I've been meaning to incorporate revision tips into this blog in a helpful way since it first started, but I've had trouble figuring out a good method for doing so. Finally, I had one of those "light bulb" moments when the answer seems so obvious: I'll just workshop a poem each week.

The original poems submitted to me to get us started were submitted via Facebook. Members of my Poetic Asides group on that site were sent a message soliciting poems that I could try offering feedback. Not every poem submitted to me will receive feedback or appear on the blog, but every poem has the same chance. (I'll include directions on how to submit your own poem--if interested--in a later post on this blog.)

It should be noted that my feedback should not be considered the final word on any poem. As poets, we have to make the final decisions on what works and does not. But I will try to give many suggestions and ask the kind of questions any good reader or writer of poetry should consider.

Today's poem was submitted by J. Era Martin. Here it is in its original form:

Childhood, by J. Era Martin

They named me Era,

As though somehow the Word alone would empower me.

A man of Signs, my father

lifted me, a Tin of Elements,

to the moon and shouted Kunte Kente,

somewhat inappropriately, I’m sure.

He favoured the Yin and the Yang

without any clue to Balance;

he would fight and lose teeth—

three times he lost and replaced and finally lost

the front one.  But he never stopped

Smiling.

It was sort of maniacal, really.

You could tell he just wanted

to please, but there he was, unfolding

a Thousand Visible Lies right

to your Face. 

Christmas he’d spend

the morning with us, the afternoon

with his Illegitimate Family.  I would

hang up on his Mistress when

she phoned.

He’d keep a Job no more than five days:

having told his boss a better way

of pouring concrete, he’d be fired.

Daddy smelled like Budweiser when

I hugged him.

I would feed it to him and his buddies

in their F 250 Trucks in the driveway to our house.

I was a Good Girl.

Our family always rented.

The second floor was converted

to a Bedroom from a Game Room

For my parents and my baby sister.

Wolf Spiders hung above her crib.

The previous tenant had committed

Suicide in that room.

I remember I would wake up

to woodpeckers.  Their

Irregular Beats were fierce.

My father came home less and less often.

I think this is how The Story always goes.

His partying was excused:  better to

Stay The Night than Drive Home Drunk,

my mom explained.

*****

My first question: Why are so many words in uppercase? Signs, Tin of Elements, Balance, Face, etc. I'm assuming these words are meant to be emphasized, but doing so with a device like capitalization (or bold and italic) is often distracting for a reader. It was for me, and I can't see a good reason for emphasizing those specific words.

Next, I know the title of the poem is "Childhood," but I'm not sure if this poem is as much about the childhood of the narrator as about her father. It seems like shifting the focus specifically to the father would benefit this poem a great deal.

In fact, the strongest parts of this poem--for me--were when describing the father's teeth and his other family. So, a good strategy after discovering what this poem may be about is to cut out the rest of the excess.

*****

2nd version--taking out caps and excess information

Childhood, by J. Era Martin

A man of signs, my father

lifted me, a tin of elements,

to the moon and shouted Kunte Kinte,

somewhat inappropriately, I’m sure.

He favoured the yin and the yang

without any clue to balance;

he would fight and lose teeth—

three times he lost and replaced and finally lost

the front one.  But he never stopped

smiling.

It was sort of maniacal, really.

You could tell he just wanted

to please, but there he was, unfolding

a thousand visible lies right

to your face. 

Christmas he’d spend

the morning with us, the afternoon

with his illegitimate family.  I would

hang up on his mistress when

she phoned.

Our family always rented.

The second floor was converted

to a bedroom from a game room

for my parents and my baby sister.

Wolf spiders hung above her crib.

The previous tenant had committed

suicide in that room.

My father came home less and less often.

I think this is how the story always goes.

His partying was excused:  better to

stay the night than drive home drunk,

my mom explained.

*****

After the second version, I still feel this poem could be tightened quite a bit and made more immediate. In fact, I think the title should change to focus on the family element of this poem.

To make the poem more immediate, I'm going to once again strip out anything that does not relate to the tension in this family. And, as you'll probably notice, I'm going to flip the ending image to the front, because I feel like it's just sticking out at the end.

