New blog, last semester

Of real classes, anyway, before I plunge into the deep and dark and icy waters of putting together my thesis next semester. In the words of that girl from Death Proof, "Gulp." And actually, only one of my classes this semester is "real," and that would be Trends in Narrative Poetry. The other, unreal one is my independent study, which is undertaking the creation of a long-form (12-20 pages) narrative poem, written in mostly iambic pentameter (because a, it's what I tend to write in anyhow, and b, it's easy), which coincides nicely with my real class. So I'm sure this insane and illuminating process will provide plenty of fodder for poetic musings as the semester goes on.

Now then. Let's see if I can say something meaningful before rush hour gets too insane in about 45 minutes and I can't drive to Alexandria to get to Total Wine anymore.

I think the beginning of this, my final and probably craziest semester, warrants a re-posting of some advice I came to my first semester at Hopkins, which I think has been the best two simple rules to always keep repeating to yourself as you write. They are two of the "Ten Habits Of Successful Poets That They Don't Teach You At Harvard Poetry School, Or Chicken Verse For The Soul Is From Mars But You Are What You Read In Just Seven Days Or Your Money Back" (courtesy of Stephen Fry, author of The Ode Less Travelled). Specifically, numbers 7 and 8:

7. ENJOY YOURSELF: poetry might be a need in you, but it should not be a penance. Unless you believe yourself to be cursed by an unwanted vocation the labour involved should be one of love.
8. FORGIVE YOURSELF: everyone writes shit from time to time. Don't get all hysterical about it. Keep your poetic toys in the pram and start again when you feel better. Write some light and stupid verse to take the taste away.

I mean, can't get much wiser than that.  In fact, I have now made it the texty-thing at the top of this blog.

On a totally different front, I came across this in one of the books I'm currently reading for class, The Reaper Essays.  This book is a collection of poetic criticism from the journal The Reaper which, in the 80s, was a huge proponent of narrative poetry.  Now,  I'll admit, at times their opinions are very extreme and "bloodyminded," as the introduction stated, but sometimes there's some little gems in there too when you take it all with a grain of salt. This I found particularly interesting, on John Hass' poem Meditation at Lagunitas:

"But the particulars make a poem: they root us, they capture our attention. So, we get: 'the clown-faced woodpecker' and a few lines later the blackberry. But the poet cannon resist summing up what he has already said: ' a word is elegy to what it signifies.' Why isn't this the first line of the poem? Are poems marshes in which the poet flounders around for good lines?"

Ouch.  Yes!  Scathing, but true.  I mean, I liked Meditation at Lagunitas.  But I agree with that.  It's like Hass stumbles around in, as they said, a marsh of not only words and lines but plot lines, characters, etc, unearthing a few good ones but leaving the not-so-good ones and not refining the poem into something that serves to elevate and focus the good ones.  I mean...isn't that what the point of revision is?  

I remember a discussion we had awhile back in a class last year about how a lot of what is published in the poetry world- the real world of poetry, you might say, outside academia- would not pass muster in a workshop.  I mean, to what extent are the readers really supposed to trust the intent and the genius of the writer?  In my opinion, to no extent.  If the thing doesn't communicate, you can't just assume it's communicating something that's over your head.  That doesn't mean it has to do it in plain language with no creative play, but there should at least be a reasonable possibility of the reader solving it.  And I get that once you've "paid your dues" and the world gives you success (and it is always the world giving it to you; you can work hard at getting the world to give it to you, but in this field, you're always courting the publishers and your readership), you have a bit of freedom to be self-indulgent.  But in my opinion, just because you have it doesn't mean you necessarily should indulge in it.  I hope I never rest on my laurels so much, should I ever gain laurels, that I stop working hard.  And that goes for everything in life. 

A good general rule to remember is that especially in the beginning, no one's going to automatically give you any credit or glory just for the simple act of doing or trying; all your life, no matter what your circumstances, work as if they're still not.