As you've probably noticed (if you've been reading this blog for any length of time), there are so many possible poems out there waiting to be written. This week's poetry workshop will look at an event poem by Jane Eamon.

Here's the original draft:

Black Friday, by Jane Eamon

I was 24 that day in '39

They call it Black Friday now

But it was a day like any other day

Ole Frank Burns rang up to say

There was a fire burning

At the pine plantation and

Would I like to come along to see it

I seen a little fire on the telly

Fought with bulldozer, a grader

11 tankers and helicopters

All to fight a scrub fire we could

Have put out with 20 men

I grabbed my horse and my rake

And went along to see

It was a fire all right, burning in the dry top of the ridge

It went right across the Rubicon

Another 20 miles

I got to working with the other boys

Me with my rake

Them with crosscut saws and shovels

It looked like we'd made a difference

But she'd only pulled in for the night

The wind had other plans

Blowing fearsome, hot from the north west

That fire roared its presence

We couldn't do anything

We couldn't go anywhere

We bedded down in the bush

In the heat of the day

So we could fight it in the cool of the night

But we weren't making no difference

That fire was burning hungry

30 miles along and

Eating everything in its path

We found Ruth

Just lying in the road

Clutching tobacco and looked to be sleeping

She must have died from the smoke

Hermon's sawmill went up in the middle of the firestorm

All them trees just disappeared

No stumps, no nothing, like they'd never been there

The river dried up

14 miles up the Acheron Way

They say the river actually stopped running

For three hours

We did our best, we fought it

It came to rest

Sated like with a full belly

It took 71 lives that day

And burned to the ground over 5,000,000 acres

It's a day I won't ever forget

Funny how it was Friday the 13, January 1939

And here's a little note that Jane included after the poem: Inspired by the 2nd largest natural disaster in Australia's history – the Victoria Bushfires of 1939. Taken from an eyewitness account of Murray Thompson.

*****

I don't think the note is needed to explain that this was a fire, but I'm glad Jane included it, because knowing this was a huge event (as opposed to a minor one) can help a poet think about scope when dealing with the subject. We'll look at scope in just a few, but first, let's look at what we have here.

First, I'm not sure how close Jane is sticking to actual accounts. Hopefully, she has taken a real account and fictionalized that account. I'm going to make the assumption that this is the case with this poem.

Second, there are some great details in this poem--from Ruth, who "must have died from the smoke," clutching her tobacco to the narrator grabbing his horse and rake. There's a lot going on here.

Third, there's a lack of punctuation. I don't see a reason not to include proper punctuation. So, that's something.

Finally, this poem feels like it could be tightened. Of course, I love the narrative voice, but we can retain that voice while still tightening up the language. For instance, I would take out the first line because it adds little to the poem. We learn he's 24, but that doesn't factor into the story at all, and we learn that it's 1939 later in the poem.

In fact, we shouldn't even mention it's 1939, because the actual year isn't overly important. It's more important that it's called Black Friday and that it's Friday the 13th.

That brings us to scope of the poem. This poem is trying to take on a huge event--much like the narrator was trying to take on a huge fire. It took a team of people to fight the fire, and I think this event probably requires a team of voices to do it justice.

Recently, I read a very good collection of poems by Ted Kooser dealing specifically with the blizzard of January 12, 1888, on the Great Plains called The Blizzard Voices. He collected several fictional accounts based on actual recollections and recorded documents and let the individual poems create a document for this huge and devastating event. This is what I think Jane should do for Black Friday.

By collecting accounts, this would give each poem the freedom to focus on the event from the perspective of each narrator and allow for a more personal connection to how this fire changed lives. Each slice would then create a more complete portrait of what Black Friday really meant.

Of course, I'm asking Jane to do a lot of work. I'm asking her to do a significatnt amount of research to figure out what the various stories are. I'm asking her to write a lot of poems in different voices. But if she does put in the work, she should have something that is not only poetically signficant but also historically valuable. To achieve greatness, one has to be willing to roll up his or her sleeves and get at it.

So here are my recommendations:

• Expand the scope of this poem/project. This poem deals with a big event that changed many lives. Instead of trying to make the poem cover everything, let it focus on one aspect. Then, write more poems--in other voices--to make the event more complete.
• Keep adding in the great details. This poem has wonderful details--the kind that really help a poem (or a collection of poems) stick with a reader. As you add more poems, keep flexing your muscles in this regard.
• Tighten the language in places. Keep the voices unique and personality-driven, but don't let them ramble. In conversation, it's easy to gloss over when narrators ramble too much. This is even more true on the printed page.
• Add punctuation. There's no reason to avoid punctuation in these poems.
• Research. As you've probably noticed, I'm making the assumption that this one poem really needs to be a series of poems. To write a series of poems based on a historical event, there needs to be at least some level of research. Don't go overboard, and don't include every detail. Use what's essential and discard the rest.

As usual, realize these are just my thoughts on this poem and that many others will probably say they love the poem just as it is. I'm not going to argue that point, because judging each poem is a very subjective process that finally comes down to what the actual poet decides. In my mind, I see a very great collection possible if you're willing to put in the time and effort to expand this one poem into a series.

