Bob brought up the issue of topical—political—poetry. His comment and my response are below. There's a blog entry about politics and poetry also.
Abgrund's comment on the relation of craft and form to the intended poem is good. Form, as I understand him, must function in the final poem, rather than being a kind decoration.
Tracy's personal account of her relation to poetry gives good ideas for reflection.
from Bob Godwin 1: Topical PoetryHaving read a number of ghazals this year and last, they have been as varied in their topics as in their variations of the classical form. However, the political scene has been noticeably ignored. Is Politics outside the realm of the ghazal? Can a political story be told in a few shers? Is the ghazal page the proper outlet for political poems within the format of the ghazal? A senior journalist, and this Republican-controlled administration, are the subjects of two ghazals (A Journalistic Nose; The Winter Of Our Discontent) in late draft stages, and are only six shers in length, because my choice of qafiya was shorter than anticipated, once I started deleting unusable rhyme words. Should I continue working on them for your consideration? Bobfrom Abgrund 3: Craft and FormFor me, any topic is appropriate for art and therefore for ghazals. I can't promise anything, of course, but if you do complete these two, I would like to see them. If they succeed as ghazals and poems, I will use them despite the political content. I guess if I do publish political ghazals, I'll need to be non-partisan and post ghazals (if they're good) that I disagree with. There'd be some attitudes I wouldn't publish, though--praise of Osama bin Laden, say, or anything racist. I'd have a hard time with praise of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld but wouldn't reject such ghazals just because of theme. Gino
So is craft a matter of not deviating from the poem's intended content, or of not deviating from its intended form? If one sets out to cast a poem in the form of, say, a ghazal, and decides that the emerging final poem is best portrayed in shers of three lines, that may be an improvement in the poem, but it can no longer be considered a ghazal. Why should any poet adhere to any form, unless the form itself makes some contribution to the quality of the final work? The value of form lies, I think, in its ability to alter the way a poem is perceived, in a manner not achievable by vocabulary alone. Rhythm and repetition (and sometimes the modification or interruption thereof) directly affect the human mind. This is very clear in the case of music, which can some times be very powerful without any words whatever. Poetry lies somewhere in between music and prose, in its use of both pattern and content to embody its message. Even free verse, if it's any good, has patterns (of line length, word length, recurring motifs, etc.) Minor deviations from the pattern of a form may go unnoticed, but if they are too flagrant or too frequent, the power of the form is not merely lost but perverted. Slavish adherence to a certain form can ruin a poem, certainly - but if that is the case, the fault is not the use of form, but the particular form chosen. The object is, I think, to choose a form appropriate to the poem, or to create one. Free verse takes the latter course - it is not (hopefully) simply a matter of writing without any pattern, but of evolving a unique pattern to fit the poem being written. This may be done well or poorly, but the importance of form remains. So while we hope to avoid cutting off the crab's feelers to make it fit the box, still the crab must fit. To choose or devise the ideal box, as much as the actual insertion of the crab, is the craft of poetry.from Tracy 1: How Many Words Can Fit in a Small Space?
The writing process is a way of collecting something that is dancing
inside, slowing it down enough to be noticed, and then projecting it to a
potential audience. It is another way of seeing the world, and I can feel a
physical change in my mind state when it is really happening, because it com
es from a state of internal checks and balances. In this way, I think I agree
with your rendition of the Threefold Process.
Writing is not my profession, although it certainly is a hobby. I mention
this because my last writing class was probably English 102 as an undergraduate.
Yet at school today, if a colleague needs something written, I'm usually the
one to do it for them. So, although I consider myself to be poetic, and to be
educated in some areas, I do not consider myself to be schooled in terms of
writing. I seem to have found my own way. This is something that I feel I was
not allowed to do in the study of art. When I was a student, other ways were
given to me to duplicate by people that I considered to be superior to my own
base of knowledge. I followed procedures and was willing to give up some of my
own individuality, which I had not located yet, and which I am only now
reuniting with. Poetry I'm coming to backwards. Having found my style, I'd like
to concentrate now on some of the actual structures without losing my own voice.
I'm also interested in understanding the creative process.
It really makes no sense that I write, having come from three generations of
fine artists. Yet I always have. In highschool a group of teenage girls and I
kept poetry notebooks. These were not notebooks for our teachers, boyfriends, or
parents to read; but, poems about the real life that we experienced internally.
When we first started the notebooks, I don't think we even knew that each of
us were also writing. These books were shared in the girl's bathrooms, during
breaks, even in class when the teachers were not looking. It evolved from the
private realm to the public arena, even though the arena was tiny.
Later, my future husband and I corresponded with private verse on a public
wall in the storage room of a small business my mother owned and where he
worked for a while. We left each other poems on the sheet rock, which could
easily be covered up with slip if the need to erase them occurred. I painted
images on the backs of doors, literally. We later graduated to poetry on actual
parchment. It is part of who I am although I'm not sure why it is there.
In adulthood, life became a blur during the early parenting years. Yet even
then, a traumatic event, such as the death of a relative, would find no other
place yet for a poem. I've wondered if it is because I am predominantly a
visual and physical learner, that words hold such a fascination
with me. The best poems usually happen when there is an emotion present which
is too strong to contain. There is a call for this inner content to vent. I'm
not sure what does the calling, but the tension originates within me, and then
has a need to escape its confines and join in with that which came from
somewhere else. For example, a grandfather dies, then I visit the old homestead
for the first time after his death. The feelings were already inside of me, but
the house triggers feelings and memories which in turn trigger the desire to
write the poem. Yet, the need to express this discovery is poetic. I don't
want to take notes of the primal causes and present them stripped in a
PowerPoint presentation complete with lively animation. I don't have an urge
to paint a memory of the house. I write it down with its own terms intact,
discovering them as I go along. This need for verse comes in iambic perimeter,
duplicating possible syllabication of past generations. It rhymes or does't,
floats on a current and arrives, possibly, on the shore o=f the least
suspecting,
or it can sink down to the bottom of a forgotten gorge. It tilts tired sentences
and lets them fall where they may, even though the fall is actually aided and
abided by my particular preferences.
