(Sorry for the late prompt today. The day job has required a lot of my immediate attention--like 14 hours yesterday and another 9 already today--so I'll go out on a limb and predict that the Poetry Workshop will not happen tomorrow and possibly not even next week. However, I do have some great news: We received copies of Tammy's 2nd chapbook today, No Glass Allowed, published by Amanda Oaks at verve bath press.)

For today's poem, I want you to write a mistake poem. That is, I want you to write a poem about a mistake you've made, someone else has made, or even what can happen (or has happened) as a result of a mistake. How do mistakes affect people? The environment? Etc.? There are a lot of ways you can attack this prompt.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Albuquerque"

He should've taken a left he tells her,
and she smiles. She didn't expect to find
him or this coffee shop today. "I was
just following my feet," she says, "and they
led me here." "Where are they headed next,"

he asks. "That's a pretty personal question,
mister," she says. "I had a destination,"
he says, "but it's not important now. I'm
sure my friends will understand." She
smiles, he thinks, like a model. "Anyway,

I have no plans the rest of the day."
She says, "I guess that makes two of us."

*****

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:47:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [244] 

I really look forward to these Poetry Workshops. They've been tremendously helpful for me (and hopefully you), because looking at others' poems reminds me what I should be looking for in my own poems.

This week's poem is "A Lady and That Woman," by Harry Coss. It's one of those poems that already feels good, but there are still some ways for the poem to be improved.

Here's the original version:

A Lady and That Woman, by Harry Coss

I met a lady one autumn afternoon, years ago,
for just long enough to help her with her jacket.
It was in an old tea shop, she entered just behind me.
Noticeable were her white gloves and cautious walk.

She had difficulty taking off her light jacket, leaving,

one arm turned inside out, hanging on a hook.

She sat taking care to not wrinkle her skirt.

Her hair soft curl at her shoulder and high on top.

There was a hint of makeup at her chin line.

Her eyebrows arched.  She had the bones

of a beautiful but aging face. Her lipstick

was dark red--her mouth unsmiling.

She sat straight, lost in thought looking

at the small hexagon tiles on the floor.

She sipped her tea slowly, breaking off small bits

of scone with graceful well manicured fingers.

Her dress, close around her waist, a tailored bodice

and shoulders padded in the style of the 1940's.

I thought of young lovers torn apart by war,

sensing her heart may still be living in that era.

Finished,  she got up to leave but had difficulty

with her jacket, I rose and helped her,  as our eyes met 

she brightened and said, with a slight British accent,

"Thank you dear sir." I sensed some expectation.

Her right hand, palm down, was slightly raised. 

I thought to take it and say how nice she looked. 

In fact, I had a  fleeting impulse to kiss it;  But I didn't,

I only said, "Your welcome". She hesitated briefly.

She donned her gloves, turned, unsteadily walked

slowly toward the door.  I saw her bump

into the wife of a middle-aged couple entering.

apparently unaware of the encounter.

As they were seated she was saying to her husband,

"Did you see that woman who hit me, she reeked

of alcohol, her makeup was awful and her dress

is way out of style, way too young for her." 

Every once in a while I recall that lady, remembering

with sorrow, not telling her how nice she looked.

*****

It is a very good poem. I particularly like the 7th stanza. While I like that this poem has a delicate pace to it--like the lady the poem describes--I also feel that this poem could be made even stronger than it currently is by a little tightening.

For instance, the 1st stanza could lose the second line completely, because the poem will actually show the narrator helping the lady with her jacket. Also, the 9th stanza uses the passive voice when it should be active, "...she was saying to her husband..." All of these are slight revisions, but sometimes, it's these small revisions that can make all the difference when someone is reading your poem (or any writing for that matter).

Here's my attempt at tightening this poem:

A Lady and That Woman, by Harry Coss

I met a lady one autumn afternoon, years ago,
in an old tea shop. She entered just behind me.
Her white gloves and cautious walk caught my
attention, and she had difficulty removing her

light jacket, leaving one arm turned inside out
hanging on a hook. She took care to not wrinkle
her skirt. Her hair curled soft at her shoulders and
high on top, a hint of makeup at her chin line.