Thanks so much for sharing, Jane!

*****

Do you want one of your poems workshopped? Click here to find out how you could possibly make it happen. 

*****

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• For poetic forms, CLICK HERE
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Thursday, July 30, 2009 6:06:06 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [22] 

I admit it; I'm one of those weird people who actually loves the 80's movie Ishtar that starred Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as struggling musicians. In true 80's movie style, this movie has an incredible plot, but what I love the most is how the characters played by Beatty and Hoffman are always creating new songs--from "Hot fudge love, cherry ripple kisses" to the scenes with both working on a song with the line "telling the truth can be dangerous business" this movie is a must-see for all who haven't. But this is not a movie review.

For this week's prompt, I was inspired by that line "telling the truth can be dangerous business," and I want you to write a poem that deals with telling the truth--or even with telling a lie. It can be dangerous business, especially if the news is bad. I hope that this prompt is not as big a flop as Ishtar (again, go see it).

Here's my attempt for the day:

"The Review"

We appeared at the designated time
and place. We ate the hors d'oeuvres,
but we can't remember one painting
that will stick with us past this week.

*****

Looking for more poetry-related information?

• For poetic forms, CLICK HERE
• For interviews with poets, CLICK HERE
• For the free monthly Poet’s Market newsletter, CLICK HERE
• For discounted poetry references, CLICK HERE

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 3:22:42 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [199] 

While I love being able to offer all the free and valuable content on Poetic Asides, I'm also not ashamed of the fact that I have to sell stuff to keep working as an editor. I've been working for nearly 10 years on Writer's Market and other writing titles, and I jumped at the opportunity to edit Poet's Market last year. After months of hard work, the 2010 Poet's Market is now ready for consumption.

It includes all the listings for magazines, book publishers, contests, conferences, and more that you'd expect from Poet's Market, but I'm also proud of the amazing articles in this edition. From well-known slam poet Taylor Mali giving poetry reading advice to an article on poetry translations, I really feel the 2010 Poet's Market has significantly raised the bar as far as editorial content. (In fact, I've got my work cut out for me to figure out how I can top myself for 2011.)

Oh yeah, each copy of the 2010 Poet's Market also includes an activation code that provides access to the poetry listings on WritersMarket.com for a full year (from when you sign up).

Anyway, the book is now available at a great discounted price on our WritersDigestShop.com site. With a cover price of $29.99, you can get it off the site for only $19.79. And it's brand-spanking-new. Can't beat that.

Check it out at: http://www.writersdigestshop.com/product/2010-poets-market/

Since I don't communicate with the promotions people too often, I'm not sure if that price is permanent or temporary--so it's probably best to order as soon as you can before they come up with some new pricing strategy.

*****

And earlier this year, I led a very successful online seminar for poets titled: Get Your Poetry Published. Many people asked if we'd be offering up a recorded version of the seminar, and I'm happy to say that we're offering that now as well.

In this seminar, I explain how to identify appropriate markets; avoid mistakes many poets make when they submit their writing that can garner an immediate rejection (before the editor even reads any of the poems); write good cover letters; and I give tips on how to track your submissions.

If you're interested in learning more about this recorded seminar (or even if you just want to see a staff headshot taken of me from earlier this year), go to: http://www.writersdigestshop.com/product/get-your-poetry-published-download/

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 5:55:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [7] 

Sometimes the hardest part of attacking a poem is figuring out what the real poem should be. In my opinion, such is the case with this week's workshop poem by Dianne Ryan. I'm not saying that she does a bad job with the way she wrote her poem--just that the more interesting poem would emerge with a shift in focus.

Here's the original draft:

Pebbles, by Dianne Ryan

It's been six weeks maybe more

since I left you standing at your door.

You wanted me to leave

not ready to take us to another level you said -

whatever that means.

So now I'm gone and out of your life.

You seemed so cold

not one tear or a trace of regret.

Did you care for me at all?

Was I just like a pebble that

you noticed and then kicked away

never to wonder where that pebble was today.

If you took the time you would have found

that this pebble was in fact a rock

solid but a little unsteady

waiting and ready

for someone to pick up

and notice what a wonderful

rock this pebble turned out to be.

*****

Before I get into why I think this poem is focusing in the wrong direction, let's take a look at a few things to avoid in general.

First, the opening two lines throw off the rhythm of the next stanza because they rhyme. As I've said before on this blog, I have nothing against rhymes, but when the first two lines rhyme that sets up an expectation on the part of the reader. This is repeated in the final two lines of the fourth stanza with "away" and "today" as well as in the fifth stanza "unsteady" and "ready." The fifth stanza rhyme is not as bad, but the fourth stanza rhyme seems intentional and a little forced--and since there's no consistency to the rhyme, it just seems more than a little out of place.

Second, there's the problem with abstraction. Stanza three especially is loaded up with them: "You seemed so cold"; "trace of regret"; and you have to be careful any time you use tears in a poem, because it's a loaded word and image that is often used too frequently.