*****

3rd version--changing title, moving lines around and ever tightening

Our Family Always Rented, by J. Era Martin

My father came home less and less often.

"Better to stay the night than drive home drunk,"

my mom explained. A man of signs, my father

favoured the yin and the yang without any clue

to balance; Christmas, he'd spend the morning
with us, the afternoon with his illegitimate family.

You could tell he just wanted to please, but
there he was unfolding his hands like the lies

he fed us. It was sort of maniacal, really,

the way he would fight and lose teeth—

three times he lost and replaced and finally lost

the front one.  But he never stopped smiling.

*****

For me, this third version really gets the message across in a concise manner. In the beginning, this poem sets up the familiar story we're used to hearing about the father with a family on the side. Where this poem twists in a new direction is by focusing on his fight with his teeth. Trying to keep them, but ultimately losing the one in front. Regardless, he never stops smiling.

Great poem, J., and I hope some of my feedback has helped.

Of course, my feedback is not the end. I hope that the readers of this blog will jump in and offer their own feedback on J.'s poem. Plus, don't be afraid to refute my feedback and edits. I totally think the best way to workshop is to have several different opinions. The more the better. Plus, with more feedback, J. will have even more options for which direction she ultimately wishes to take this poem.

Thursday, July 09, 2009 4:54:32 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [37] 

Two of my poems are posted at Frank Giampietro's La Fovea site. You can check them out at http://www.lafovea.org/La_Fovea/robert_lee_brewer.html

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:49:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [10] 

Wow! Two late prompts in a row. It's not intentional--just trying to put out some fires at work this morning/early afternoon. Fun times! Actually, that would make a great prompt.

For this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem about putting out fires (either literally or metaphorically). After I write my attempt, I'm going to get back to fighting mine.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Cutting back"

Water seeping through carpet
and strange noise rattling
through the wall like a tornado
trying to sound like a train
trying to sound like an automotive
assembly line. Birds still twitter
in the trees and thunderstorm
passes with its thunderclaps
and computer flickering
when they clap close enough.
"It never ends," says the man
who comes to check out the wet
spot in the carpet before leaving
without any word on whether
he plans on coming back to fix.
"I'll tell you it just never ends."

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 7:05:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [248] 

Kathryn Stripling Byer is the former poet laureate of North Carolina. She has published five poetry collections, most recently Coming to Rest (Louisiana State University Press). She's also one of those rare poets who have a business card.

Coming to Rest is a great collection--even has two Halloween poems. Here's one of my favorites:

Coastal Plain

The only clouds
forming are crow clouds,

the only shade, oaks
bound together in a tangle of oak

limbs that signal the wind
coming, if there is any wind

stroking the flat
fields, the flat

swatch of corn.
Far as anyone's eye can see, corn's

dying under the sky
that repeats itself either as sky

or as water
that won't remain water

for long on the highway: its shimmer
is merely the shimmer

of one more illusion that yields
to our crossing as we ourselves yield

to our lives, to the roots
of our landscape. Pull up the roots

and what do we see but the night
soil of dream, the night

soil of what we call
home. Home that calls

and calls
and calls.

*****

What are you up to?

Just now I've been reading online Eavan Boland's essay in the May issue of Poetry, finding her description of the two contradictory ways of being a poet extremely helpful. With my term as North Carolina's first woman Poet Laureate coming to a close, I've felt the pull of the private grow stronger and stronger, even as I never doubted the importance of the position I held as Laureate. It's rejuvenating to find an essay giving voice to what's been milling around inside my own head, giving it context, both literary and historical, so that I can say, "Yes, I understand the lay of the land a lot better now." The two seemingly antithetical "types" exist in most of us, I think, and I know they do inside me. One minute, get me out of here, then the next, what can I do to bring more North Carolina poets to public notice? 

