It's been a while since I've covered a new poetic form, so what better form to cover than a humorous one: the parody poem.

A parody poem is one that pokes fun at another poem or poet. For instance, I recently read a parody of "We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks, in an online version of Coe Review called "We Real White" that cracked me up. I even showed former Poetic Asides co-blogger Nancy Breen, but now it's apparently disappeared in the ethernet.

Soooo... I'm going to provide my own example that is not nearly as funny as the "We Real Cool"-"We Real White" parody. Instead, I'm going to parody one of my all-time favorite poems by Walt Whitman--"Song of Myself."

Here goes:

"My Song"

I congratulate myself and talk to myself;
I make a bunch of assumptions and descriptions;
what I talk about you listen to me talk about;
I talk about myself a lot;
but that's okay;
and boring.

The original version was much longer,
but nobody read it,
because it was longer,
because it had too many long descriptions,
because I have an affinity for exclammation points!!!!!!!!!!!!

So let's cut to the chase,
and get this over with,
and celebrate me,
and celebrate you,
and whoopity-doo!

So here's the short version,
and you better read it.

 

Earlier this month I learned that a poem of mine was accepted for the next issue of Barn Owl Review. I was thrilled, because I'd kind of hit a "no submitting" slump for a while. This morning I found out another of my poems has been accepted by this Australian online and print journal called Otoliths, which I'd appeared in previously a while back.

Here's the link to the most recent one, which will be "released" online around the beginning of August: "Why I never mention the traffic report"

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In case you're interested, here's a link to the previous one as well: "like apple cider spiked with spirits"

 

Totally unrelated, but my oldest son is today 1 year older: That's right, he's 7 years old today. Go Benjamin!

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Okay, I've known John Korn for a few years now through online social networks--we first met on MySpace. I've always enjoyed his words and his sincerity as a person. So when he mentioned he was coming out with his first collection Television Farm (A Menendez Publication), I wanted to use it as an excuse to pick his brain about poetry--from the perspective of an up and comer.

Here's a John Korn poem I was lucky enough to publish in my (now defunct) online journal Faulty Mindbomb: http://faultymindbomb.blogspot.com/2007/01/fmb0002.html 

What are you currently up to?

 

I have an interesting job. It is required of me to communicate with people who suffer from mental illnesses and encourage them to accomplish goals. I’m not saying I’m good at my job but I think a lot of the energy I once put into poetry is now being used here. As far as writing goes I am very interested in writing stories eventually. I’m also interested in digital filmmaking on a very low (maybe appropriately no) budget level. I have an idea for a series of poems taking place in a small city which I‘d like to be a small book.

 

How did this collection come about?

 

There are many moments which have lead to having this book being published. In short, when I began writing and posting my poems a woman named Didi Menendez began contacting me. She published me in her online magazine MiPOesias. After some time she began to do print issues as well as books. She eventually asked me to put a book together. She was very patient in that she let me take my time putting it in order. Didi is very active and creative with her magazine. There are also many interesting pod casts on her site.  Didi is also a great poet and recently has been churning out paintings like a machine.

 

Who (or what) do you consider to be the biggest influence on your writing?

 

There are a number of things and people that influence/influenced me. I will just mention a few poets. Ron Androla was a big influence. I was writing mostly stories before, or trying to. I never really cared much for poetry. I had liked Bukowski as a teen and Edgar Allen Poe before that, but I never was captivated by poetry enough to want to write it. I had read others, but even still I didn’t really care or never found anything that really hooked me. Not that I didn’t enjoy poetry or appreciate it. I just didn’t crave it or want to write it. Ron had such a unique voice that was very new to me and seemed (and is) timeless. The range of emotion, thoughts, and imagination that was being expressed really moved me. He would paint a slice of ordinary life with a simplicity that I found beautiful, and then paint a very surreal manic landscape that was severe and dark.  I found his voice to be intelligent, compassionate, and sometimes murderous. I loved it. Also his language was unlike anything I had read. It was addictive. I couldn’t read just one poem, I would read a series of his. There seemed to be a lot of experimentation in his poems, or that he had gone through much experimentation to get to the voice he had. I began to imitate that voice, I think. Eventually maybe I tried to come up with my own. Around the same time I began listening to early Bob Dylan. It was very exciting to have those two voices echoing down the hallways of my mind.