Third, metaphor and simile are important and useful tools for a poet, but let's think about how they are used in this poem. The narrator is trying to make the reader feel good about losing her because she's now a "rock." I know the intent, but I don't think many ex-lovers are going to worry too much over leaving a rock behind. So, I'd just suggest thinking about how the metaphors and similes actually read before using them. 

Now as to the focus of the poem, I think this poem. I feel that the spurned lover thing has been done so many times. You really have to have a fresh take on the subject to grab the interest of your readers. At the moment, what interests me the most is the conditions of the actual break up.

Here are my suggestions:

• Avoid the rhyme. You always have to look at this on a poem-by-poem basis, and in this case, I don't think the rhyme is a factor in the poem.
• Avoid abstraction. Try to focus on actual descriptions, whether descriptions of physical objects or actual actions.
• Think about metaphor and simile. I would advise in this poem to avoid them outright. There are definitely times and places to use them, but I wouldn't suggest doing so for this poem.
• Write in third person narrative voice. Try writing this poem without "I" and "you." Instead, use "she" and "he." I think you'll be surprised how this can help focus the poem.
• Focus exclusively on the actual break up. Start with him telling her what he tells her. Then, let her actual actions show what she's thinking. Do this without telling what either actually feeling; remember to avoid abstraction. Just let their actions take over. This will allow your narrative voice to show instead of tell. I think you and your readers will be very surprised with the results.

So those are my suggestions. You can take them all; you can pick and choose the ones you want; or you can write me off as an idiot. As I've said before, there are rules and guidelines, but all of them are breakable and bendable.

*****

Do you want one of your poems workshopped? Click here to find out how you could possibly make it happen. 

Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:02:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [24] 

I always love this time of year because of the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong is back cycling, but it's obvious his teammate Alberto Contador (who I love watching race) is going to win this year unless something catastrophic happens. My love continually grows for the Tour because of the combination of ability and strategy that makes for great sport.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a competitive poem. That is, I want you to write a poem about a competition of some sort. Could be an athletic competition, academic competition, the age old competition of survival of the fittest, or even the competitive art of getting published.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Complementary"

She arrives home early from work
and begins cooking. He follows

minutes after with the children
who he helps finish their homework

before they all sit together
at the table to eat. Then, he

washes the dishes as she puts
the kids in the bath tub. They both

get the children dressed and ready
for bed--taking turns reading books

and telling stories. When the kids
finally fall asleep, both race

each other to get into bed.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 7:22:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [226] 

Today's prompt is still on the way, but I just wanted to link to this piece on these 8th graders from Ron Clark Academy here in Atlanta, Georgia. These kids wrote poems on what it's like to be a black teenager in America, in addition to other topics. Plus, what's cool about this piece is that you can actually view 9 of the poems from the actual article on cnn.com.

I love seeing young people create and remember how important it was for me as I struggled to figure out who I was and what I cared about. That's why I always buy paper and writing utensils for my boys and encourage them to create as well, whether that means writing a story or drawing pictures of Godzilla. (Lots and lots of pictures of Godzilla.)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 2:46:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [9] 

Cati Porter is founder and editor-in-chief of Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry and associate editor (poetry) for Babel Fruit, and is the author of a chapbook of prose poems, small fruit songs (Pudding House Publications), and a full-length collection, Seven Floors Up (Mayapple Press). Cati also participated in the April PAD Challenge this year on Poetic Asides.

small fruit songs is a fun little chapbook--not only is the entire collection prose poems, but they also all explore fruit topics. Good stuff. Meanwhile, Seven Floors Up is a little more of a traditional collection, though it is still a whole lot of fun. In fact, one of Porter's strengths as a poet is her sense of humor.

Here's one of my favorites from Seven Floors Up:

"Caution Please Do Not Try to Turn
the Head Forcefully by Hand!"

(Label found on my son's jeans after his first day of preschool)

I don't know where it came from but it's there, stuck
to his grubby little knee as though someone

saw his small head, how tragically
fragile, how it could turn, like a lid, quite

around. I am grateful to whoever had the foresight
to apply that label, grateful that they did not choose

"Open Me First" or "Discard After _____,"
grateful they turned my attention to the fact

that someday someone may turn his head.

*****

What are you up to?

Well, right now I'm listening to a screaming child tell me I'm mean. It's the last week of school for my boys before their summer vacation. What that means for me is that I'm frantically trying to finish up any projects that require quiet time. I'm now in the middle stages of putting together a second manuscript which is, I think, a departure from the poems in Seven Floors Up; it's very associative and image-driven. Most of the poems in this collection were written in the last year or so, with the core comprised of poems written during NaPoWriMo, after prompts posted to the Poetic Asides blog. I've also been forcing myself to make time to send out more of my work -- the new poems, as well as my chapbook, (al)most delicious, an ekphrastic series after Modigliani's nudes. 