Eyebrows arched, she had a beautiful but
aging face. Her lipstick was dark red--her mouth
unsmiling. She sat straight, lost in thought looking

at the small hexagon tiles on the floor. She

sipped her tea slowly, breaking off small bits

of scone with graceful, well-manicured fingers.

Her dress, close around her waist, a tailored bodice

and shoulders padded in the style of the 1940's.

I thought of young lovers torn apart by war,

sensing her heart may still be living in that era.

Finished, she got up to leave but had difficulty

with her jacket. I rose and helped her. As our eyes

met she brightened and said, with a slight British
accent, "Thank you, dear sir." I sensed expectation.

Her right hand, palm down, was slightly raised. 

I thought to take it and say how nice she looked. 

In fact, I had an impulse to kiss it, but I did not;

I only said, "You're welcome." She hesitated briefly,

donned her gloves, turned, and walked unsteadily 

toward the door.  I saw her bump into the wife

of a middle-aged couple entering. As they sat,
she asked her husband, "Did you see that woman

who hit me? She reeked of alcohol, her makeup
was awful and her dress is way out of style.” 

Every once in a while, I recall that lady, regretting

that I did not tell her how nice she looked.

*****

As you'll notice this is still the same poem, still the same voice, still the same tempo. The one thing that has changed is that the poem has 8 quatrains (instead of 9 quatrains) matched up with the closing couplet, which I changed slightly to make a more complete thought.

Since we're reading both versions together, it may be hard to simulate, but the tightness of the 2nd version makes the poem a lot easier read just by cutting down some of the excess.

Here are some of the edits I made:

• Deleted the 2nd line of the 1st stanza. As mentioned earlier, why tell what's going to happen later when the poem will actually show it?
• Took the passive voice out of the 9th stanza. Whether you're writing poetry or prose, passive voice is usually something to be avoided.
• Chose one adverb for the 8th stanza description of the lady walking. The narrator used both "unsteadily" and "slowly," so I chose "unsteadily," because when I think of an unsteady walker, I also think of a slow walker. Using too many adverbs and adjectives can seriously weaken a sentence, whether used in a poem or any other form of writing. 
• Removed the 4th line of the 8th stanza. The reason behind this is that it should be apparent that the middle-aged couple were unaware of the encounter between the narrator and the lady (or that woman).
• Tweaked the final couplet. The word regretting is tighter than the phrase "remembering with sorrow," it allows the narrator to complete his thought.
• Removed "fleeting" from the 7th stanza. This is the stanza I love the most, but I feel that the adjective "fleeting" weakens the exchange here. The narrator does such a good job of showing that it was a fleeting moment by not kissing her hand that I think it's best to remove the word. Simple case of showing vs. telling.

I really like this poem. A lot. Thank you, Harry, for submitting it. And be sure to read the Comments below. I'm sure the Poetic Asides gang will be throwing in their two cents.

*****

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

*****

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Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:35:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [18] 

(Quick note: If you're interested in following more than one blog authored--or bloggered--by myself, then feel free to check out my new personal blog at http://robertleebrewer.blogspot.com.)

*****

For this week's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Better safe than (blank)," fill in the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and write a poem. Your title could be "Better safe than late for dinner," or "Better safe than exceptionally gifted," or you can go the "safe" route with "Better safe than sorry." Your poem, your choice.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Better safe than lost"

He watches the sun rise out of the trees
and stretches his legs. He listens to birds
sing and cars rush past headed to work
and school. He starts running against
the wind and toward the woods. A trail
he loves is in there that twists and turns,
works up and down. He listens to his shoes
on blacktop then grass then the dirt and
rocks of the trail. Even though he's run
this path every morning for more than five
years, he immediately misjudges a step
and twists his ankle. But he continues
running anyway. The pain makes him feel
more alive somehow. He runs up and down
hills, through spider webs. Soon he's running
across a wooden bridge over a wide creek.
Half-way across, he stops. A raccoon is
splashing around in the water unaware
of the man in running shoes. The raccoon
twists and turns with a wood box. He
stands there on the middle of the bridge
for what feels like forever just watching
the animal play in the cool of the creek,
wishing he could be down there with it--
completely unaware of the world. Then,
he and the raccoon tense, both startled
by the sound of an approaching runner.