Having finished Boland's essay, I'm now worrying about the tomato plants in our garden. Two of them aren't thriving and one of the heirlooms is being nibbled by something. Rabbit? Raccoon? This afternoon I will hope to get back to some of my own work, print it out, scribble on the pages for a while.  I've a new manuscript I'm hoping to place, Descent, which takes me back to the landscape of the deep South from which I came. And what must be dozens of notebooks scattered all over the house containing drafts of poems, essays and stories--I have to track them down!  I'm hopelessly disorganized.

You were the poet laureate of North Carolina from 2003 to 2009. What were your responsibilities as North Carolina's poet laureate?

I was told at the outset that I could write my own job description. Well, with Fred Chappell as your predecessor, that's not going to be easy. Fred set quite a high standard, and I knew I was going to have to work hard to meet it. Mostly I wanted to help make poetry accessible in as many ways I could, whether to other poets (we have so many in our state!) or to readers, students, teachers, anyone at all who cared to listen to me on my soapbox.  

Right away the Literature Director of the NC Arts Council, Debbie McGill, and I began a web page on the Council site devoted to NC writers, with a poet of the week, new books section, and news. Finally we had to give up the week by week poet; it was a lot of work to keep that going. We moved to a Poets of the Month, and finally to a quarterly web page. I decided to set up my own laureate blog to facilitate what the Council was trying to do, especially now with the budget freeze in place.

So, what else did I do? I wrote occasional poems for libraries, events, really, all sorts of requests. One, even, for someone's 60th birthday! I visited classrooms, gave a lot of readings, answered a lot of e-mails, and wrote a lot of blurbs. I'd say my job description was "always available." I was always trying to track down new voices to share with an audience. Although the council can't afford to search for and select a new laureate till state finances improve, they've asked me to continue the blog, which I'm happy to do. Working on it gives me a lot of satisfaction.

How important do you feel community is for poets?

So many of us, of a certain generation anyway, have embedded in our imaginations the image of the solitary poet, the Romantic standing alone on the summit, brooding  over the world below and its connection with the world inside. At the same time, we know that  poets need each other, just as they always have, maybe now more than ever, and they need to feel that they are part of their own communities, where they become involved in the cultural and political life of that community. I've tried myself to become involved in various issues important to me locally—the new library, for instance, writing a poem for the groundbreaking, letters to the paper and so forth.  The moratorium on new development in our county drew me into writing guest editorials as well as poems.   

We are lucky to have a local weekly that cares about such things. The larger newspapers are turning away from their literary pages, even their guest editorials. I know the internet is picking up a lot of the slack. Blogs. Facebook. Twitter. I've just joined Facebook after keeping my distance for a good while. I was warned by a friend, "You will be falling into a black hole."  So far I'm still ok, and I'm discovering that I can post news there about my latest laureate features and other literary matters of interest to me. The definition of "community" is changing, no doubt about that, and I still prefer face to face community, but I'll use what I can to make the case for poetry.

North Carolina may be the best state in which to live if you are a writer.  The NC Writers Network was begun nearly 30 years ago, and it has worked hard to bring real literary community to the state, a state that for so long had its regions strictly marked—mountain (where writers got little notice), Piedmont (Mecca, as we used to call it) and eastern/coastal, as isolated as the mountains. Now, thanks to NCWN and umbrella organizations like Netwest, among others, I can say that the whole state is Mecca. It didn't happen overnight. It took years of ground-breaking by good people, like Debbie McGill of the Arts Council, Marsha Warren and her stalwarts at NCWN, and all the local folks who came together to form their own literary organizations.  Writers need each other and they need to feel a connection with their readers and future readers. It's fine to stand on a mountain-top and brood—I've done that myself--but we have to come back down again and live in our communities. Let our voices be heard.

In Coming to Rest, location factors into several poems. How important do you feel location is to a poet?

I firmly believe a poet has to feel located somewhere, in some physical place where light falls on the ground, the earth grumbles and sings, the leaves fall, the sewage stinks, and so forth. "You have to be from somewhere before you can write about anywhere else," as Fred Chappell, our resident genius, once said. Or as Flannery O'Conner said, "Our limitations are our gateways to reality." My gateway literally squeaked, rusty and old, there was pig-stink all around, my people were hard-scrabble farmers, but it was a way into my first poems.  And from there, I could go anywhere.  Anywhere!