I'm also just finishing my first year in Antioch University's MFA program, and preparing for the next residency which is coming up fast. I've been doing a lot of reading, some for the seminars, but mostly for my field study, and have a pile of Marilyn Nelson's and Molly Bendall's books on my desk.

Oh, and I'm beginning to read the submissions that are coming through for Poemeleon's gender issue.

As the Editor-in-Chief of Poemeleon and poetry editor of Babel Fruit, what do you feel makes a good poem?

There are lots of good poems. So so many competently and compellingly good poems. For me, though, they all have certain things in common. And that's the drawback. What's really rare, though, is the great poem, which is so much harder to define: It's the one that hits me in the gut; It's the one that makes everything become suddenly clear, or makes what was previously clear so utterly muddled that I'm dumbstruck. Good poems make me want to sit down and write until my fingers ache. Great poems leave me wondering if I'll ever be able to write again.

But great poems are difficult. In order to write great poems, we must first write good poems. (And of course, before that and in-between, the essential bad poems.)

Both good poems as well as great poems employ craft, image, music, voice, and use them to forward the ideas embedded in the poem. The devices inform, rather than dictate, the shape of the poem, become integral to the movement of a piece -- both on the page and in the head. To take a step back, what separates a good poem from a bad poem? The usage of those same devices: A bad poem uses them to ill effect -- sets out to write a sonnet and writes one, no matter whether the end rhymes are forced, syntax needlessly inverted, the phrases stilted and awkward. A good poem never does that, not without good cause.

But the difference between a good poem and a great poem? That's a little more subtle, but I think it's that gut punch. If it's not there, I might be willing to hang around with it for a while, but it's not the one I'm going to remember down the road.

small fruit songs is a collection of prose poems about fruit. What do you like about the prose poem as a poetic form?

At the time I was writing small fruit songs, I had previously been in love with received forms and was trying them all out. Often my results fell under the "bad poem" heading. But one day, after deciding that I wanted to write a series that used fruit-related terminology as its impetus, I sat down and just allowed my subconscious to take over, and what came out was very associative, unstructured, and organic, which felt like the right choice for the material.

What I like most about the prose poem is its versatility. I've read prose poems that read like stories, prose poems that read like excerpts from a training manual, lyric prose poems, prose poems as dramatic monologue, prose poems as pseudo-journalism, surrealist prose poems.... That said, as versatile as it is, I don't think the prose poem is the end-all, beat-all. It's not functional if the form is forced.

Do you have a writing routine?

I wish! I prefer writing in the very early morning when the house is quiet, but with kids and with a household to run, I have to be more fluid. I used to get up in the middle of the night, but I can only take so much sleep deprivation. I do get up at about five or five-thirty, sometimes earlier, but most days I need a couple cups of coffee -- and an empty house -- to be productive. If I can't finish what I'm working on while they're at school, it's catch-as-catch-can. And I can't use anything but a computer. My handwriting is awful so even if I manage to scribble a few lines while out running around, usually I can't read it later!

Seven Floors Up has some very funny poems in it, including poems inspired by eBay listings. What do you think helps make a humorous poem effective?

Humor is unpredictable. You never know what's going to strike someone as funny. My boys and I spent about an hour watching flashmob videos on YouTube yesterday. One of them was for the Best Funeral Ever. Later I described the scene to my husband. He said, "That's not funny." But it was to us, to me. I laughed hysterically at the sight of thirty people dressed in black showing up and pretending to know the deceased. Which now sounds so totally ludicrous, and inconsiderate.

At Poemeleon we recently published an issue on humorous poems which included a great essay by Renee Ashley on involuntary comedy. Humor is very personal. Heck, all poetry is personal. But what one person finds funny another may think is just plain dumb. I think the trick is not to set out to write a funny poem. If something strikes you as funny, and you decide you want to use it in a poem, do it right then and there before you lose the spark. When my husband was searching eBay for businesses for sale, he happened upon this thing called an inflatable church. I just started laughing. And I knew I wanted to write about it. So I stayed up late that night and got a first draft out. But it's not enough for the poem to be funny -- in order for it to be an effective poem it must also contain some other relevant nugget of wisdom or what have you. In the case of the inflatable church, I found it not just funny, but almost blasphemous (and I'm not a religious person), and in a strange way somewhat true -- thinking about prosperity churches and such, in their depiction of a church as a business opportunity.  

How did you go about putting together your collections Seven Floors Up and small fruit songs?

Seven Floors Up was a long time in the making. Before it was published, it made the rounds as a chapbook titled Where We Dwell, which itself began as a chapbook titled Seven Floors Up to the Kitchen of the Soul, a title I had hoped to return to but which my publisher thought was too long so it was shortened. The poems were written over the course of about eight years, beginning when my first son was born up until just weeks before the book went to press. And I spent hours, literally hours, laying all of the poems out and ordering them until it felt right.

With small fruit songs, I fiddled with it for a little while, but then noticed a trend -- the narrative seemed to follow the same trajectory as the alphabet, so I just put them in alphabetical order, and, Voila!, it was done. Oh, and I should mention, it was written in under seven days and had a publisher in ten. Go figure.