*****

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009 3:30:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [274] 

Since I'm the editor of Writer's Market and Poet's Market, writers send in questions all the time with questions about craft, publishing, marketing, etc. One of the questions I always hate to answer the most is something along the lines of, "I've been writing poems a long time now, and I think I'm ready to commit to it full time. How much money can I expect to make for my poetry?"

The reason I hate this question is that I feel like I either have to crush someone's dreams or lie. And I'm no good at lying. So, I end up saying (in as much of a non-dreamcrusher manner as I can muster) something along the lines of, "Well...umm...not much, if anything."

There are prizes, fellowships, etc., that are bestowed upon poets. But even if you win a $1,000 book prize every month (which isn't going to happen), you still won't be able to quit your day job--because you'll have to pay for postage, paper, and entry fees for all these contests, fellowships, etc.

Many journals pay in contributor copies (and some don't even do that). The few that can afford to pay in actual money usually offer less than $100 for a poem. And publishing a book isn't going to rake in the cash either. Don't believe me? Go to your local bookstore and find the poetry section (if you don't already know where it's at, it may take you a while). Look at the small offering of poets. Few of them are probably still alive. Fewer still probably don't fall into one of these categories:

1. Celebrity poet. Billy Corgan, Jewel, etc.
2. National Poet Laureate. Ted Kooser, Billy Collins, Robert Pinsky, etc.

So, bottom line: There's no money in poetry.

But is that such a bad thing? I think the lack of money in poetry helps take the pressure off the art form. It's really all about a great line, a wonderful image, something that sticks with the reader.

Sure, we all still want to get published and share our thoughts and words with the world; and sure, we'd all love it if someone paid us just to sit around and write poetry all day; but, we know that even if we don't have that situation (even if we're not getting published or getting paid) that we'll still put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) and crank out poems from time to time. Just for the love of it.

*****

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009 3:15:03 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [28] 

I always keep pens with me. And usually paper, though I've been known to write on anything near me if needed: Post-It notes, receipts, envelopes, brochures, napkins, etc. Often, I'll write out a few lines, and those lines will either lead to more lines (and eventually--hopefully--a poem) or that's where the fun will stop: just a few lines. I copy all my lines into those marbled Composition notebooks whether they turn into poems or not. The reason?

Because every so often, I'll go through my notebooks and play a little game with the following rules:

1. Gather up a lot of lines from different sources. The lines can be stand alone thoughts or good lines from abandoned poems.
2. Try to make a poem out of these lines.

You can add new lines, too, if you want. But the fun of this game is trying to take a bunch of little nothings and turn it into a big (or little, I suppose) something.

Here are some random lines I've got together:

* sprawl la la la la

* I've been waiting all night

* Define yourself by what you like
   not by what you don't like

* situational ethics

* it's not the rain
   but the puddles
   that freak me out
   when I'm driving

* our toothbrushes lean into each other
   when we travel and when we forget one
   toothbrush we don't hesitate to share 

* All the ways you can hurt a man
   while tucking your hair behind your ears
   and squinting into the sun. Chewing gum
   with your mouth open, you pull
   your sunglasses over your eyes
   before leaving me alone beside the pool.

* Babies like to touch stuff

* these are the things we tell each other
   and the things we don't

* I've come for your taxes

* If I were born of the sea,
   I would carve your face
   upon a coral reef. My bottle
   would float its message
   for you to read. I would wait
   until the planet warmed...

* I got some kind of guilt

* let the old folks die
   let them wither and die

* Like this girl walking...

* I could tell you to prepare
   for the unexpected but we both
   know there's no point

* Blame it all on the girlfriend

* I can't figure your signals out anymore.

(That's a good starting point, I think.)

