Enjambments and Other Strange Devices

 

I’ve mentioned here how reluctant I was at first to do any major revision to my poems. I had succumbed to Allen Ginsberg’s dubious statement concerning his, “first thought, best thought” mentality. I now regard this notion as more wishful thinking rather than practical advice.

The art of poetry evolves like any other art over the course of one’s practice, and my own is a clear example of this. I can glance at a poem and estimate by the style and format about when it was written. That is, if it’s not already dated, a habit I started early on and probably picked up from Ginsberg, too. I can find poems in my files written over forty years ago, from the age when you have so much less to write about, and so much less experience to inform your words.

I only started to commit to the art of poetry in college, although I’d written from the time I actually learned to write. So many wonderful poets stop writing after graduation, considering poetry just another bad habit of their college years, like binge drinking and flip-flops. Those who continue, and some of them have been my companions in this quirky endeavor for decades, are apt to discover an ever-changing path. If the poet allows their words to come from their purest impulses, unfiltered by whatever impression they’ve been bombarded with over the years concerning what Poetry is supposed to sound like, they will be fine and powerful artists. If they allow that influence to sway them, they might as well quit and go flip burgers and make babies.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been reviewing a collection of poems I wrote in 2015. I wrote one poem a month, warming up with a description of the weather, then events of that month and my reaction to them. Many poets have employed the “once a month” or “once a day” format as a writing exercise, and usually with much more effective results. Although I feel I am flexible enough to bounce off most prompts and come up with a successful poem, most other contrivances usually stifle me. So it was with these poems, and it took me seven years to even look at them again, so unimpressed I was with my results.

But now I see that there is a sort of arc, intended or not, to the action, a slice of life tone. It was an eventful year—a couple of significant passings, a visit with my Floridian parents. But the poems themselves stuck too closely to my original self-imposed restrictions. Now I feel I am entitled to slash and burn to achieve better poems and a stronger whole. The most striking difference to me, though, is how inclined I am now to allow natural lines their real length. For years I’ve been overly fond of enjambment, carrying lines and complete sentences over from one line to the next. Now that seems affected and annoying to me.

I’ve given the lines that run for two or more lines the respect they probably deserved years ago. Some trimming’s been involved as well. I’m growing more comfortable with longer lines, lines that encompass an entire thought instead of leading the reader on like an anxious prom date. I trust my phrasing to carry the impact without tricks or traps. And it may lead to something better. At least another Flying Monkey chapbook in 2022. Here’s a sample:

 

March

 

Winter cracks, spring seeps in.

The neighborhood’s defrosted.

The ground itself sweats off its dream,

soft mud at the foot of the walkway

still corralled by thin puddles of ice.

 

After a birthday of some warm return,

jazz in the woods with old friends,

crackers with local cheese,

wine from grapes in their own backyard,

I am free to shed a layer, reawakening bear,

even willing to freeze a little now,

just for the freedom of one less sleeve,

fingers chilled without gloves

and their numb clumsiness.

 

Not one day dry enough, rainless or fogless,

so the green strip is missing down the big parade’s route.

We opt for theater instead, where old seats are warm, no mic necessary.

Corned beef after, simmered all night in the crock pot.

 

Again Maureen O’Hara strides pridefully barefoot

across Technicolor meadows of Ireland;

again Duke learns the value of money, love, tradition;

again Micheleen wets his whistle in exchange for news.

We crowd on the couch to watch it all, us and Daughter #2,

balance soda bread, colcannon, dab of collards on the side

for something green, YouTube for dessert.

Writing Up A Storm

 

 Over the last four days, our power has gone out three times. The first two times it was out for over twelve hours. My Beloved rushed to put our frozen food in a cooler on the front porch. Since the temperature never rose above 20 degrees, we were safe. Our second stove, unlike the ’36 Chambers that came with Casa Diva, has a safety feature that prevents even attentive pioneers like ourselves from lighting the oven for heat. I put simmering pots of water on the burners for moisture and some warmth.

On the first day the ice storm was still in full swing, and there was no way we could have even walked up the block. A small house, we managed to keep ourselves warm by bundling up, I in my fancy plush robe that is far too bulky with its faux fur collar and cuffs to wear in anything but a dire emergency, and my Beloved in the sturdy Land’s End plaid wrapper that he has deserved and finally acquired. I read the second of L. Frank Baum’s fourteen Oz books in the span of a few hours. My Beloved began a long-postponed handcrafted clock project. We cooked something on the stovetop and just as we began to converse face to face on the couch, I heard the furnace kick on, and we were saved from ourselves.