Who are you currently reading?

I've been reading a lot of work that's been loosely dubbed Gurlesque: Brenda Shaughnessy, Chelsea Minnis, Catherine Wagner, plus Arielle Greenberg; I've especially loved reading Ann Carson & Alice Notley. And of course Marilyn Nelson and Molly Bendall. I actually have a running list (with annotations) of books that I've read recently on the "What I'm Reading" tab on my blog.

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

Write bad poems. Take risks. Learn from them. Don't get bogged down in endless revisions. If it's a bad poem know when to let it go. Then go write a better poem.

*****

* Learn more about Cati Porter at her blog: http://catiporter.wordpress.com/

* For more on Seven Floors Up and Mayapple Press, go to www.mayapplepress.com

* For more on small fruit songs and Pudding House Publications, go to www.puddinghouse.com

* For more on Poemeleon, go to www.poemeleon.org

* For more on Babel Fruit, go to www.babelfruit.org

*****

If you're a poet or publisher interested in a Poetic Asides interview, click here to find out how you might be able to make it happen.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 6:04:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [3] 

Attendees of the Writer's Digest Conference: The Business of Getting Published will take over the Bowery Poetry Club on Friday, September 18, 2009. The event will feature three rounds of poetry with participants competing for prizes and ultimately to be chosen as the evening's Slam Champion.

Accomplished poet and poetry slam veteran Guy LeCharles Gonzalez will host the show.  Gonzales was a member of the 1998 National Poetry Slam Champions, representing the Nuyorican Poets Café. He is the founder and host of the acclaimed "a little bit louder" reading series, now known as louderARTS. Gonzales also co-authored Burning Down the House (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and launched Spindle Magazine (spindlezine.com), a NYC-centric online literary journal. Currently, he writes about old and new media with a marketing slant at http://loudpoet.com.

The poetry slam is the opening night entertainment feature of the first annual Writer's Digest Conference: The Business of Getting Published. Registration is now open for the three-day event September 18-20, 2009 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, New York. The Writer's Digest Conference:  The Business of Getting Published offers sessions on self-publishing, social media usage, online sales, marketing, platform building, and other related topics, presented by today's proponents of new media.  Plus, each attendee gets a 15-minute personal appointment with an editorial professional to discuss their query letter, book proposal or self-published book.

Full details and registration can be found online at www.writersdigestconference.com.

Monday, July 20, 2009 7:48:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

The ghazal (pronounced "guzzle"--thanks to Edward Byrne) is a Persian poetic form. The original form was very simple: five to 15 couplets using the same rhyme with the poet's name in the final couplet. The main themes were usually love or drinking wine.

Contemporary ghazals have abandoned the rhymes and insertion of the poet's name in the final couplet. In fact, even the themes of love and drinking wine are no longer mandatory--as the poem now just needs the couplets which are complete thoughts on their own but also all work together to explore a common theme (whatever that might be).

If you wish to stay traditional though, here's the rhyme scheme you would follow:

a
a

b
a

c
a

and so on to the final stanza (depending upon how many you include).

Many traditional ghazals will also incorporate a refrain at the end of each couplet that could be one word or a phrase.

I'm no master of the ghazal, but here's my attempt at the form:

Ghazal at 31

Like me and you, two cardinals twitter and twist
through branches seeking some fling to flitter and twist.

My hands were not always as strong as they were long,
dreaming of some new purpose--they fit her and twist.

At the window, surveying the way that sunlight
obeys what blocks, the way it can filter and twist.

I first saw what I saw but did not understand
the difference between grass or litter. Hand twist.

We fell from heaven and were lost, but we searched with
out knowing why not to be a quitter--and twist. 

At 31, even Robert Lee Brewer can
question his ability to glitter and twist.

Saturday, July 18, 2009 6:21:41 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [17] 

Jim Schley's first full-length collection of poetry, As When, In Season, was released in 2008 by Marick Press. However, he is no stranger to poetry. Schley is the former executive director of The Frost Place, a museum and poetry center based at Robert Frost's former homestead in Franconia, New Hampshire, and he's currently a managing editor at Tupelo Press (which publishes some of my favorite poetry titles).

As When, In Season is a wonderful collection that includes nine odes for female muses. Here's one of my favorite poems:

Autumn Equinox

The morning glories
continue knowing
nothing,

but such a caprice,
that lavish clambering toward
--what? Only sunlight.
For this they open, every day.

The grief
I feel can't be
described.

In moonlight broad
as the sprawled land we look across
the blossoms are closed
like miniature umbrellas,
our clothes on the line
colorless yet bright
beneath a white platter of mercury

that orbits a world
where our dear ones
die.

These nights we hear transports
from the airbase upstate.
These days I hear fighter jets
going east
at ungodly speeds.

The morning glories are
--what color?
"Blue as our girl's eyes," or bluer.
Tinted rose, as wishful thinking is said to be.
Wrinkled slightly like crepe paper
with white centers,
on avid green vines that climb
whatever we do

defying all
but
the killing frost.

