Visting Mizzou
Next weekend, I'm going to be at the University of Missouri at Columbia to participate in their conference "Politics and the Artistic Response." If anyone is in the vicinity, I'd be happy to meet up for coffee ( or lunch/dinner) and conversation. I will be reading during the poetry event at 2:45 on Saturday.
Emotional Honesty, Authenticity & Risk
My recent reading has raised questions about emotional honesty in poetry, a few questions about authenticity, and how these two both suggest some element of risk.
Emotional Honesty: I see this as to risk allowing too much of your personality, your emotional state, or your views to be visible to the world. For me, the risk comes in a few guises. Will people think I'm a terrible person if I write about terrible things? Will I be emotionally vulnerable if I let some aspect of my personality or emotional state show? Will I hurt others that I care about if I write poems that honestly reflect how I feel on a situation? Will those I care about "see" themselves in a poem even if I've changed the premise but allowed the honest emotion to seep into the poem? And perhaps a comical one, will someone apply some variation of psychoanalytical criticism to my work and proclaim to the world that I'm off my rocker? I feel as if I am a private person, but the poetry, even though not confessional, still (must) speak/s in someway about me. I think it is Lacan who speaks about how people envision an identity for us which may or may not agree with the identity we imagine for ourselves. So, if people imagine an identity based on a few (non)-representational poems, what will happen? (Yes, I'm interested in issues in identity.)
Authenticity: I know this is a critical issue, Plath's critics took her work to task for daring to speak of the Holocaust even though she wasn't a primary witness. As a writer who enjoys working with personas, I feel sometimes that I might be accused of not knowing of what I speak. Someone might take issue someday with the way I've represented a person from another life experience. I haven't written anything very risky thus far, but there is some subject matter that I'm working on which may push me in that direction. I want to be able to use different voices and try to see/imagine the world in different ways than I myself have experienced it.
I'm putting Sincerity and Authenticity by Lionel Trilling on my reading list. Anything else I should add to the list?
How do these ideas relate to what one reads? Well, I read Gold Cell by Sharon Olds the year before last and didn't care for the subject matter. Because of this, I hadn't explored more of her work. (Yes, I know that the poet/poems aren't the same, but we conflate them anyway. For example: Have you read any Yeats lately?) Well, Poetry this month has two poems by Olds that I like quite a bit. I've revised my opinion. I think I'll go look for some more of her work. Another book for the reading list.
Keep writing yourself into the world.
Emotional Honesty: I see this as to risk allowing too much of your personality, your emotional state, or your views to be visible to the world. For me, the risk comes in a few guises. Will people think I'm a terrible person if I write about terrible things? Will I be emotionally vulnerable if I let some aspect of my personality or emotional state show? Will I hurt others that I care about if I write poems that honestly reflect how I feel on a situation? Will those I care about "see" themselves in a poem even if I've changed the premise but allowed the honest emotion to seep into the poem? And perhaps a comical one, will someone apply some variation of psychoanalytical criticism to my work and proclaim to the world that I'm off my rocker? I feel as if I am a private person, but the poetry, even though not confessional, still (must) speak/s in someway about me. I think it is Lacan who speaks about how people envision an identity for us which may or may not agree with the identity we imagine for ourselves. So, if people imagine an identity based on a few (non)-representational poems, what will happen? (Yes, I'm interested in issues in identity.)
Authenticity: I know this is a critical issue, Plath's critics took her work to task for daring to speak of the Holocaust even though she wasn't a primary witness. As a writer who enjoys working with personas, I feel sometimes that I might be accused of not knowing of what I speak. Someone might take issue someday with the way I've represented a person from another life experience. I haven't written anything very risky thus far, but there is some subject matter that I'm working on which may push me in that direction. I want to be able to use different voices and try to see/imagine the world in different ways than I myself have experienced it.
I'm putting Sincerity and Authenticity by Lionel Trilling on my reading list. Anything else I should add to the list?
How do these ideas relate to what one reads? Well, I read Gold Cell by Sharon Olds the year before last and didn't care for the subject matter. Because of this, I hadn't explored more of her work. (Yes, I know that the poet/poems aren't the same, but we conflate them anyway. For example: Have you read any Yeats lately?) Well, Poetry this month has two poems by Olds that I like quite a bit. I've revised my opinion. I think I'll go look for some more of her work. Another book for the reading list.
Keep writing yourself into the world.
Chain Mail in Reverse
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida/ Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C.
One of the fun things about blogging is that you can take other people's ideas rather like voluntary chain-mail, without the threat of bad luck if you decide to not play along. So, after visiting Suzanne today and adapting because I don't know how to underline, here are the states I've visited in bold, the places I've lived in yellow & where I am now in purple (which if you lived here, would make much more sense. Go Wildcats!)
One of the fun things about blogging is that you can take other people's ideas rather like voluntary chain-mail, without the threat of bad luck if you decide to not play along. So, after visiting Suzanne today and adapting because I don't know how to underline, here are the states I've visited in bold, the places I've lived in yellow & where I am now in purple (which if you lived here, would make much more sense. Go Wildcats!)