*****

"Situational ethics"

Blame it all on the girlfriend:
She's been waiting all night
for him to say, "I got some
kind of guilt." But he's a big
baby, and babies like to touch

stuff. Like this girl walking
while tucking hair behind
her ears and squinting into
the sun, she chews gum
with her mouth open and

leaves him alone beside
the pool to think, "If I were
born of the sea, I would
carve your face upon a coral
reef. My bottle would float

its message for you to read:
Let the old folks die; let
them wither and fade
as we sprawl la la la la
across the salty waves."

She points at the clock, says,
"I can't figure your signals
out anymore." He says, "I
could tell you to prepare
for the unexpected, but we

both know there's no point."
He defines himself by what
he likes, not by what he
doesn't like. So he shows
her their toothbrushes,

how they lean into each
other when they travel,
"And when we forget one
toothbrush, we don't hesitate
to share," he says. These

are the things they tell
each other and the things
they don't. "It's not the rain
but the puddles that freak
me out when I'm driving,"

she says. He pulls her close
and leans down to tell her,
"I've come for your taxes."

*****

Best poem? No.

Fun? Yes. And now, I've got a bonafide poem that I can try revising.

Try it out with your own lines.

*****

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009 3:34:09 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [32] 

Some poems include too many details; many don't include enough. Most poems (mine included) are often too abstract, but sometimes it's not abstraction that's the problem, which can make it very hard to critique a poem. On the surface, the poem can seem almost complete. Such is the case with David Gorgone's "How To Be Idle," which I was tempted not workshop because of how it does feel almost complete. These are the toughest to revise, so let's try.

Here's the original draft:

How To Be Idle, by David Gorgone

When you find the time
grow some vegetables and keep a spare
loaf of bread in the cupboard.

Do not nap, but sleep,
stretch out on your couch.
Find comfort in dreams.

See your children. Visit the orphan.
Comfort the widow. Where they are
one can meet a brief paradise.

When visitors over stay their welcome
offer them a glass of water. If they refuse
poor the water over your vegetable garden.

Enjoy the vegetables you grew,
laugh with the orphan,
and sleep seeking paradise.

*****

I think you'll agree that this seems like a very nice poem on the surface. Most poets would only be able to offer that a comma could come at the end of the second line in the fourth stanza or that "poor" in the third line of the fourth stanza should be spelled "pour." Very superficial types of edits, to be sure. And why? Because this poem IS very close to being there; in fact, it wouldn't even surprise me to see a poem like this accepted for publication.

So why workshop it? Because this poem could be even better. If done right, this poem (or any poem really) has the potential to go from just being a good poem to being a very good poem or even great poem.

Poets need to know when to walk away from a poem (so that they don't wreck it like George Lucas wrecked his original Star Wars trilogy), but often poets get to that "good" threshold and abandon their poems too soon. I'm not saying that David has a bunch of orphaned poems, but he wrote the poem I'm looking at this week.

To find the flaws in this poem, we need to study it carefully from the title all the way through to the last word. The title, "How To Be Idle," is a good one. I like "how-to" titles, because they offer up a lot of room for fun. The poem can actually show a reader how to be idle or how not to be idle. And this exposes the first flaw.

The first stanza advises growing a garden and keeping a spare loaf of bread in the cupboard. Great opening! Second stanza advises to sleep instead of nap, to find comfort in dreams. Reasonable, yes. Third stanza advises a plethora of activities--all very vague figures without shapes or personalities--and then caps off with meeting "a brief paradise." Fourth stanza is maybe my favorite with the visitors overstaying their welcome and pouring water on the garden. Fifth stanza attempts to tie things together.

By looking at the title and each stanza and how each stanza works with the title and how each stanza works with each other stanza, here are my recommendations:

• Go ironic and humorous. Since the title is "How To Be Idle," show how not to be idle. There's already a lot of that in here. From visiting orphans and having visitors overstay their welcome to maintaining a vegetable garden, the "you" in this poem is not being idle.
• Expand the characters. You don't have to introduce everyone by name, but maybe have an exchange or two between them. "Comfort the widow," is so vague. With other vague statements, it really weakens the poem. Try something like, "Comfort Aunt Matilda, who lost her husband to a car wreck 27 years ago. Let her know things will eventually turn around." With the tercets, you can make each exchange its own stanza, which reminds me...
• Keep the tercets. It was a great choice for keeping the poem moving. Remember: you don't have to end every stanza with a period. Just look at my poem from yesterday's poetry prompt to see how you can jump from one stanza to the next to keep the reader moving down the page.
• Take out the final stanza. That last stanza is a tie it all up stanza. I'm guilty of writing them myself, so I know. With the poem you have now, it would be better to end with pouring the water on the vegetable garden. Or, in a revision, you may decide to end the poem with the "you" waving the visitors off. Or with the "you" deciding something like: "Next time, go to Hawaii."

So it seems as if I've come down hard on this poem, right? Not really. This is a good poem--as I've mentioned--but we, as poets, should always be looking for ways a poem might improve. Once we've reached that point, then move on. But we should try to avoid abandoning poems prematurely. And I don't feel David's done so here; obviously, he submitted it to be workshopped--so even he felt there was something that needed done.

Hopefully, my comments will help as he makes tough decisions on where to take his poem next. And hopefully, you'll all add your words of advice and encouragement in the Comments below.

*****

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

*****

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:42:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [18] 

Since my two oldest sons live in Ohio and I live in Georgia, I travel a lot so that I can still be involved in their lives. It means that I spend two weekends and the week between in Ohio each month, which also means I spend that same time away from my wife and other two boys. So I always feel like I'm returning to someone.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a return poem. The return element can play a small or large role in the poem. Someone can be returning; someone can be waiting for another's return; or you can get even more creative (y'all constantly surprise and amaze me). Heck, I guess it could even be a poem about returning a book to the library or returning a box of stuff to an ex-lover.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"In a Mood"

Every billboard and cross
along the side of the road
has a story to tell,

but she's a blank slate,
a carpe diem waiting to happen--
so she doesn't hold back

when she tells him,
"List every girl you ever
had a crush on, and then,

count the ways
I don't measure up."
He knows this is a trap,

but he drives on anyway
looking out for speed cops
in the median. A light flashes

CHECK ENGINE within
the first hour, so he pulls
into a gas station to check

the fluids, the gas cap.
"Do you know where
you are," she asks

when she returns with
a bag of boiled peanuts
and a Coke. "Listen,"

he says, motioning her
over to his side of the car,
"I just need one bed

and you, and I'm happy."
She rolls her eyes and
jumps in the passenger seat.

"We're never going to make it
on time," she says, "you
know that, don't you?"

He doesn't believe
in quitting and thinks,
Maybe if I ignore

the CHECK ENGINE light,
it'll go away. They pass
over the Tennessee mountains

and into Kentucky without
stopping. She closes her eyes,
puts her naked feet

on the dashboard, crossing
one foot over the other.
He notices every animal

laying dead along the side
of the Interstate. The sun
shines and then it doesn't

and then it does. He thinks,
How many Waffle House
locations can one man

see before the universe
splits in half and sucks
him under? She wakes up

screaming before glancing
over at him. "I can't ever
take back the things you did,"

she says, "in my dream
just now." He's had enough:
"But I was in the car

beside you this whole time."
She turns her back to him,
"But you weren't by my side

in my dream." Frustrated,
he wonders, How many bugs
can one windshield hit

before there's no visibility?
Then, it begins to rain.
"What in God's name

happened to the 'no chance
of rain' today," he asks.
"Your problem," she says,

"is that you're not realistic.
We're never going to make
it home in time. No matter

how early we leave or
whether or not there's rain
or if the CHECK ENGINE light

is on or off. Your father's
dead, and you missed
your chance. We're just

returning to an empty shell."
He thinks, Not every hilltop
has a cemetery, but

so many do. "I was in a mood
when I told you what I told you
in your dream," he says.

Just then, the CHECK ENGINE
light flickers off, the rain
moves on, and so do they.

*****

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 2:26:37 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [280] 

Nearly every day of the April PAD Challenge is narrowed down to the Top 5. Soon, it will be complete, and I'll be sending those poems to the guest judges. While I'd like to have been able to announce everything by now, I guess the success of the second challenge will help me better estimate when to make the announcements next year.