*****

What are you up to?

For the past three years I worked as director of a museum and poetry-conference center at one of Robert Frost's former homes, which was the most pressurized job I can imagine. I had the sensation of being scalded by adrenaline, continuously--I could never complete all my tasks, and the tension never, ever abated. When I was laid off last autumn I was very sad, but I've also experienced a tremendous relief and release from basically impossible responsibilities.

For me, solving the riddle of how to make a living is inextricably connected with making a haven in my mind and imagination for creative ventures. If I'm too rattled by circumstance, I read (constantly), but I don't write poems. Along with teaching adult students in a community college setting, I've now found a couple of jobs editing for pay, and I find this blend suits me well — the editor's total attention to incremental details and fine-tuned schedules and costs, and the teacher's gregarious accessibility, which is really a form of performance.

My life is much calmer than it's been in a long time. Presently I'm concentrating on finding a viable balance between the work I do for a livelihood and the more open-ended, purposeful yet (at times) "aimless" exploring a poet needs to learn and grow. I'm re-immersing myself in a long-term project that incorporates forms of prose and verse as well as documentary historical materials: the story of a mysterious heirloom, a nineteenth-century eagle-feathered headdress from the northern Plains region. My family is trying to understand where this belongs, in perpetuity, and I'm both a participant in the family quest and a chronicler, observing from a slight distance.

You've toured extensively with experimental and activist theater companies, including the world-renowned Bread and Puppet Theater. What was your role typically? And what were those experiences like?

I worked for a number of years with one of the most accomplished and influential theater artists of our time, sculptor and director Peter Schumann, whose unique creations with Bread and Puppet Theater are known throughout the world. Bread and Puppet is a radically pacifist, communal troupe, metamorphosing over time, and swelling from small touring ensembles to enormous crowds of performers, depending on the needs of a given project. I was involved in that theater for about eight years, and I also spent three years with another traveling theater, Les Montreurs d’Images, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Both are very international in atmosphere and orientation, and along with the thrill of becoming a strong performer (I'm an excellent stilt dancer and skilled in using masks) I loved the experience of working among puppeteers, dancers, and musicians from many countries, in a fantastic ferment of languages. I also loved the ways, as performers, we were each involved in all aspects of a production, with no division between "artistic" and "technical" tasks. And because I'm a good administrator and communicator, I specialized in tour coordination.

I continue to feel that theater has the most comprehensive scope of any art, from the minuscule details to the grand, sweeping movements, blending visuals and sonic elements, text and gesture, what filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky called "sculpting in time."

The theaters with which I've mainly worked aren't "naturalistic," in the typical (American) sense of portraying realistic episodes of daily life. Instead, Bread and Puppet and those who've been influenced by Peter Schumann's approach create dreamlike, physically arduous, encompassing visual and musical sequences of images and sounds, often without words, or with words used in perpendicular ways. Many of our pieces utilized the motley, manic format of circuses. The opportunity to immerse myself in work where words were seen with circumspection and even suspicion--and where the English language was by no means primary--was disorienting and provocative to me, as a writer. For years I felt as if what I most fully understood to be "poetry" could be reached more decisively with theater pieces, not with verse on a page. I'm reminded of how Wallace Stevens imperative for poetry, in "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction": "It must be abstract. It must change. It must give pleasure." Abstraction, change, and pleasure . . . these are also the qualities of virtuosic circus techniques, as practiced by many of my theater colleagues during that crucial era of my artistic life.

I suppose that now my poems, in many respects--especially their fascination with audible textures and with syntactical "choreography"--aspire to be theater pieces.

You live with your family on an "off-the-grid cooperative" in Vermont. What's that like?

Since my college days, I've been drawn to communal living. This has been a complement to also being inclined toward generous supplies of solitude. Our present arrangement is a modest miracle: in 1986, a group of individuals and couples bought a beautiful, neglected hill farm and 150 acres, and almost twenty-five years later we're still here, still largely the same group. We're incorporated as a cooperative, and while each household has a fair degree of autonomy (and legal title to a house), we share in sensibility and also take care of many practical necessities together. This is a low-key, very good-humored, really intelligent little neighborhood, and I've felt well supported here as a person, a civic activist, and an artist. My wife and I were able to build our own home entirely, from the ground up, with the help of neighbors and friends. And our electricity comes from solar modules and golf-cart batteries, because the regular power line ends a mile away, which we were emboldened to try because our neighbors were doing likewise.

In your collection As When, In Season, you have a section of nine odes. What do you feel makes an effective ode?

An ode is an ancient verbal-song of praise. Pindar's seminal odes were composed for choral voices, with cresting lines and surging acclaim for athletes and other heroes, and they combine rhythms and images in daring ways, reaching for ecstasy through reasoning and metaphor. I've loved reading and hearing the Greek myths since childhood, and that feeling was refreshed and transmuted as I rediscovered those stories, reading to our daughter when she was tiny (which I still do today, when she's sixteen). In graduate school I wrote a seventy-page essay examining every aspect of Keats's marvelously varied, fluid yet precise "Ode to a Nightingale." I wondered if a poet today could write a compelling ode in a natural contemporary idiom. There's a certain grandeur, in tone and amplitude, I was reaching toward . . .      