Patience & Publishing
Wait.
Yes, I've heard this a zillion times. It's hard though. People all around are publishing, in the good journals, chapbooks, even books. I am wishy-washy on the submissions game. I have times when I send out a lot of work (oh, say last fall when I spent hours creating a submissions system and sent out quite a few packets) and then other times when I have just 3 or 4 packets out.
I noticed Steve Mueske mentioned his "lotto tickets still out" and that's just it. Sending out a manuscript really does feel like playing the lotto. I played this fall for the first time and I still have a few "still out" but I haven't put as many submissions packets in the mail. I think I would feel better about it if I had sent out more submissions to quality journals & skipped the manuscript. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I hope the small presses do appreciate the donations.
Does it matter? Should I be more motivated to submit? When I'm in the mood where I hear time's winged chariot, I get annoyed because I haven't been submitting. But for the last few months I haven't felt motivated to get the work out. Writing alone is enough. There will be time, later.
Wait.
Yes, I've heard this a zillion times. It's hard though. People all around are publishing, in the good journals, chapbooks, even books. I am wishy-washy on the submissions game. I have times when I send out a lot of work (oh, say last fall when I spent hours creating a submissions system and sent out quite a few packets) and then other times when I have just 3 or 4 packets out.
I noticed Steve Mueske mentioned his "lotto tickets still out" and that's just it. Sending out a manuscript really does feel like playing the lotto. I played this fall for the first time and I still have a few "still out" but I haven't put as many submissions packets in the mail. I think I would feel better about it if I had sent out more submissions to quality journals & skipped the manuscript. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I hope the small presses do appreciate the donations.
Does it matter? Should I be more motivated to submit? When I'm in the mood where I hear time's winged chariot, I get annoyed because I haven't been submitting. But for the last few months I haven't felt motivated to get the work out. Writing alone is enough. There will be time, later.
Wait.
Home for an Ent
I recieved a note from The American Tolkien Society that they're accepting my poem "Lament for an Ent Wife." This pleases me; it's good for the poem to find a home where the readers know what Ents happen to be and are familiar with the backstory that compelled me to write the poem. It was the second time I'd sent them the poem which I mentioned in my cover letter. Their response? " Our records do not show that we've recieved your poem previously. It must have been the goblins. . ."
You can read the poem here.
You can read the poem here.
Black Box Theatre, Oh My!
Whew. Unexpectedly, I was invited to an open mike event tonight. I've not really read my work in public before, but I did start out my early college career in theatre. It's been years though since I was up in front of a crowd in a black box theatre. The dynamics of the room were fantastic, the crowd involved, and the poetry diverse & entertaining. I read three poems: "By His Hand Lightning," "With Sunflowers for Shade," and "Dancer at the Thoroughbred Lounge." The old instinct for the stage, the give and take between a live audience and the performer, making eye-contact with complete strangers, it is addictive. The theatre was full. It gives me hope that the naysayers are wrong, that poetry still is and can be a vibrant art. It was tonight, here on the plains of Kansas, an unexpected gift in an otherwise emotional & exhausting week.
Aspirate (GMT +/-7)
Aspirate (GMT +/-7)
As we lay down to sleep
as we stand at the bluff holding hands
as we move together into night
as I wash the length of your back
somewhere the birds rise at the hunter’s guns
somewhere dew glitters at the feet of cattle
somewhere a young man drinks from a cup of tea
somewhere a woman keens, kneeling on cobblestone.
It must be so, the fireflies and the dragonflies
each to evening and morning take wing
the cicadas to their song, the frogs to their piping
the owl to the hollow oak
and a man and a woman will touch
and a man and a woman will turn away
and there will be loss between them
and there will be a tenderness.
In a meadow a mockingbird stalks a cat
in a bedroom a girl caresses her breasts
near a stable the colts jostle for oats
on a tile floor an old man awakens alone
in a sterile room a woman reaches into a man
in a nearby room a man reaches to a woman
and breath sighs from the body
and a breath swells, cold in new lungs.
Original place of publication: The Green Tricycle
As we lay down to sleep
as we stand at the bluff holding hands
as we move together into night
as I wash the length of your back
somewhere the birds rise at the hunter’s guns
somewhere dew glitters at the feet of cattle
somewhere a young man drinks from a cup of tea
somewhere a woman keens, kneeling on cobblestone.
It must be so, the fireflies and the dragonflies
each to evening and morning take wing
the cicadas to their song, the frogs to their piping
the owl to the hollow oak
and a man and a woman will touch
and a man and a woman will turn away
and there will be loss between them
and there will be a tenderness.
In a meadow a mockingbird stalks a cat
in a bedroom a girl caresses her breasts
near a stable the colts jostle for oats
on a tile floor an old man awakens alone
in a sterile room a woman reaches into a man
in a nearby room a man reaches to a woman
and breath sighs from the body
and a breath swells, cold in new lungs.
Original place of publication: The Green Tricycle
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