Very smoky out this morning, the sun a deep orange. When Wally was a puppy three years ago, it was like this, though worse. Hotter, and the grass dry and stiff. I wrote about that smoky summer and @robmclennan published it at Dusie. It's one of the poems in my (still technically circulating?) MS.
"After we die,
and the weary heart
has lowered its final eyelid
on all that we've done,
and on all that we've longed for,
on all that we've dreamt of,
all we've desired
or felt,
hate will be
the first thing
to putrefy
within us."
Playing catch-up today! Today’s prompt was to write a sijo, yesterday’s was to write a sonnet. I’m not really happy with how the sonnet turned out (sonnets in general are one of my least favorite forms), but the sijo form is new to me and I really enjoyed it!
#poetrycafe April 12: can writing poetry be learned?
Another way to phrase this: can poetry be taught?
If we're teaching/learning poetry, what exactly are we using as learning materials? Other poems, presumably. You'd have to know how to read as deep comprehension of language and grammar. Metaphors.
You should know what poetry isn't. So, study all other forms of writing and see the differences.
You should understand yourself and others and read everyone like a text. Be self-aware.
Yes!!! I am still building it but creating it was a huge step as it was made to embody my first big project even if I have others - it felt like giving an essence to my texts, and a platform. I am yet to build up a community! #poetrycafe
#PoetryCafe 2/25 Have you ever written erotic poetry?
Yes! I have about a dozen erotic sonnets and a few assorted poems that could fall in that category. I find human sexuality fascinating, especially kink, which is the subject of most of the sonnets. I'm not sure if anyone would find them particularly exciting, but it's interesting to write about.
#PoetryCafe 2/24 Do you wish for a better poetry market?
I've heard that poetry is doing better than ever in the current literary market, not sure how true that is. In any case I certainly do wish it was more popular. Poetry is one of life's little joys, it's sad how many people don't seem to appreciate it.
I try to keep a book of poetry by my desk so I can read a poem every once in a while, while I am waiting for something else. I don't often sit down just to read poetry, usually it is something I do in passing.
When I do sit down and get intense with a poetry collection, it's usually more of a technical dissection than reading for pleasure, which is necessary, but sucks.
#PoetryCafe 2/22 How regularly do you write poetry?
I try to write a new poem every day, at least one, and sometimes several, which I suppose makes up for the days I am too depressed to write anything. I've written just under 100 poems in 2024, not counting haiku and tanka. I expect that I will start falling behind a bit in the coming weeks, since I started the year on a bit of a binge, but I hope I can keep it at about 1/day on average.
I used to write poetry while in London, in an area that had some pretty run-down parts. I gave up since I'm not good at poetry, but I thought this one was slightly better than the rest. What do you think? 😅
piri-piri and p*ss
stain the paper sheets
of everyday-value men
their hands grow
out of London planes
to pray; or serve curry
and whether or not
they lose their bet,
a party takes place
#PoetryCafe 2/19 What do you think of poetry slam?
Some people like competition, I get that. It's not for me. I find the thought of judging poetry almost incoherent - certainly some of it is better than the rest, but it's difficult to quantify that. It's like being on Iron Chef or something like that - how do you numerically evaluate something as subjective as cooking? I think it's so subjective as to be useless.
That said, I have never attended a poetry slam, maybe it would be fun.
#PoetryCafe 2/17 Do you need emotions to write poetry?
No, I don't think so. Certainly you don't need to be feeling emotions while writing poetry. It helps, but it's not a prerequisite.
I don't know if someone who had never experienced an emotion could write effective poetry, though. One would have to at least study it and try to emulate the effect of emotion. A poem doesn't have to be emotional, but it does have to be evocative.
#PoetryCafe 2/16 Which emotion is most present in your poetry?
I think that, like many poets, I write mostly about love or death. I would say that frustration is probably the underlying emotion in a lot of my poetry, too; frustration, or sorrow. Occasionally I write a poem because I am content with my life, but mostly I write them because I am not.
Good at what? There's a saying that you can't have an optimum without a criterion. In other words, a poem may be good at one thing and bad at another.
I've read plenty of poetry that I enjoyed that was technically unsatisfying, and I've read plenty of highly technical poetry that did nothing for me. Some poems that other people love, I just don't get. I think I probably love some poems other people don't get, too.
I guess I didn't answer the implicit question, "What makes a poem good for me?" I think it's a combination of texture, cleverness, structure, and emotion.
Texture - word choices that give the poem a distinct feeling or character
Cleverness - Things like word play, rhyme schemes, astute observations
Structure - Some kind of element that repeats or contextualizes the poem
Emotion - Not the author's, but mine. Do I feel something reading it?
#poetrycafe February 14 - Your thoughts on open verse?
I imagine a forest with no paths, only emergent rhythms and articulations.
Part of me longs for that, to have a share of the chaos so I can find my own order in it.
But part of me is afraid of it. Not that it is scary or dangerous, but that it would be a disappointment… homogeneous, without any of the surprises or tension that you get from having structure and resistance.
I like open form poetry, as a compromise between completely free verse and closed form. A lot of my poetry ends up having a meter or rhyme scheme of some kind, even if it's not a traditional form.
It took me a while to come around to appreciating completely free verse. It's definitely a different sort of aesthetic sense that gets engaged. I enjoy writing that, too, especially poems that only have a few words per line.
Hmm, how could I not? Poetry is everywhere, it's one of the little flourishes that make the human experience interesting.
I think my first exposure to poetry was probably Shel Silverstein, but I didn't really get into poetry as a medium until much later. The first poems I loved were Byron's "She walks in beauty" + Shakespeare's sonnets.
I didn't start writing it until recently, during grad school, when I was going insane from technical writing.
#PoetryCafe 2/11 Have you ever written song lyrics?
No - I've done a little bit of composition as part of a class on music theory in college, but that's as far as I got with songwriting. I've been wanting to get more into music lately, as it's something that used to be a big part of my life...I feel like I could do it, but I just haven't given it sufficient time and effort.