| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31759 Registered: 11-1998 |
From The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser: "When it comes to expressing feelings, each of us knows not to walk right up to a total stranger on a street, somebody waiting for a light to change, and immediately say, "My lover just left me and I AM ABOUT READY TO FREAK OUT!" We know that if we did, the stranger would likely take off running against the red light. But if we're friendly, and casually draw that stranger into a conversation, then begin walking along with her, it may be possible to tell her how much trouble we're in by the time we get to the end of the next block. Some poets have gotten the idea that they can say things about their feelings in poems that most of us wouldn't feel right about saying at the dinner table, as if writing a poem gives you permission to talk about things you wouldn't talk about in public. But we need to keep in mind that writing a poem is public, too. Your reader is right there on the other side of the table, politely and patiently listening to you. How long do you dare go on about the misery your hemorrhoids are causing you? Of course, if your imaginary reader is someone who likes poems about somebody else's hemorrhoids, well . . . My objection is to a kind of poem that feels to me as if it had been motivated by self-indulgence, a poem that puts the need of the poet to talk about himself or herself far out in front of the needs of the reader. Perhaps there have always been people who took up writing poems just so they could talk about themselves, but self-indulgent poetry almost always disappears in time, a victim of its own failure to engage the needs and interests of others. It takes a grateful audience to keep a poem alive. Expression of feeling in poetry ought to be measured against the reader's tolerance for such expression." . | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4647 Registered: 05-2006 |
Kooser Tells Me that I shouldn't confess to you how I burned down your house, and cooked up your dog Wilbur with a sprig of rosemary, and sold your children to a good family in Ulan Bator, and then ran away with your wife to a cabana in Cabo San Lucas. So, out of respect for Kooser, I won't. | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31760 Registered: 11-1998 |
I believe that Kooser's cautions were about feelings, dearest Freddie. And since your "Kooser Tells Me" doesn't even begin to touch on how the "I" feels about these facts, I would guess it's okay. Now, of course it ain't no "these hemorrhoids are killing me" poem, but it'll have to do. *LOL* Love, M | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4199 Registered: 10-2005 |
This is about something that I came across in some of my journaling about writing poetry and I was so excited to learn this at the time. I think the last "me" poem I wrote was called "Lost in a Friendship" and it was all about how bad this person treated me. I realized I was only trying to make myself look good. The poem wasn't anything anyone could get insight from. I realized that if I am getting a personal reward from my poem, if it makes my thoughts and feelings out to be so much better than other peoples', then I've gone off track. It's like that mirror game we used to play with two mirrors; if you stand in-between them you might be able see into infinity, but you can't because your own head is always in the way! Poetry is the art of looking in two mirrors, but getting your head out of the way. -Laz | ||
| Judy Thompson
Advanced Member Username: judyt54 Post Number: 1294 Registered: 11-2007 |
those are what I call the 'personal poems'; it seems almost a necessity for a beginning poet to explore their own feelings first, before they move beyond the study of those fascinating hands. It's a process nearly identical to the way a baby explores his own world in that most solipsistic way (and which some of them never quite outgrow), before they move on to recognizing that Other People and objects do not just exist for their pleasure or use. The path of a poet as they grow and develop is much the same way. First we explore ourselves, and how it's all about us. With luck, we begin to expand, and one day start writing about how WE relate to the world, what our place is in it, and, finally, how it isnt about us at all. Afraid of the Dark | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 4200 Registered: 10-2005 |
Judy- Thanks for bringing that up. It was a little scary hanging out my laundry like that. It's hard to think of this as a process of maturing, since I'm up there (in terms of years of writing) but in the last 5 years I have focused on poetry, and I've been chipping away at this problem. Of all the arts I suppose poetry is the most personal. Take the personal and make it universal, that's the mantra right? But I've found the pitfall in that process is taking the payoff yourself. Think of it as a football you are carrying down the field. If you have a chance to pass it on and let the audience (readers) take it in, how much better is that! So what I do is check my poems, especially the endings, for payoffs. I try to find endings that point at the end-zone, rather than take it all the way in. I love your analogy of a baby exploring. I would like to think it is a natural extension of growing as an artist, but I think it takes a lot of patient nurturing to get to that point. Here at Wild I know that is what is taking place. -Laz | ||