 

Also, I began reading a young lady’s blog.  She wrote many poems there. She’s one of the people I dedicated the book to. Like many poets, much of her words seemed to be scathing reviews of people and their behavior. I guess you can call them “put down” poems which I see a lot of. Though there was something different about hers. She seemed to be compassionate about her subjects. She wasn’t ridiculing people seemingly to make herself seem like the “wise” poet, or to write them off to stroke her own ego. Which is very tempting to do in poetry. It was more like she was trying to reach the people she was talking to in the poem to have them come to their senses. She often seemed to be asking her subjects to offer her the same in return. She was very graphic and creative with imagery with a dark tone which I love. I began to write her and eventually talk to her on the phone. I was not surprised when she told me that many of her poems were spawned from things she wanted to say to various people that were her friends. She also didn’t seem to be concerned about being published. What drove her to write seemed to be the need to express something she could not bring herself to do in a social situation.  She didn’t sound like any of the other poets I was skimming through with the same types of blogs. She didn’t seem too concerned about impressing  any group although she accepted praise and asked for criticism. There’s a kind of faith there. Faith in what she was doing.

 

As with Ron, she had an interesting language. Two very different poets but the approach and attitude seemed similar. She was experimenting. Technically she would mold her poems with different styles that I found impressive considering that when I was the same age I could not do what she was doing.  With both poets mentioned there was not just style but strong content.  I guess many poets probably approach their work in this way. It can simply be that some poets moved me where others did not. These two did. Albert Huffstickler and Stephen Dobyns are two others that really grabbed me. For basically the same reasons. Currently I’ve finally read some Walt Whitman and got the same spark. These are the kind of writers that would motivate and influence me to write to the point where I was ecstatic about it.

 

Do you spend a lot of time on revision?

 

Oh yes. Although I tend to shape the poems in appearance to not have a specific shape. If I had a typewriter or wrote my poems out longhand with a pen, it would really show how much I rearrange, cut out, and put in. There would be piles of crinkled paper. I tend to write long poems, but if I didn’t revise they would be three times as long.  I wrote mostly on a computer which makes it easier to do this, because often I would change the poem before I brought it to a close.  Going back to it later, sometimes months or a year, I will change things, even if only a word or two. When I had a blog, I often put up things rather quickly. It did not bother me so much if there were typos. With the book I went back and cleaned up. It was tedious at times.

 

Much of your poetry seems to describe people and how they interact. Do you intentionally try to do this?

 

Well, there are certainly intentional things I try to do in a poem. Since communication and interaction in various forms is something that fascinates me and I often want to explore this artistically, then yes, I intentionally do this. Though I can’t recall ever sitting down and telling myself, “Okay now I’m going to write a poem conveying how people interact.” It is something that I just naturally gravitate to.

 

I guess the idea of a farm that grows televisions can be all about interaction. I day dreamed that image while listening to a piece of music that was very soothing. I imagined a field at dusk. Then I began to imagine spots of colored light pushing up out of the ground. Eventually it became apparent that the spots of light were televisions growing and breaking though the dirt like pumpkins or watermelons. Immediately after this I imagined a young man and woman walking through these rows of TVs and touching them. When they touched the TVs the screens would flicker images as a reaction.

 

You asked if I drew the cover and I did not. My friend Jeremy Baum did. He read my poem and asked if he could draw a picture for it. I was excited to see his interpretation of it because he can effectively create surreal landscapes. I liked his vision and asked if I could use it for the cover. Unfortunately, though, I forgot to put his name in the book.  Sorry Jeremy. 

