually enter what they write. And that's perfectly OK too. Remember -- the poems that result in the week of the Challenge should only be considered drafts. And I judge them as drafts. They're pretty amazing, but I think many of their authors would even agree that they're not quite "soup" yet. *smile* That's why I encourage people to post them on other forums after the Challenge is over. So they can get comments and suggestions and continue to revise. Love, M | ||
| Ron. Lavalette
Advanced Member Username: dellfarmer Post Number: 1207 Registered: 05-2007 |
Kooser is God. --Ron. Eggs Over Tokyo | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4623 Registered: 05-2006 |
About half my most publishable and successful (as in readings at B&N or elsewhere) poems just "come to me." After the initial flood of inspiration, the only editing required might be referred to as tidying up. Like an AIG executive picking up a billion dollars accidentally dropped behind the water cooler, brushing it off and slipping it into his briefcase before running off to his retirement party. The other half wind up living in a file folder, often for a number of months. Long enough so that when I revisit the poems I do so with an utterly fresh attitude. Like an AIG executive looking at emails sent to him by desperate people in Finance just before the company tanked, and saying, "Goodness gracious, these messages are new to me." Derf | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4196 Registered: 10-2005 |
M~ Once again you've managed to strike a chord with me and this advice. I can't stop thinking about how nobody is waiting for my poems, so I wrote a little poem (even though that's probably the totally wrong thing to do, especially posting it right after I wrote it): Nobody I Know I keep wondering why nobody waits for me to press my poems into their hands, do they have dry hands? or maybe cold? And if they are so hungry for poetry why don’t they write some of their own? I keep seeing nobodies around every corner collars up so I won’t recognize them they claw at the air when I go by like I have something they want. Maybe the undead have risen and need my blood to sign big contracts and book deals and get rich on my words. I’m a little scared of these nobodies, aren’t you? -Laz | ||
| Cosima
Advanced Member Username: ffyredrop Post Number: 1776 Registered: 12-2003 |
I considered Wild poetry forum a place to develop my writing and poetic skills. I've benefited a great deal by throwing out ideas, modes to see how I like them, and what the response is. I've made much greater progress by that- off the top style, than I would posting a poem that is as refined as I can make it. I do wait with empty hands eager to see, what a few Wilder's have done especially. I also wait with eagerness to see what someone(s) have written and posted that I've not anticipated. I've hit moments of perfection and lots of pathetic notes and lots in between. But I've learned from almost everything. Sit on it for what? here at home not on line,I work on poems I once posted here, years ago, or last month. Sometimes I think about re posting something from 2004, maybe someday. But do you mean wait to perfect before you post it, or show it to somebody? until it's as perfect as can be? If I had to wait until everyone I enjoy reading here got their poems perfect, I'd check in once a month, and wouldn't bother posting anything but old poems of mine- once a month. Sure one should hang on to them and keep polishing, yet isn't there also a factor of what is immediate to the day. The world around us has a pulse, a mood and timeless things are drawn only from authentic material. Many people here are drawing some emotional food from interactive poetry, other wise just sell it or keep it in your desk drawer or like baccarat- no fun, just play the card right. There is a thrill to restraint and some sorts of perfection can be relied to produce by that method. But isn't a better method to polish some pieces only, sketch some pieces, paint from some sketches etc. What I am asking is this: do you mean to say that a person should not post a poem in Creative Visualization until it's the best they can make it? until they worked on it for ... a month,years? I just got back from seeing the film "W" this minute so I maybe have lost all perspective.... thanks c/f | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4197 Registered: 10-2005 |
"There is a thrill to restraint and some sorts of perfection can be relied to produce by that method. But isn't a better method to polish some pieces only, sketch some pieces, paint from some sketches etc." -cf Cosi- You make a valid point about the process and the interactive tools that we have now which an earlier generation of poets didn't have. In painting they have always had the "studio visit." I know this because my sister has been a painter all her life (on and off on the public eye) and the thing that makes her a public painter is not her "finished and sold" work, but the work she has in her studio; where she meets with other artists sporadically to paint together or critique each other's work. It's an informal coming-out party for current endeavors, good, bad, or ugly. Now this small group of local painters is amorphous and it takes a while to develop and earn trust, some aren't a good fit and they will move on to other kinds of painter groups. So this is like the group of readers M mentions above. The people who read you and get you are the best at steering you toward better and better work. I conclude with my basic point. The forum environment has allowed access to "studio time" to many more writers than might have once had the ability to correspond in the mail or attend conferences and workshops. The main task of a writer with this kind of access is what are you going to do with it? Are you going to keep giving your readers better and better effort? Are you going to try new things out here and listen to the advice that is given? Are you willing to learn by reading carefully the works of others and take the time to find out how they are unique and how you might help them be the writer they want to be? Or Are you going to go for the biggest bang, titillate and shock or tell