Years ago I had the idea of writing a series of portraits of crucial female teachers; I intended to make a set of nine, each named for one of the mythological muses, and each representing a certain domain of knowledge and action. In my view, these muses wouldn't be the inspirers of a male artist, but would be virtuosos in their own right. I couldn't find a suitable structure for this "suite" of poems, in which I knew the musical component needed to be particularly strong. In the mid-1990s I began experimenting with an invented form, which I called a chanoine after the French word for chain, and this time (probably my third or fourth attempt) the series came together steadily. Each poem has thirteen rhymes on the same sound, and there are many, many images and allusions; for some readers, my odes may seem too full, as I've tried to see how far I can push the momentum of the sentences in relation to the "staves" or measures of the lines, using syntax for flex and spring. While the form is the tightest I've ever used, the writing process was euphoric, as I learned firsthand how much artists gain (including the most absorbing pleasure) by addressing a resilient, resistive vessel of form.

The muse poems are each a portrait of a specific person (or in one instance two people, entwined), writers and artists, also my wife and our daughter. Only one of them is named outright (the poem for Grace Paley uses "grace" as the rhyme-sound). Whether these poems succeed as odes with respect to the whole tradition, I can't know, but I love reading them to audiences. I have the sense that they reach a listener through the ears more directly than they reach a reader through the eyes, and I'm making plans to do a recording of my delivery, where I can attend closely to pacing and clarity.

This is your first full-length collection, yet you're very experienced in the poetry world. How long did it take you to get this collection together?

From an early age, I knew I wanted to make a living through reading and writing, and soon after college I started work as a literary editor, apprenticing to the boundlessly dedicated and knowledgeable Sydney Lea, founder of the journal New England Review. This led to other editorial jobs, which were entwined with my theater work.

Like most young writers, I made efforts to get my work published, with only sporadic success. Meanwhile, I edited more than a hundred books in a variety of fields, including poetry, fiction, and essays. Gradually I came to an understanding of what the book I'd want to publish would be like, in texture and shape. With a state arts council grant, I published a chapbook in 1999, featuring the muse sequence and four lullabies, which was a 150% good experience, and in 2006 after I'd entered a round of book contests to no avail, I decided instead to publish another chapbook, with a new linked series. At that point the poet Ilya Kaminsky asked to see my manuscript for Marick Press. He and publisher Mariela Griffor said "Yes," and all of a sudden the book was being produced, to my surprise (and relief).

You're a managing editor at Tupelo Press, so I imagine you get to see several very fine collections that get published, as well as good and bad collections that don't quite make the grade. As an editor, what do you think makes a great poetry collection?

I'm presently most involved in the step-by-step production of Tupelo's forthcoming books, working closely with authors on editorial adjustments and working very closely with book designers and printers, a part of the process with which I have a lot of experience. It's extremely exciting to navigate the transformation of a book from word-processing to designed pages, comparable to the translation of a dance or theater work from rehearsal studio to stage.

Even after working as a professional editor since 1980, my answer to your question of what makes a powerful, moving, satisfying book isn't so different from the answer I'd have given as a child or teenaged reader (though my frame of reference is wider, as I've read hundreds and hundreds of books in a number of languages and from many eras). I remain an "innocent" reader: longing to be transported, by imagery and story; willing to be challenged, by language and ideas; most drawn to a dynamic, unfolding relationship between the details of a collection, part by part and passage by passage, and the shape of the whole.

Who are you currently reading?

I read each new book by several splendid, very inventive novelists from New England. I've recently read After You've Gone by Jeffrey Lent, which maneuvers through time in unexpected ways, and am just finishing Ernest Hebert's Spoonwood, which shifts the narrators' vantage as I've never seen before. I'm also rereading--very slowly--two new books of poems, Angela Shaw's splendid The Beginning of the Fields, which I shepherded through production for Tupelo but which is opening for me on all kinds of other levels, now that it's published; and Jody Gladding's Rooms and Their Airs (Milkweed, 2009), the first new book by this astonishingly subtle poet in many years. I'm getting ready to read the only book by W.G. Sebald I haven't yet read, The Rings of Saturn. Along with Czeslaw Milosz, I guess I think of Sebald as the greatest writer of our age. I'm also savoring the prospect of time this summer to read Marilynne Robinson's Home.

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

Read! Read aloud! Read to others! (Is that three pieces of advice, or one?)

*****

* Learn more about Jim Schley at www.jimschley.com.

* Learn more about As When, In Season and Marick Press at www.marickpress.com.

* Learn more about Tupelo Press at www.tupelopress.org.

*****

If you're a poet or publisher interested in being featured in a future Poetic Asides interview, click here to find out how you might be able to make that happen.