I'm sorry not to have anything specific yet, but please know that I am working on it as much as possible.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 6:13:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [43] 

I discovered Sydney Lea earlier this year while reading issue five of New Ohio Review. I loved both his poems, but especially "Early Life." As the founder and former editor of New England Review, I suppose I should've already known his work. Lea has published a novel, A Place in Mind, and two collections of nonfiction, Hunting the Whole Way Home and A Little Wildness.

Lea's most recent collection, Ghost Pain (Sarabande Books), is his eighth volume of poems. Its predecessor, Pursuit of the Wound, was a Pulitzer finalist and his To the Bone: New and Selected Poems was co-winner of the Poets' Prize. He's received fellowships from nearly everywhere and currently teaches at Dartmouth College.

Here's one of my favorites from his collection Ghost Pain:

Evening Walk as the School Year Starts

When was the last lobotomy, I wonder?
Too late for Carl at least, whom it's all but hopeless
to think of as a whipsaw of hateful passion
that would if it could have torn up his mother and father,
mild as they are; but that's how old villagers say
Carl acted before he was cut. Their smiles are rueful.
They shake their heads, subtle. A raven, unsubtle,
grates from a hemlock as Carl steps into sight.

His wave's familiar: he jerks and drops one palm.
How old must he be? He's ageless. His eyes are empty--
the operation. He turns now: ninety degrees,
then ninety again like a sentry, the other way.
He turns the same on each warm evening, retreating
past the house of our mutual neighbor, who will not speak
to Carl's father, for reasons likely beyond recall.
It seems a shame not to edit grievances.

It's some awful stink nearby that draws the raven,
but the rest of the world seems fixed on the morbid too:
a squirrel keeps pouring spruce cones down at me;
a gall-blighted butternut groans; the broadleafs wilt;
there's a pair of toads at my feet that wheels have flattened
side by side, like cartoon icons of failure;
mosquitoes strafe me, a mammoth dragonfly--
one of the season's last--attacks a moth

so close to me I can hear the fatal click.
The other day a son went off to college.
His mother and I are quietly beside ourselves.
We embrace each other harder now, and vow,
as one vows, to love our children harder too.
Though I hum to distract myself, the raven dives
loud as gunfire through brush to its mess. I jump,
but Carl doesn't seem to hear. I watch him limp

to his family's drive--then again that sure right angle.
Like him, our family finds a virtue in order:
we rise at six to eat our breakfasts together,
then make a certain sandwich for one of the girls,
a certain one for the other; we leave at seven;
we gather the girls promptly at end of school.
Carl opens his door and shuts it--click--behind him.
It's after Labor Day, it's end-of-summer,

it's another season upon us. Now he scolds me,
the squirrel on his branch, his store of weapons gone.
Why me, dumb brute? I haven't done anything wrong,
I've got no grievance with him--not with anyone really.
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.
The wishing star is not enough to light
the space around me while this bit of hymn from my schooldays
plays, while daytime's creatures crawl to cover,

and night ones, having no choice, confront the night.

*****

What are you up to?

Well, I just finished a teaching term at Dartmouth. My grad students are adults, many of them high school teachers in search of an advanced degree, and I feel, in my semi-retirement (one course per term), as though I'd died and gone to heaven. The students have been around the block a bit, have had jobs, marriages, children, deaths to contend with, and so on; to that extent, they command subject matter that's often beyond undergrads experience. That's not the undergrads fault, of course. I am moved and inspired by the examples of these aspirant writers in the grad program. Teaching them, to the extent that I can call it that, allows me to stay in touch with a younger generation, have a good deal of time left over for my own writing, and--almost best of all--though I am asked to, I never go to faculty meetings.

I'm also much engaged in non-literary undertakings. I'm the vice-president of Central Vermont Adult Basic Education, which is above all a literacy endeavor, literacy now including computer literacy and more and more, even here in Vermont, English as a second language. CVABE serves three Vermont counties and offers instruction to a thousand students a year. I've been a trustee for almost two decades.