your personal woes to an audience that really isn't interested in them and may be put off by the repetition of them? Will you feign interest in other's work just so you can get the spotlight on you in the thread ( or your latest favorite issue)? I don't think anyone consciously does this in an online forum, but I do think we all skirt the edges of some of these mistakes once in a while because they are typical human failings and nobody around here is a saint! So, my point is that we are living in a time when a fragile system of artist studios are cropping up. It depends on us whether this experiment in connectivity works. It might not be what everyone needs, but it isn't our place to judge whether it is needed and it does do some good for the process. That's my thoughts! Thanks for bringing this up Cosi, I needed to get that out on the page! -Laz | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31752 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest Cosi -- much as some people would like to think that Wild Poetry Forum is a publishing venue, the real truth is that it most definitely is not. We never intended Wild to be a journal, publication, or anything even remotely in that genre. Wild is a workshop, an online version of what most people call writers' groups or writers' workshops in the flesh&blood world. I don't think that most people expect to see "finished" work here. What most of us post are works-in-progress. We show them to our fellow writers when we, and most likely the work itself, are at our most vulnerable. We do this in order to elicit commentary that helps us to improve the work. That's why we always maintain that comments like, "Oh, I like this!" and "Ah, this is very good," without crit or suggestions isn't very helpful to the poet. As Laz noted, "It's an informal coming-out party for current endeavors, good, bad, or ugly." Work is not in its final form here. That said, it is my hope that the majority of what people post has gone through some kind of revision process in private. That it is not totally off-the-cuff or written in ten minutes. You owe it to your fellow writers not to put something in front of them that has too many chinks in the armor, too many gaffs and mistakes. I don't think many of us want to waste other writers' value time on initial drafts or skeletons of ideas. But we do even have the SUBLUXATION forum, for those things. I do hope people at least attempt to put the work into some semblance of good form, so we can all help each other to bring that poem from its middle stages into final form. So, do consider what you post and what you are asking of others who have very busy schedules. If you can bring them something that's almost there, that would be most appreciated. People have limited time, busy lives, their own work to write/finalize, and for that reason shouldn't be asked to edit things that you haven't at least attempted to edit yourself. When you bring work to flesh&blood workshops, there is some expectation that you've worked on it to some degree in private, unless that group has agreed to spend some portion of their time on prompts and other free write exercises apart from their normal critiquing. We are a workshop, as I said. Poems posted here shouldn't be considered "finals" by the people who read them or the poets who post them. We're working to prepare them for publication in other venues. That's the main goal of a poetry workshop like Wild. We are an online working writers' group for those who like online experiences and those who live in remote areas where accessing a flesh&blood writers' critique group is difficult, if not impossible. Love, M | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4645 Registered: 05-2006 |
Damn . . . and I thought we were a gang of urban toughs meeting on a cyber street corner. | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31753 Registered: 11-1998 |
Yeah, we kinda figured that's what you thought, Derf. The concealed weaponry always gives you away.  Love, M | ||
| Cosima
Advanced Member Username: ffyredrop Post Number: 1784 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thanks M, so are you saying a poem should be at least moderately polished before posting here, and should be kept back from publishers and presentation to those innocent of the craft, until enough time has passed to be sure of it? I looked back over what you have written just now and disagree, "Oh, I like this." is essential to produce poetry, especially to people that haven't anyone at home, or in their life that is interested in poetry. thanks, cosima (Message edited by FFYREDROP on October 19, 2008) | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31761 Registered: 11-1998 |
That about sums it up, Cosi, and quite beautifully, I might add. But since we're a members-only group and most of us know each other pretty well, I'd say you can get away with the occasional rant and experiment sometimes. We'll indulge, where the general public and stern editors might not. *grin* Love, M | ||
| Cosima
Advanced Member Username: ffyredrop Post Number: 1785 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thanks M, I wrote the longest most eloquent thing, and spell check didn't have "addendeum",so "page expired" blew it into oblivion. Just as well. Thanks, grinz ~ Frances cosima | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31763 Registered: 11-1998 |
I'm sorry, Cosi. I didn't mean to imply that appreciation is not valuable and appreciated. Sometimes a simple, "Oh, I like this," can go a long way toward making someone feel validated. But in terms of actual critique, it's often good to hear what people don't like as well as what they do like. That helps to improve the work while a simple "I like it" might only inspire them to sit back and smile. Not that smiles are bad. But if the work could use some improvement or someone sees a problem (and, of course, we're talking about people who write for more than just their own healing or their own satisfaction), I'd rather get more than just a pat on the back. Love, M | ||
| Cosima
Advanced Member Username: ffyredrop Post Number: 1786 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thank M, that seems quite clear. Frances |