You work in relationships with your daughter and husband in first person narrative poems. Where do you draw the line between reality and fiction?

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to draw the line. I let the poem itself guide me. The poems drawing in daughter and husband in Coming to Rest were different in that personal inclusion. So many of my earlier poems had been "persona poems," where I could work out any inner narratives through a fictional character--the mountain woman named Alma, for example, or the aging Evelyn. James Dickey's famous statement, "Poetry lies in order to tell the truth," seems apt here, as does Richard Hugo's, "You owe reality nothing, your emotions everything." What I mean is, you fictionalize, you improvise when you come up against what you can't or can't yet say or may never want to say outright. Yes, let's don't forget Dickinson's, "Tell the truth but tell it slant." There are ways of getting around reality into a poetic reality.  The poem itself has seemed to draw the line for me when I am paying adequate attention to language and craft. The reality in a poem is, finally, language and how it is used.

How do you handle the submissions process?

Right now I'm not submitting much at all,  though I'm happy to oblige if an editor asks me to submit some work. Otherwise I'm dealing with the day-to-day business of being wife, mother, daughter, laureate, friend, and as you see, at the bottom of the list, poet.  But can't poet be intertwined with all of the above?    

I used to be diligent about the submissions process, keeping records, reading Poets & Writers faithfully, but I came to find the process taking up so much energy—what to send where and when, then the irritation (that's putting it mildly) of rejections, the envy of seeing friends with poems in magazines that had rejected my work, and so on. It began to be tiresome. I'm ready to try again, though, with the new work I've done over the past few months. I've been in P0-biz for 40 years. I still get a thrill from having poems accepted, and I still get pretty testy when they are rejected. I don't want to think of myself as over and done with. I simply won't, and that's all there is to it.

Why do you write poetry?

It's the best way I know to sing with the world. And because I couldn't be Renee Fleming or Emmy Lou Harris. Or Nina Simone.

Who are you currently reading?

Stacked at my bedside are books by Mahmoud Darwish, Tomas Transtromer, Zbigniew Herbert, Sandor Kanyadi, Chitra Divakaruni, Marie Ponsot, Adam Zagajewski, and Nazim Hikmet. I pick up one of them on any given night.  Chitra's novels, of course, I read straight through, but I enjoy going back to favorite passages. I'm especially fond of her The Vine of Desire and the novel that comes before it, Sister of My Heart. I'm staying away from most American poetry at the moment, but not NC poetry. You can read my laureate blog to see that I'm keeping up with that.   

If you could share only one piece of advice with other poets, what would it be?

I'll have to go with what Maxine Kumin told me years ago, "You have to be stubborn to make it as a poet." That advice was for a young poet struggling to see her first book published, but I think it still stands. By "making it," I now mean keeping it going, growing, digging in your heels and saying, "Here I am." We are a youth obsessed culture, including our literary culture. But women of a certain age like me must keep on keeping on. Living in the South, being thought "regional" by the literary powers-that-be doesn't help. But it doesn't hurt, if you pay them no mind.

It may seem paradoxical that to keep moving, you dig in your heels and stand your ground, but poetry can deal with those paradoxes. All of art can.  

*****

* Check out Kathryn's North Carolina Poet Laureate blog at: http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/

* Check out Kathryn's personal blog at: http://kathrynstriplingbyer.blogspot.com/

* Learn more about Coming to Rest and LSU Press at: http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress

*****

If you're a poet or publisher interested in an interview on this blog, click here to find out how we might be able to make that happen.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:24:27 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [9] 

The title is a little misleading, because the update is that there is no update. In fact, I was hoping to make all announcements related to the April PAD Challenge 2009 today, but so-so-so-so much got in the way since the end of April (both personal and work related). However, I am making great progress on the Top 5 lists for each day, and I'm fairly certain I know who will be named this year's Poetic Asides Poet Laureate.

So, let's shoot for early-August as when we'll know who (and how many) completed the challenge; who made it into the e-book; who made the Top 5 list for each day; who is the 2nd annual Poet Laureate of Poetic Asides; and so much more!