| brenda morisse
Senior Member Username: moritric Post Number: 2527 Registered: 04-2007 |
Dearest M, mi hermana, this is a very interesting topic. Lately, I've been reading Ann Sexton. She certainly pushes the personal envelope and if she had suffered from a mountain of hemorrhoids, she would have raised her poetic skirt and shown them off to the world. I like her in your face dose of life and its warts. She writes a good masturbation poem, as well. love, love, borrachita in your face (Message edited by moritric on October 20, 2008) | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31766 Registered: 11-1998 |
Great points, Judy, Laz, and brenda. I think to some degree (large or small), all poems are personal. After all, we write from our own perspectives, even about other people's experiences. The poet behind the writing will naturally bleed through. It's practically unavoidable. I think Kooser is bemoaning those poems that do only that -- present the personal. Get stuck in it. Those poems that don't look outward. Those poems that only say "I hurt, I hurt, I hurt." I think you can even write a my-hemorrhoids-are-killing-me poem if (BIG IF) those hemorrhoids point to some greater truth. If you can answer the question of "WHY would someone want to read about my hemorrhoids?" with a valid and important answer, then you've got it. It can't just be about your own pain. That pain has got to have some philosophical point behind it. Some greater application to something beyond just the pain. It's pretty easy with experience to recognize the poems that are only self-indulgent. That the writer wrote with only the thought of talking about themselves. And you're right, Judy. Most experienced writers learn to move beyond that. But sometimes I even catch myself doing it. When I try too hard to convince a reader of something or change his mind about an issue. That's self-indulgence of a different sort, but equally as doomed to failure. I think our job is to present a situation, then step back a little and let the reader decide. Not to push my own opinion about a topic too hard. At least, those are the poems that I enjoy the most. The ones that say, "Well, take a look at this. Here's what happened and here's what I saw in it. What do you think?" They really engage me because the writer has made room for my "personal" take as well. If you don't consider the reader, the reader isn't likely to consider you. Love, M | ||
| Andrew Dufresne
Advanced Member Username: beachdreamer Post Number: 1730 Registered: 01-2006 |
Well Kooser rhymes with... No, I won't go there. Everybody has a theory. And that's all they are. ad | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31771 Registered: 11-1998 |
And rules are meant to be broken, ad. You know what the best part is? No matter what your theory or what you adhere to as your particular set of rules that you either keep or break, there most likely will be an editor out there somewhere, somehow who agrees with you. The trick, of course, is finding him or her. *grin* Love, M | ||
| Andrew Dufresne
Advanced Member Username: beachdreamer Post Number: 1732 Registered: 01-2006 |
The real trick is, of course, not to care. And to care. I think T.S. Eliot said that...*wink* ad | ||
| Cosima
Advanced Member Username: ffyredrop Post Number: 1795 Registered: 12-2003 |
T.S. Eliot saved a million good lives, by saying "here we go 'round the mullberry bush at 5 'o clock in the morning"... or was it "frisk pepper short and long"...?... I'll look into it smiles, c or f | ||
| Cosima
Advanced Member Username: ffyredrop Post Number: 1796 Registered: 12-2003 |
It was ..."here we go round the prickly pear at five o'clock in the morning" reading his Hollow Men in 8th grade libary, banished all teenage angst from my life- happy for years, really love him.... and..I wonder where I got frisk pepper short and long ..? c/f | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4664 Registered: 05-2006 |
In my high school, you had to sneak a copy of Eliot inside a copy of Mad Magazine and then stick the copy of Mad Magazine inside a copy of Time. | ||
| Ros Badcoe (Rosemary)
Intermediate Member Username: endolith Post Number: 582 Registered: 03-2008 |
My favourite poets (so far, and apart from you lot, of course :-)): T S Eliot and Ted Kooser. And yet they're so different. | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31774 Registered: 11-1998 |
In my high school, Freddie, it was the other way around. If you'd been caught with Time, you woulda been shot (or at least laughed at unmercifully). This explains a lot about my edge-ee-kation, don't it?  Love, M | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4666 Registered: 05-2006 |
True story, ~M~. Shortly after graduation, every member of my high school class (1964) received in the mail a copy of None Dare Call It Treason, published by the John Birch Society. Fred | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31777 Registered: 11-1998 |
You were born ten years too soon, Freddie. If you'd gone to school after war protests and Laugh-In hit the streets (not to mention The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Monty Python), trust me -- things would have been completely different.   Love, M |