 

As a follow up question, is your poetry more influenced by fiction or reality? Or a blending of the two?

 

Both. There are poems in the book which are completely nonfiction.

 

"The Bridges in West Virginia Look Like Spider Webs" for example is a poem that is completely true about a drive I took through that state with some friends. In this case my imagination was very active that night, so my reality of that moment was influenced by fiction and fantasy. Taking a nap during that drive and having a vividly strange dream added to the experience. In other poems, the actual event was not so fantastic until I sat down to write it. In those cases the telling of it was influenced by fiction.

 

I will often fit a few actual experiences into a poem though they happened at different times. Other poems are just made up though always seem influenced by an actual experience. To me it really doesn’t seem to matter. It seems to me that our reality is very influenced  by make-believe, and make-believe is constantly trying to mimic reality. The two seem constantly entwined and both are revealing of the other.

 

 

Do you have any specific things you try to avoid in your own writing?

 

I have not been writing as intensely as I was with the poems in this book. I can recall sitting down and certainly being conscious of avoiding something, though not conscious enough to know specifically what I was trying to avoid. Looking back I think one thing I tried not to do was to have a voice that sounded like a guy straining to sound like a profound poet. When I read poetry I consider to be not interesting or moving, it always seems that the poet is trying to sound too much like a poet. I may be failing in my explanation of this, but hopefully you get the idea.  I don’t think I’ve always succeeded in this, but I found it very important to avoid it as best I could.

 

Also, when I write I often have an imaginary audience in my head that I am writing to. I tried to avoid having my audience be made up of poets. Like I mentioned poetry was rarely an interest of mine. So, in turn, it was rarely my interest to want to write poems aimed towards poets. To me, when this is done, it becomes like a language shared only between poets. I’m not so interested in that. I wanted to be more accessible to others. That does not mean dumbing down your poetry by any means. To try and interact with different people with different perceptions and convey an image or thought to them that they could relate to and hopefully provoke thought or emotion. I liked the idea of attracting even one reader that may not normally be so interested in poetry. It was something that I kept in mind to make the experience of writing poetry a mostly happy and interesting one. Even if I failed it doesn’t matter because it was what motivated me to experiment and keep up the practice at that time. Though, obviously, when the poem is complete the first person you want to take it to is a poet or someone who is familiar with poetry so you can get some feedback.

 

 

If you were to impart one piece of wisdom to another poet, what would it be?

 

 I would most likely send them in the direction of another poet. The obvious “wisdom” is to read and write. Whatever you are looking to do in writing you cannot start until you begin this.

 

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Click here to check out John Korn's Television Farm.

 

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Check out a painting of John Korn here.

 

 

While I was on vacation last week, I had the opportunity to run the world's largest 10K road race in Atlanta, Georgia: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race. Along with 55,000 other runners and cheered on by more than 150,000 spectators, I jogged 6.2 miles in around 61 minutes in complete awe and amazement. As a person who's run in some pretty important and fast races, this event totally took my breath away.

It's interesting to think about the kind of reactions people have to a huge mass of people like that. Also, it's interesting to think about why that many people would gather in the first place. Walking up to the start line the morning of the race, I felt almost as if I were looking at an assembled army--one decked out in tank tops, shorts and running shoes.

So for this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem that somehow involves a large crowd. You can be lost in that crowd, leading it, getting pumped up by it, or fearing it. You can leave the reasoning for the crowd ambiguous or make that the point of your poem. Just make sure you play around with it and have fun.

Here's my attempt:

"We started under a flag"

Helicopters hovered overhead;
people shot water across the street
and urged us on to the next mile;
some of us ran, others jogged,
and many walked; many of us didn't
even know where we were, where
we were headed; instead, we
followed those in front who followed
those in front of them; we weren't
concerned with the time; we
worried only over the next hill--
and then the next; some of us
stopped for water and marked off
each mile; some of us quit along
the way; but most of us followed
those in front to the very end.