Thursday, July 02, 2009 11:46:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [42] 

Sorry for the late start this morning; I went for an early morning run, had a couple meetings, and yadda-yadda-yadda, here it is the early afternoon. Oh well, sometimes it's good to get off to a late start, right?

For this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem that has the title "Nobody's worth (blank)" in which you replace the (blank) with a word or phrase. For instance, you could have the following titles: "Nobody's worth a nickel;" "Nobody's worth that kind of headache;" or "Nobody's worth missing the Ohio State-Michigan game."

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Nobody's worth killing over"

I can get so angry sometimes
over the smallest things: a flat
tire, slow website, prerecorded
messages trying to sell me
random services and products.

Then, there's the big stuff: women and
children raped and murdered, people
exploited by the leaders of
countries and companies, long lines
when my boys need to go "potty."

While having breakfast this morning,
Reese said, "They should stop releasing
atomic bombs, because all these
monsters are getting loose." He meant
Godzilla, Mothra, and other

kaiju from Japanese monster
movies. He meant he's noticing
too many bad things happening
on this planet. It's time to quit
fighting and preparing to fight,

because nothing conflict begets
conflict. Releasing atomic
bombs creates a monster or wakes
one from its sleep. Then we all pay
whether interested or not.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 6:52:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [217] 

Chuck Sambuchino, editor of Guide to Literary Agents and Screenwriter's & Playwright's Market, ran into Ted Kooser (former National Poet Laureate) at a writing conference (Chuck travels more than any editor I know). So Chuck had Ted sign a copy of The Blizzard Voices for me as a get well gift (from my May health scare).

Anyway, the book was a very fun read. Since it had to do with the Blizzard of 1888, it was a nice escape from the Heat Wave of 2009. Perfect poetic summer reading material?

This got me wondering if you have any poetic summer reading suggestions? If so, share with the group in the Comments below.

General | Personal Updates | Poets

Thursday, June 25, 2009 2:01:38 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [18] 

Here are some of my various links (in case you want to friend me, sign up for a free newsletter, or whatever):

I edit Poet's Market and the Poet's Market newsletter (which also has a free sign up)

General | Personal Updates

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:05:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [2] 

Since it's the first prompt of summer (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), let's write a summer poem. You can write about a summer activity, summer heat, summer flowers, or summer whatever.

Here is my attempt for the day:

"Summer Song"

The fireflies rise out of the grass
as the sun fades into the west
and the cars' headlights shine through glass

to ward off the threat of a crash.
Watch for wayward deer up ahead
where fireflies rise out of the grass

and other creatures sometimes pass
like wandering souls of the dead
as the cars' headlights float by fast.

If a witch, then a spell to cast
filling children with awesome dread
when fireflies rise out of the grass.

She tells the boy to hit the gas,
though the sign reads FLAGGER AHEAD.
As the cars' headlights float by fast

boy and girl feel alive at last.
Both disappear around the bend,
and fireflies rise out of the grass
as the cars' headlights float on past.

Poetry Prompts

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 1:46:49 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [253] 

Emma Trelles is the author of Little Spells (GOSS183 press). She's a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry and an arts and culture journalist. Her work has been published nearly everywhere, including OCHO, Gulf Stream, Newsday, and the Miami Herald. She also teaches creative writing at the Art Center of South Florida and the Florida Center for the Literary Arts.

Little Spells is a fun chapbook, and here's one of my favorite poems:

Gua-Gua

Could be the cry of a dog
or a cartoon baby's mouth
open to a pink cave of tonsils,
the squiggle lines of an animator's pen
bursting from his bald head.

Guaaaaa-Guaaaaa
the blank drone you hear when
you dial out of the Casa Bella in Oaxaca,
or the bleat of dusty buses charging
streets alongside wagons dragged by mares.
In Mexico, it's boooos,
the slurred song of a beer-heavy ghost,
or the love charm Frida sang that lured
men and monkeys from the tamarind trees.