One imagines as a writer that all they need is long stretches of undisturbed time to complete their magnum opus. Just a few brief weeks is all it would take to put all those notions into some semblance of order and suddenly Random House would be sending a limo. Soon after that, the Pulitzer people would be texting nonstop. But I know my Muse is not so predictable, not so easily appeased by a few odd hours of available time to allow my creative ambitions come to fruition.

The more aware of mortal limitations and requirements I become, the more anxiety is produced by a storm such as this. This will be one for the record books—the massive outages, the consistent low temperatures that kept the ice from fully thawing until Day Two, the ice itself thick and heavy on branches, beautiful to some. Not to me. All I could see was terror, that temporary deadliness ice and snow manifest. Summer’s lease, short as it may be, is still long enough for us to forget the winter’s struggles, long for the coolness and pretty blankets of white.

Trees too old finally to bear the excessive weight on their bare branches broke, and broke in vast numbers across our county. Lines were torn from houses, old utility poles were split in two. Tho my time was technically free and available, writing or even editing was the last thing my mind was capable of. I cleaned, napped, sorted piles that had been sitting dormant for months. Everything but something creative. Crochet hooks laid still. Mod Podge tightly capped. Only yoga, my new commitment, remained, and even then I skipped one day, one bit of ease for a troubled mind.

When I write, it’s on the sly. This has been my habit since high school. Even advanced English courses bored me, but allowed me mostly quiet time at a desk where I could compose to my heart’s content. I have tried to train myself to hit the desk first thing in the morning, before my mind has been cluttered with the day’s detritus. Many days this desk time only adds to an extended day of sitting, since my work also involves sitting. Once in a while, I’ll be able to decipher some notes I’ve hastily scribbled on a scrap the night before, or find the original thread of inspiration that caused me to jot a word or two down weeks before.

However, poems will come when I least expect them, the best poems anyway. A word or phrase will stick in my ear, and my mind will begin to run with the lines even before I put pen to paper. And yes, I could have written something on that first outage day because mainly I compose on a legal pad with a basic Bic. But it was not there. I spend the weekend proving to myself how clever I could be in a crisis. How resourceful to wash dishes with plenty of soap, rinse them with water boiled in the kettle. How smart we were to convert a woolen quilt batting into the filling for a duvet cover that keeps us warm in any weather.

Reading that second Oz book tho will doubtless come in handy one of these days. I can’t say Baum was the best children’s author ever. Knowing how hard he worked to expand his stories to stage and film somewhat takes the sheen of charm off even the cleverest of plots. But step back further, and the scope of his creation, the world somewhere beyond but not quite ours, is impressive. I have all fourteen of Baum’s Oz books, the only ones I intend to bother with after the dozens that came after his death. I will finish them this year, in neat Barnes & Noble reissue volumes suitable for bedside consumption. And indeed, they were intended to be tales read at bedtime. My sleep has been consistent but a bit shallow lately. If the CBD gummies don’t help, perhaps an adventure with Dorothy and Tik-Tok just might.

 

(photo c. Tom Romeo, tomromeo.com)

Writing Again, With a Vengeance (or at least some consistency)

 

Last year’s Pandemic fueled silence has given way to renewed motivation. I have brought the Ziegfeld poems to a sufficient level of completion such that I am actually paying someone to proofread them. I anticipate self-publishing in the next few months, and will be investigating various options along those lines soon.

But at the same time, I have been writing poems again beyond this deeply researched collection. I have observed how my voice has evolved over my writing life, and how my poetry muscles have loosened and allowed me to grab the unique phrases that I always strive to include. To be honest, I do sometimes fear such abstraction is merely the first sign of a mental deterioration I am not ready for. But let’s think positively—I have been writing poetry for over half a century now. If I wasn’t getting closer to my goals now, I would never be.

Live readings in person have returned sporadically. Some groups, having lost their physical home, have remained on Zoom. Others have found alternative digs, and hence breathed a bit of fresh air into the proceedings. In Albany, an old familiar place, the QE2, now known as the Fuze Box, has risen from the ashes of 2020 and begun hosting an open mic on the first Monday of each month, Tom Natell’s old time slot. Amusingly, the majority of readers now use their phones instead of paper. I’ve never been able to develop that habit, although if pressed I could dig up some work still lingering in my emails.

I have a friend who, instead of the “Cloud”, emails himself important manuscripts for safekeeping. I have done the same from time to time, and the Z. poems are safely suspended in two of my accounts. I began an inventory of clippings from my freelance writer days, and ultimately hope to scan in the crumbling pages and save them to a flash drive. However, I still maintain a physical file for first drafts, and sometimes final in typed form. Little ticks of paper are scattered across my desk with ideas for poems, most of which will never become poems. If I don’t rescue the thread of the thing in twenty-four hours, it’s gone. A poem might be written, but it won’t be anything like what I intended.