 

...it appears we had a server crash last week, tied to some power outage thing-a-ma-bob. Apparently, all the poems posted between Wednesday morning and Thursday around 7ish in the evening for the most recent poetry prompt have been wiped clean of the site. Totally bummed, because I read a lot of great stuff on Wednesday (while on vacation).

It appears those lost comments will not be restored--so I hope there were no original copies in there. I'm lucky the blog post wasn't completely wiped out, because I just type my first drafts right into the box for these prompts. While this was a freak occurence, I would advise everyone (myself included) to copy their poems over into Word or something similar before or directly after posting--though before is probably the safest bet.

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In other news, I had a poem accepted by the Barn Owl Review for their 2nd issue, which'll be released at the 2009 AWP in Chicago. Very, very cool! As mentioned in the blog, I just started submitting again in June--so it's awesome to already see some good coming of it. :)

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Now that I'm back from my southern vacation, I've got a lot of stuff to post, so be sure to stop over from time to time this week.

 

TanyaB--one of my friends on Facebook--recently sent me some poetry-related Q's she'd like addressed on the blog. One series (of three) had to do with editing. So, I'm going to list the questions below and try to answer them the best I can. Any blog readers who have a different take are more than welcome to contribute their thoughts in the comments (even if you completely contradict my advice, I'm always open to the possibility of being wrong). :)

Btw, these questions have to do with editing your work.

How do you get started with the editing process?

As far as I'm concerned, the editing process is sometimes going on as early as the actual first draft when I'm deciding what to write. But that said, I often try to just write and let ideas and images come out. When I do this I can sometimes start editing as soon as I finish the draft, but more likely I'll have to let the draft sit for some period of time before revisiting. That period of time could be anywhere from half-an-hour to several weeks (or longer). That's why I copy all my poems down into notebooks--so that I can always revisit old ideas and develop into new pieces if the mood strikes.

There are many things I look for when I revise, but those are based off comments I've received over the years about things I tend to do with my writing. For instance, I try to eliminate the word "it"--unless I can justify its existence. And I prefer active verbs over passive verbs, etc. Also, I read over the poem for rhythm and examine the poem to see if I can give it structure without sacrificing the meaning or flow. And there are many other things--someday I may write a book on them all.

How do you know when it's finished?

A poet friend of mine likes to say that a poem is never finished, and I tend to agree. I mean, look at Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman--it went through the revision process until there was a "deathbed edition." There's no perfect poem; therefore, you can always play around with them. When you can't find anything new to do to the poem, though, it's usually a good time to try submitting it. If it's accepted, great. If it's rejected, the time apart from the poem may give you new ideas on ways to play with it.

Should you hire an editor or just go with your gut?

I think poets need to develop their guts; I also think poets should never hire an editor. In addition, poets are served well by developing relationships with other poets who can help critique their work. And the critiquing should go both ways. The process of thinking about what works and doesn't work in another's poems can be very beneficial if you then look for similar flaws in your own work. And the feedback you receive from other poets will give you the opportunity to defend your poetic decisions or admit that improvements could be made. No matter what, you should thank anyone who volunteers their time to give you feedback--even if it's not an easy pill to swallow.

 

Hope that was helpful. And if you have additional comments, please share them with everyone in the comments section below--so the whole group can benefit from your insight.

If you happen to have questions of your own you would like to see addressed on the blog, feel free to send 'em my way with "Poetry FAQs" in the subject line to robert.brewer@fwpubs.com. I can't promise I'll answer them all, but I will try to do what I can.

 

Here's a link to a piece on a supposedly shady poetry contest: "Shady poetry contest gets religion," by Bill Chapin from mlive.com

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Here's an experience of my own from way back in high school:

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/Im+Coming+Out+Of+The+Closet.aspx

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If you're not sure what a shady poetry contest might be, please read both pieces and educate yourself. :)

 

A-ha! Here’s an interview with a poet who participated in the April PAD Challenge and wrote his first ever sestina as a result. As Joseph Mills, author of Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers (Press 53, 2008), comments, “It was smart of you (meaning me, of course) to put that towards the end since by then we were invested in finishing.”