In Miami, Cuba, it's gua-gua,
the "W" sound of water brushed into a dream,
the war between why and wait.
Gua-gua,
the clipped cry from an imperfect memory,
a wish to travel in reverse to an island
shaped like a boomerang.
You can fling it as far as 90 miles and still
feel its edge in your hands.

*****

What are you currently up to?

I'm writing and revising poems for my full length collection, tentatively titled Tropicalia. I should be ready to start sending it out this fall and I'm looking forward to releasing it into the world. I'm also preparing to read in a few weeks at the Palabra Pura series at the Guild Literary Complex in Chicago. Besides that, I've been sending out poems, freelancing art and book stories, teaching creative nonfiction and savoring the rain that's made every garden and lawn in South Florida a blazing green.

How has working as a journalist informed your poetry writing efforts?

I've worked as a full-time journalist since I finished my M.F.A., and writing on deadline for so many years really helped me shape my voice as a poet. In grad school, I was always trying on the diction of others--Sylvia Plath and Campbell McGrath come to mind--because I couldn't quite figure out how to sound like myself and also approach language as art. Writing consistently, even in a completely different genre, helped me discover my own poetic tongue. Journalism has also led me to fodder for poems. Some of the poems in Little Spells, for example, were drafted while on assignment (such as "Gua-Gua" and "Billy Bragg Rescues Us at the F.T.A.A. Protest") and covering visual art has also made me think more deeply about how color and form are used in verse.

You teach creative writing; does that influence your writing?

Definitely. Just last week I was babbling on about how important it is to immerse yourself in a writing project, how accumulating artifacts around your desk or in your notebook is vital to creating. I cited a Diane Arbus print that hangs over my desk as an example: I often consider the photograph--a circus woman & sword swallower--as a metaphor for gender and writing. I watched while one of the writers in the group took notes, and I realized that I was not doing enough of this very immersion.

I'm working on a book; why am I not surrounding myself more with its themes? Where is my own physical shrine to its images and intent? I shared my discovery with the class, and it was a great example of how teaching teaches. You are constantly clarifying process, and your own is illuminated.

How important is location to your writing?

Thus far I've used place as a kind of bedrock for my work. I suppose that's, in part, because I've lived in Florida all my life, and I believe that staying in one place gives a writer, or any artist, the chance to peel away the cliches, the superfluous, the gauze and busyness that keeps us so often from seeing the heart of a thing.

Proust said that the real voyage of discovery exists not in having new landscapes but in having new eyes. I love that quote. Whenever I read it, I remember to burrow into a setting: the shoreline, the kitchen, the causeway serried with cars. I keep looking and writing and and trying to re-imagine it. A poem is a tiny compass that should point you to somewhere.

As a guest editor of MiPOesias (March 2008), did you gain any insight into your own writing?

It made me think about my place in the tradition of Cuban-American writers, which the issue featured, and also how that tradition is mutating as first and second generation poets move farther into this country's culture. There was a time when Cuban American poets wrote mostly about exile and loss through the lens of lament. Now I see these themes explored through speculation, surrealism, urban living or even humor. I can't wait to see what the third wave of writers will offer.

What do you feel makes a great poem?

The best words in their best order! That's Coleridge, of course, but I'll add the ubiquitous "heightened language" and "original thinking" because I think they bear repeating.

Ultimately, what I think makes a great poem is the same as what makes any work of art a stunner--the concurrent feelings of recognition and astonishing discovery.

Who are you currently reading?

Mostly poets. I'm a few pages short of finishing Mark Doty's Fire to Fire. I'm also reading The Light at the Edge of Everything, by Lisa Zimmerman; The Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow, by Jesse Millner; Hoops, by Major Jackson; and The Life of the Skies, a nonfiction book about people and birds by Jonathan Rosen.

If you could offer up only one piece of advice to your fellow poets, what would it be?

Cultivate your own voice and your instincts. Tend to your work.

*****

* To learn more about Emma's publisher GOSS183, go to www.mipoesias.com

*****

If you're a poet or publisher interested in the possibility of a Poetic Asides interview, click here to see how you might be able to make that happen.

Poet Interviews | Poetry News | Poets

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 7:31:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [1]