I have also long been involved in a conservation effort in Washington County, Maine, where I, like my late father, have had a camp for decades and decades. Lately the local land trust bought the development rights on 345,000 acres, and bought 34,000 acres outright to be run as a sustainable community forest. Now another 22,000 acres has come on the market rather unexpectedly, so I need to help raise several million more dollars beyond the 35 that the last campaign required. In the grand scheme of things, my contribution to saving these pristine woods and waters may end up being the most important thing--beyond raising five kids--I'll have done.

I have just sold a ninth collection of poems to Four Way Books too, and am trying to finish a second novel; I hope to have it close enough to complete to let my agent look at it in fall.

You're the founder and former editor of New England Review. As an editor, what do you feel makes a good poem?

Oh, there is no short answer to that one! Fact is, I rather shy from the frequent tendency among authors, editors and publishers to choose up teams. If as a poet in my own right, for example, I tend toward formalism,  no one could ever force me into positing that approach as ipso facto superior. I love Don Justice in his formal mode, for example, but I also love Allen Ginsberg at his best. I do tend to dislike obscurantism, and ditto preciousness, and I can't for the life of me see what so-called L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poetry is for.

Ghost Pain was your eighth volume of poems. How do you go about assembling a collection?

I was lucky enough to have Robert Penn Warren as a mentor when I was a younger man, and his description of how he knew he was done with a book still strikes home for me. He says that you write and you write and you write, and in due course you realize that a certain curve of energy has completed itself, that the stuff you are writing now is differently motivated from what you've been doing for some time. I know that's vague, but I can't seem to do better, in that I don't conceive of collections in an aprioristic, programmatic way.

You teach at Dartmouth College. Does teaching inform or influence your writing?

I may have answered that question above, at least in part. The plain truth is that I haven't been entirely innocent of stealing "ideas" from students, ones that they may have been too new at the game to have pulled off successfully. But that's a rarity. Teaching is important to me as a hedge against adopting a mood like Hemingway's at his worst: Long time ago good, now no good. For forty years, in every course I have found at least one young woman or man who bolsters my faith not only in poetry but also in human nature. Also, by my own choice I live a long way from alleged centers of sophistication, which is helpful to me in that it keeps me from the occasional belief of writers in this era of Creeping MFAism that EVERYONE is concerned with literature. Few of my neighbors are concerned with it, at least in the way that the MFAer may be. And yet I do need the "fix" of talking passionately about poetry, fiction, creative writing" in general, and I get it via my students; I get it a lot more from them than from academic colleagues at any rate.

Ghost Pain includes the long poem "A Man Walked Out." What's the most challenging aspect of writing a long poem?

Here's the weird thing. I have written a number of long poems, starting perhaps with "The Feud" in my second collection, moving through "To the Bone" from my 1996 new and selected, into "A Man Walked Out" and most lately into something called "Birds:A Farrago" from my forthcoming book, Young of the Year. And each of these poems seems somehow to have been given to me. Each seems to have followed on a fairly long period of disinclination from writing. Not writer's block but disinclination (whose causes remain unknown to me). Then these poems come in  a rush, and I rarely do much in the way of revising them. Is that "inspiration?" I don't know, don't even know if I believe in such a thing, really; rather, I believe these gimmes are the payoff for all those hours of revision that I have put into shorter poems.

So in a sense I am a poor candidate to answer your question. I don't conceive of long poems; they present themselves to me helter skelter. Weird, as I say.

Your poetry has been published in several publications over the years. How do you manage your submissions?

Oh, nothing special: I wait until I have, say, three poems that seem to be as good as they are ever going to be, and then I send them out. After three decades plus, needless to say I have certain favorite journals and editors, and I tend to give them first crack. No, that sounds immodest. They are the readers, rather, who I hope may smile on one of the ones I send on. I have had the experience of landing so many poems with editor X, however, that I begin to feel as if he or she is not sufficiently resistant to what I am doing; I need to overcome real critical skepticism in order to trust that the poem is significant to someone beside myself.

Who or what are you currently reading?