Friday, July 17, 2009 6:40:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Okay. I think the first workshop was a success. Not because of my feedback alone, but because several other poets got involved with their own feedback, including refuting some of my ideas. That's how it should be in a workshop environment. I'm not the final voice on your poetry (and neither is any other poet), you are.

This week, we have the following poem from De J. Jackson:

Musings, by De J. Jackson

My Muse must be a mermaid.
The water's call is strong.
The gentle whisper of the waves.
The pull of siren's song.
My soul sings in these places
Where toes are made for sand.
My heart beats in the spaces
Where water kisses land.
She's fine and finned and flowing
Weaving poems in her hair.
She's poised and praised and glowing
Leaving prose and phrase so fair.
She swims to water's edge
Where I wait, pen in hand.
Waves words my way with flowing tail
Writes lyrics in the sand.

When De submitted this, she mentioned she'd had trouble placing this poem, and I have a few ideas on why that might be. After a few reads, this poem does not seem bad. But editors are not looking for "not bad." So where could this poem improve?

The rhyming? Unlike many contemporary poets, I have nothing against rhyming. In fact, I think that if a poet can work rhyming into a poem naturally that it adds strength to a poem. But be aware when trying to publish poems that some editors specifically state they want no part of rhyming poetry. (Their loss.)

Poems dealing with the muse? These poems are natural subjects for poets to investigate. I've written so many (no, so-so-so-so many) poems about the writing process, my muse, etc., though none are published. The main reason: It's a subject that has been tackled by so many poets that it's hard to come in with a unique angle. And the poem is often only interesting to the author of the poem (or, at best, a handful of other poets). Such poems often come off as self-serving (and remember: I write many of these myself).

Poems incorporating abstractions? Abstact language can kill writing fast, whether we're talking poetry, fiction or nonfiction. The subject of this poem is the abstract idea of a muse, so the poem is centered around an abstraction which already places it on shaky ground. Then there are abstract phrases such as: "The gentle whisper of the waves" and "My soul sings..."

Here's the thing: I actually like this poem the more I read it, but De has come here for some help. So, though it may appear to some readers that I'm being overly harsh on De's poem, I'm just trying to give some new directions for her to try with her poem.

My recommendations:

• Try to write the same poem without rhyming. As mentioned earlier, I actually like rhyming when done naturally. But sometimes it's a good exercise to try stripping out the rhyme to see if you come up with a more concrete poem.
• Try focusing more on the mermaid. Try focusing on the concrete image of the mermaid. In your mind, you can know that this mermaid is actually your muse, but you don't need to spell it out for your readers. This helps open up your poem to multiple interpretations.
• Watch those abstractions. Writing about abstract ideas like your muse and soul and whispering waves often weakens poems. Try cutting those abstractions completely out of your poem.

Note: All rules are meant to be broken or bent. But these are some good paths to try when re-working your poem.

I'm sure everyone else will come up with some great feedback as well.

*****

Do you want to have one of your poems workshopped? Click here to find how you could possibly make it happen.

Thursday, July 16, 2009 4:42:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [37] 

As you may have noticed, we're workshopping poems at Poetic Asides. Once a week (or so), I'll select a poem and give feedback to the poet. While I hope the feedback helps the individual poet, my grander goal is that it'll help out the rest of the Poetic Asides group as well by providing fresh ideas for looking at their own poems.

If you're brave enough to have your own poem discussed and evaluated by hundreds of other poets, then follow these rules:

• Use the subject line: Workshop My Poem
• Submit one poem in body of your e-mail
• E-mail to robert.brewer@fwmedia.com
• Be sure to include your name

Simple as that. Not every poem submitted will be used, but every poem submitted has the same chance of being used. If your poem is used, I will send you notification and a link to my feedback when I've made the post.

(Special note: I will not be using any poems that I consider perfect as they are. The point of workshopping is to look for new ideas to work your poetry--not to hear that you're perfect as you are. Good poetry is a lifelong journey not a destination.)

Thursday, July 16, 2009 3:52:58 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [5] 

My oldest boy just turned eight last Friday, and I'm turning 31 on Saturday. (Oddly enough, my son turning eight is the number that makes me feel older out of the two events.) But the subject of birthday poems got me thinking about event poems--poems that mark an event.

For this week's prompt, I want you to write an event poem. Remember: Event poems can cover happy events like birthdays and weddings, but they can also mark funerals or divorces. If possible, try making the title of your poem the actual event.

Here's my attempt for this week:

"Movie Night"

Mom calls in the boys from outside
chasing lightning bugs as the sun
bends away from their neighborhood
street lights turning on and shining
against the houses filling up
with families. Father carries
popcorn into the living room
and clicks on the television.
The boys yell and swat each other
as mom and dad tell them to quit
or else. But when the movie starts
everyone hushes real quick.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:47:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [160] 

If you want more prompts than the weekly Wednesday poetry prompt, then you can check out Zachary Petit's new blog Promptly at http://blog.writersdigest.com/promptly/. He'll be dishing out prompts left and right and offering fabulous prizes. So get on over there and check it out.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:42:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [7] 

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.  

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* 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

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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]