For most of my
writing life, I have been a practitioner of the style commonly referred to as “free
verse.” My only nod towards form is to imitate common speech, allow the lines
to fall as the breath does. I will throw in a dash of alliteration here and
there, if the situation allows, but more often than not, the result ends up
feeling obvious and corny.
In high school,
I experimented with formal styles, like sonnets, haiku and the
like, but abandoned any hope of producing substantial work along these lines
decades ago. Cummings could do it, Shakespeare created the mold
many of us seek to shape our work by, but beyond those two examples, not much
good, in my experience, can come from us mortals using the same rhyme patterns.
Every few years
has brought a shift in my work, whether subtle or jarring. Recently, due to
exposure to the work of Anne Gorrick and Adam Tedesco, to name a
couple of local examples, I was inspired to try some more abstract methods. I
took a workshop with Katrinka Moore, whose work transcends the seemingly
simple procedure of erasure. I clipped and blacked out, drew random
words from a cup, reversed lines and tore papers into shreds.
As a matter of
fact, that last one is one of my favorite RANDOM WRITING exercises. I
have participants work on a rough draft or a freewrite, and then ask them to
tear the work up into chunks. We tape the scraps together, and examine the new,
convoluted text for intriguing phrases created by juxtaposition. New poems can
often emerge from these accidents. I like to use this exercise to help
participants to loosen then hold on first drafts, to learn to not be married to
the words as they fall on the page. More than one poet has gasped at these instructions,
but warmed to the activity soon after.
I began to
employ these methods with my own writing, to see where they would take me.
After a couple of years, I must admit that I myself am perhaps too “married” to
the basically autobiographical roots of my work to feel much satisfaction in
writing from abstractions. The Ziegfeld poems I discussed last week are
based on actual events, not my own life, but for the most part, my poems have
been inspired by my own activities, emotions, and observations. I’ve been able
to craft some pretty decent fictions from some of these exercises, but I still
can’t get past the feeling that for me, they feel like parlor tricks, and not
actual expressions. I’ve regarded them as a sort of lesser body of work.
I’ve tried
fitting them into readings, since they are by no means works that I’m ashamed
of, but they are so very foreign to the majority of my poems I’ve never been
comfortable presenting them. The reaction consequently has been lukewarm. I
pulled a bunch of them together into a small chapbook, creating a home for my
seeming orphans. I called it Llama
Love, after the longest poem, based on Facebook’s poor translations of
a friend’s Egyptian posts. They sold well, but I have to attribute that to my
llama sketch on the cover (see above). I only printed up a few, and even collecting them
together was unsatisfying.
I’m glad I
pushed the boundaries, and may go back to these experiments from time to time,
but as far as where I’m at now, I’ll be to returning to my former narrative
full-time. The poet I am is a reporter, a witness, and not the abstract
wordsmith type. It works for many I know who produce rich, textured work, but
not for me.
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