I am rereading the two latest books by Maxine Kumin. At 66, it strengthens me to see someone almost twenty years older doing such marvelous work, probably the best of her wonderful career. I am also reading Elizabeth Strout's stunning novel, Olivia Kitteredge. I read a great deal, too, in natural history publications. A delightful advantage of having given up my specifically academic inclinations a long time ago, despite my unlamented Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, is that I don't think I need to read in a muscular way, to cover a field or keep up with critical postures. I enjoy, in Eliot's delicious phrasing, "the poet's necessary laziness."

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

Oh, I am a terrible advice-giver, or rather just not inclined to give it at all. My way to practice writing is that and that alone; it is not "right" except for me, is not necessarily shareable. To the degree that it may be shared, I prefer to pass it on by way of engaging in dialogue, not laying down rules and prescriptions. I do have one piece of advice to my students, though: write a lot for, say, a decade, in the sure faith that anything you do with diligence for a long time is something you'll get better at. You may not get great (who's to make that judgment anyhow in our lifetimes?), but you WILL get better. I suspect that there were people out there who had as much talent as Michael Jordan, to use an analogy; Michael Jordan became Michael Jordan, though, because he relentlessly practiced his moves.

*****

* To learn more about Sydney Lea, go to www.sydneylea.net

* To learn more about Sarabande Books, go to www.sarabandebooks.org

* To learn more about Four Way Books, go to www.fourwaybooks.com

*****

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

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:59:35 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [3] 

Roses are red;
violets are blue;
I'm going to the Writer's Digest Conference in New York City,
and so should you.

Hmmm... My meter might be a little off in that third line.

I'm fresh back from vacation. So my first official task is to figure out what's the next cool thing on my schedule. And it so happens that the next cool thing (that's not blog-related, of course) is the Writer's Digest Conference in New York City in September. (I bet Central Park will be beautiful!)

From a poetry slam on September 18 at the world famous Bowery Poetry Club to one-on-one critiques with editors, this conference will cover all the bases for publishing, including the top five legal issues writers face, the digitization of the publishing industry, effective marketing and promotion for fiction writers, how to build an effective author website, creating an author platform, and so much more. And the conference is in Times Square, so I can get a little sight-seeing worked in with my...umm...work.

Plus, I'll get to hang with my Writer's Digest posse, including Chuck Sambuchino, Jane Friedman, Alice Pope, Jessica Strawser, and the rest of the gang. And it would be great to see y'all at the event as well. We could talk poetry at the Bowery, wander around Manhattan, and soak up the lights of Times Square.

If you're interested, you can learn more about the conference at http://www.writersdigestconference.com.

And if you do register, send me an e-mail at robert.brewer@fwmedia.com and be sure to say, "Hi."

Monday, August 10, 2009 7:51:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [1] 

Sorry for the late prompt. But I'm on vacation. And the good kind. Where I'm not on the computer the whole time. And one where I can spend time with all four of my boys (and even one of their cousins). And one where I can read literary journals. And collections of poetry. And even IKEA catalogs (actually haven't read that yet, but found it in the mail moments ago).

So anyway, I've been on vacation and soaking it up.

*****

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about something you've been through. For instance, you may have been through a divorce, a car wreck, bankruptcy, detention, or the flu. Please make the something you've been through the title of your poem and go from there.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Hydroplaning"

Rolling Stones play "Ruby Tuesday"
on New Year's Day through southern Kentucky
Ben and Jonah asleep in the backseat
as their mother falls in and out up front
rain beats on the windshield and blacktop
water pushes through the rocks
puddles along the edge of the Interstate
even at 50 miles-per-hour this car
moves faster than most and then I feel
the wheels turn in a direction I did not intend
and before I can stop myself I try to correct
our trajectory which only spins us faster
one.....two.....three times into the guard rail
their mother screaming "omygodomygodomygod"
as I hold the wheel steady and wait
for everything to stop and hope we aren't
blindsided by a truck that can't stop behind us
and then the car stops and we're facing
the railing and blocking the first lane
and Ben and Jonah and their mother are all
screaming and I'm thinking "is everyone okay?"

Wednesday, August 05, 2009 10:26:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [264]