 

In recent years, Mills has published two collections of poetry through Press 53; the other collection is Somewhere During the Spin Cycle (2006). With his wife, Mills has also put together two editions of A Guide to North Carolina’s Wineries (John F. Blair, 2007). It seems only natural that Mills’ knowledge of wine-making and poetry would create its own poetic blend.

 

Here’s a favorite poem of mine from Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers and originally published in North Carolina Literary Review:

 

“Aging”

 

To speak of a wine’s future

is to speak of our own desires,

how we hope as we age

that we’ll become more

harmonious, less acidic,

that our tannins will mellow.

We recognize right now

we have a burst of flavor,

an energy, a liveliness,

but also a harshness

which later may soften

until we’re more balanced,

more approachable,

easier to appreciate.

Hold onto us;

we believe

we’ll get better.

 

 

What are you currently up to?

 

At the moment, I’m working on a novel set in “Carolina Wine Country” and a young adult novel that deals with the nature of time.  I’m also drafting a sequence of poems about my mother’s dementia and other work for my third poetry collection tentatively entitled “Love and Other Collisions.”

 

So, what led to an entire collection of poems about wine?

 

In the last half dozen years, my wife and I researched and wrote two editions of A Guide to North Carolina’s Wineries.  As we traveled the state, talking to winemakers and winery owners, I found myself with material that wasn’t appropriate for the guidebook, but that I was interested in exploring and using.  I wrote a few poems dealing with wine, and they appeared in my first collection of poetry, Somewhere During the Spin Cycle.  The wine poems kept coming, and once I had more than a dozen I realized that there would be enough for a collection, and that this would give the volume a nice coherence.  Eventually I wrote well over a hundred and then culled the best.

 

Do you think of yourself as writing for poets who enjoy wine or for wine lovers who enjoy poetry?

 

For the guidebook, I had a clear audience in mind--people interested in touring or at least learning about the state’s wineries.  It’s nonfiction with a straight-forward purpose.  For poetry, however, I never think of an actual audience.  I write for myself.  I work on a poem, and I try to shape it as best as I can.  Sometimes I’m not satisfied with it, and I shelve it.  Sometimes I’m satisfied enough to consider sending it out for publication which is a way of both inspiring me to work on it more and, once it’s sent, having it out of my sight for a while.  Even with publication in mind, however, I don’t imagine an audience, someone actually reading it.  I learned a long time ago that when you publish poetry, you shouldn’t expect any kind of response.  If you do, you might be waiting a long time.

 

I hope the book appeals to more people than a Venn diagram middle of poetry lovers and wine lovers.  In fact, maybe it will get people more involved in both. My brother, who is a teetotaler, has told me that the poems make him want to drink wine, and my wife likes to say that it’s “poetry for people who think they don’t like poetry.”

 

In your collection, you use specialized terms, such as "thief" and "angel's share." Do you feel jargon helps the writing process?

 

I love the specialized language of a field when it is in some way metaphorical.  For example, the “angel’s share” refers to the evaporation in the barrels.  I find this thought-provoking as opposed to technical language like “thirty inch cartridge filter housing.”  I’m interested in the language that’s evocative rather than intimidating or limiting.

 

Jargon can sound pompous and it can obscure, but the specialized vocabulary of almost any field can be fun.  On a film set, when you “cheat” something, you’ve set up an unnatural relationship, moving things too close together, so that it will come out on the film looking right.  I find the term fascinating.  In music, there’s a chord called “the devil’s interval” which is a terrific phrase.

 

Religion seems twisted into the wine. Do you find that writing about both religion and wine is a natural?