I have returned to working from home for the winter, my employer having discovered the joys of lower heating and electric bills during last year’s exodus. I embrace the experience this time around, at worst secure that I am employable elsewhere if need be, and using the time between tasks for the homiest of activities. I allow myself the luxury of pajamas many days, at least until lunchtime. I write best in the dawn hours, before the phone begins to ring. I watch the trees outside my skylight bare their branch souls. We have missed the slight flurries so far that have visited the Hudson Valley, but we know those days are numbered. A coat is a necessity again. Sunlight is in short supply. And I am recording my impressions of it all.

 

** A Week's Dedication- Closer to the Finish Line**

 

You're sick of hearing about it I know, but recently, after thinking I was actually done with that Ziegfeld collection, I realized I had several drafts in my files that I’d arrogantly labeled, “FINAL.” Ha. I’ve spent quality time every day this past week reviewing those drafts, making notes on one main version, and retyping the whole thing yet again.

There’s a lot of spark I tend to leave out of subsequent drafts, and this process has really livened up the collection. I had random single versions of poems as well, and they were reviewed and had choice lines moved to the main version, too. Sometimes there’s just a line or phrase that really shines, and it leaves me wondering how it was excised in the first place! 

I also found poems that ultimately hadn’t made the cut. The collection has a sort of narrative arc to it, and I have been so drawn into the lives of there people, Anna Held, Marilyn Miller, Ziegfeld himself, that digressive poems have naturally been written, but now do not contribute to the greater work.

I’ve made some other decisions, too. I contacted a friend with many years of experience to proofread the finished work, because let’s face it— it’s nearly impossible to do so on your own. I have made the offer when distributing every self-published chapbook to reward anyone that finds a typo. Luckily no one’s taken me up on it, or I’d be destitute. So, with all the work I’ve put into this project, it deserves a professional eye on it.

I’ve spoken in the past with an extremely talented designer, and I will reconnect with him again when the time comes. I am fairly certain this, too, will be a self-published work, but perfect bound and perhaps through Lulu or one of those other services. I too often see the vices of self-publishing, but there is a certain equity in it as well. I am hoping to make this more than a vanity project, but the target audience might be a bit too narrow for any outside company to want to take a chance.

I’m thinking about adding four line drawings, too, because if it’s going to have limited appeal (poetry, Follies) why not go all the way. I used to draw as much as I wrote, once upon a time, and I’m not sure how visual arts dropped out of my expressive tool set. I am fooling around and seeing what I come up with.

Below is one of the poems that didn’t make the cut, but similar to others that are included. My overall goal is to bring these people back to life- as stars, as humans, as Follies legends. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

 

 

Flo and Billie Disagree

 

Flo motors up to Hastings after the show, 

 

after his own dance around costumers, songwriters, 

 

bill collectors, chorus girls, and 

 

Billie is up late, waiting. 

 

“Who was it tonight, Flo? That little brunette

 

with the dimpled knees?  That big girl

 

with the icy stare and the long fingers?

 

Or perhaps Little Miss Sugar Lump, 

 

this season’s latest fashion?”

 

 

Billie picks up a cloisonne’ vase, 

 

impressed herself a moment by its weight

 

filled with water and gladiolas, 

 

then throws it in Flo’s direction. 

 

Her aim is good, her arm strength less so.

 

Flo has plenty of time to duck. 

 

The vase crashes to the floor,

 

shards of porcelain and pink petals

 

exploding across the Turkish rug. 

 

 

“Now Billie—“

 

“Don’t you ‘Now, Billie’ me, Flo!

 

I’ve had it! This is the last time!”

 

Billie finds a lamp in her hands, 

 

pink dupioni’ silk, cream colored base,

 

ginger jar style. This one’s a little 

 

lighter than the vase, and her 

 

aim superior. Still, 

 

Flo dodges the stylish projectile. 

 

 

“Billie, your problem is that 

 

you always pick the wrong girl!”

 

Flo smiles, hoping to diffuse the 

 

raging red-headed volcano before him. 

 

Another vase grazes his shoulder.

 

“Now Billie, wait! I’ve got something 

 

to show you!” He pulls a wide bracelet

 

from his pocket, unwrapped, thick 

 

with diamonds. Flo holds the 

 

peace offering out to his wife, 

 

who pauses just a second to admire 

 

the glittering stones in the dim light 

 

of early dawn. 

 

 

Billie seizes the gift, and 

 

tosses it into the far corner 

 

of the parlor, making a mental note

 

when she hears where it lands,

 

behind the potted fern.

 

She is not careless, after all.