 

Because of the nature of grape-growing--the seasonal cycle of pruning and rebirth in the vineyard--and the way wine involves a transformation of grapes, even people who aren’t religious tend to use spiritual language to talk about it.  Since what I love about wine are the stories, and historically wine has been an element in so many religions, it’s probably inevitable that I would write about the relationship at least a little.

 

Who are your favorite poets?

 

I love the work of John Ciardi, James Wright, and Philip Levine.  Billy Collins consistently delights.  There are poems by W.H. Auden, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell and Gary Snyder that I have returned to dozens of times over the years.  I’m a fan of “The Writer’s Almanac” because I like reading just a poem at a time, integrating it as part of the day, and having its selection be a surprise.  (It’s why I like the shuffle feature of my iPod.)

 

What are your favorite wines?

 

The ones I drink with my wife and with family and friends.  The joke in our household is that we only “cellar” wines that we don’t like.  If we like it, we drink it.  The second part of the joke is that there are only two bottles in the cellar.

 

One piece of advice for other poets: What is it?

 

Consider it a life’s work.  After twenty years, I’m finally writing poems that I think reward attention.  I hope in the next twenty years, I’ll learn to write poems that hold up.  And in the twenty years after that…

 

You write a little bit at a time, consistently, and it adds up, and the work improves.  I’ve often had the experience of discovering a way to finally revise a poem that for years hasn’t been quite right or how to use a few lines or ideas that I have squirreled away long ago.

 

Finally, you're stranded on a deserted island and can only have 3 things with you: What are they and why?

 

My wife.  She’s the only person I know that whenever we leave each other, I immediately want to call her up and see when we can meet.  Plus it would finally be a chance for us to have an island vacation together.  I would take our two kids, but they would probably get bored, so how about my iPod with a solar charger.  It not only has thousands of songs, but also audio books and lectures on subjects that interest me, such as Mark Twain and the Civil War.  I also would want a writing utensil that would work until we were rescued and something to write on.  Wait, that’s two, isn’t it.  Can we consider “a writing package” one item?  How about an incredibly durable solar powered laptop?  But, then I wouldn’t need the iPod, so what about a guitar with indestructible strings?  That’s it:  wife, laptop, guitar.

 

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For more on Joseph Mills, check out his Web site at http://www.josephrobertmills.com/. 

 

Here are some of his poems available online from New Works Review:

 

* "The Thief"

 

* "Release"

 

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If you're a poet or publisher interested in an interview on the Poetic Asides blog, read more here.

 

 

On Earth Day, I asked poets to write either a poem about nature or industry; many poets chose to write about both. Here are the ones that caught my eye.

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A Haze over Holland

 

A haze over Holland

looks yellow and gray.

It comes from machines

of this modern day.

Those noisy leaf blowers,

plus busses and trains;

They all make their noises

and spew smoke like rain.

 

The brooks that are babbling

speak to no ear.

And the whispering winds

we no longer hear.

Loud honking geese

fly unnoticed, it’s true.

Long gone is the quiet

creation once knew.

 

So out to the country,

a day trip, I’ll take.

I’ll bask in the sunshine

where life’s not so fake.

I’ll listen to bird calls;

hear rustling leaves.

From the haze over Holland,

I’ll have my reprieve.

 

 

Sue Bench |hd_ultra_96AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

 

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"Rantings of City-Folk"

 

I care about the Earth

and all that is in it

I really do realize

our only home is this planet

But out lives are much easier

with modern convenience

Technology improved

from the way we lived once

No longer a candle

or oil it need be

A flick of a switch

for incandescence to see

Forget the horse and buggy

or a ship to sail by

Cars go much faster

and planes let us fly

If you truly miss me

a phone is all you need

Better than waiting days on end

for a letter to read

I know the air is harsh

and the water is muck

And we do so much worse

just to save a buck

But I rather like living

in my city today

And I really wouldn't have it

any other way

 

 

Chris Granholm Jr. |chris7baAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

 

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Oasis

 

Western Texas is a desert

so I shouldn't have been surprised