The emotion which is based on life experience, triggers the intent, and the
intent gives way to craft. So, what came in the form of an emotion, from out
there----- something happened to trigger the emotion in me, then dances around
inside of my mind, and identifies the feeling in concepts we convey with
specific meanings, and then we send it back to where it came, out there. To the
world of the reader. Out to the next person who can choose to dance or not.
Poetry isn't polite conversation between friends, or even a fun banter with
an intelligent peer. A poem slows down the sensation long enough for
identification, and then moves on to exposing the discovery. Within this
crafting comes the attention to sound. I hear my thoughts in particular patterns
and write them with a real tempo I hear and the rhythm is already there, even
if it is one that had no pre-designed margins. There is a playfulness to poetry
that I do not find in prose. . Although the ideas may change somewhat during
the birth of the poem, I don't really feel like I am orchestrating the ideas in
the way that I orchestrate a realistic landscape. It is more of a surrealistic
jazz ensemble. The thoughts are there already. They just are. , they do not
have a predetermined exit point or even a plausible explanation. I may choose
the words that I use to express these ideas or feelings, but I'm not really
choosing the thoughts. The journey involved in the writing of the poem, is a
discovery in and of itself. When I read a poem I consider to be good, I've read
something that duplicates the process of discovery within myself. I understand
something I hadn't taken the time to pinpoint before, and the trip through the
understanding is pleasurable, even if the poem is in and of itself disturbing.
There is some element of truth recognized within the balancing of craft and
content and the result is beauty.
Another brief note from Abgrund. I'm sure that there are folks who will disagree with my comment. Send me your own publishable comment, and I'll put it here respectfully.
from Abgrund 2: Craft and RevisionYes, there is craft involved in writing poetry, especially if you're trying to give it any kind of form, like a metrical or phonic pattern. It's hard to combine craft with inspiration (maybe because they draw on different parts of the brain?), but there you go - that's why decent poetry is so rare. I generally do a great deal of editing and rewriting on any poem I create, but I'm not at all sure that it makes any difference to how effective said poem is for anyone else. I would not be able to explain why I chose any particular word or phrase, except that it seemed "right" or that it fit the form; I do not worry about whether anyone else will "understand" it and in most cases I don't think there's any way of knowing if they experience it in the same way I do. I don't try to write to be understood by others; I try to write poetry that would work for me if I were reading it "cold" (i.e., with no knowledge of it before reading). I can't say whether this produces "good" poetry or not, but I don't really care, either.To me, craft is paying attention to the work at hand and sensing the final poem emerging from it. To some, I think,craft means adhering to recipes for form and not deviating. That can lead to the distortion William Carlos Williams described as "cutting the feelers off a crab so it will fit in a box."
I've added a couple more comments; I'm pleased to see them. I've limited my own response, but I think another blog along these lines is in order.
from Abgrund 1: Asking the Meaning of a PoemIt bugs me when someone asks me the meaning of a poem I've written. If I could express it better in some other way, I wouldn't have written the poem in the first place. The intent of poetry is not to obscure things that could have been stated clearly in prose. If the "meaning" is not apparent, then either the poem or the reader is inadequate - forget it and read something else.from Pottygok 2: Process and IntentionSomeone once asked Robert Frost what a poem he'd just read meant. He read it again. The problem is being able to see when the poem doesn't meet my intentions. As the writer, I may feel the poem succeeds, when in fact, it succeeds only for me. A reader can draw my attention to the poem's shortcomings.
Still, either poem succeeds for a reader or it doesn't. I guess what the poet does depends on how important that poet is.
--Gino
I think my response would begin at this paragraph.
>In my experience, I begin writing with an intention to
>write. Initially, that intention and my view of the end-
>product may be very vague or highly detailed. The
>creative process gets me from the initial intention to
>the final product. (Of course, there's not always a final
>product or one worth
sharing.)
You mention a start and an end-product, as well as a "creative process".
However, you say it is risky to talk about the creative process. Fair enough.
However, does the creative process involve "craft"? Because I see a distinct
difference. "Creative Process" is what gets the words on the page. "Craft" is
what polishes and makes those words shine; it is the tools used to make one's
writing as potent and effective as possible.
>So, there you go: "What did I mean by that?" Why don't
>you tell me what it means to you?
I think, when people ask this question, they are politely asking "What does this
mean?" or saying "I don't get this" or "I don't connect with this." They want to
connect with the poem, but there's something stopping them. This is where craft
comes in. Craft can bring out the meaning of those words.
However, this comes back to the poets intention. The poet put those words on the
paper. They had to be thinking of SOMETHING, even if it was just a certain
scene. That message, possibly, could not be reaching the reader because of the
lack of craft. This tends to be my experience with the question. If my reader
isn't getting it, I probably haven't written it properly--the image is vague,
the verb unclear/cliche, etc. I can explain my intention behind the stanza, and
perhaps the reader (I'm assuming a workshop setting here, of course) can suggest
improvements based on that intention.
Of course, alternately, the reader could be obtuse. I've seen this,
too--historical ignorance ("Who is this Nero person? The speaker? The speaker's
boyfriend? Why is he fiddling?" etc.), cultural ignorance ("What do the four
beams of light erupting from New York's skyline symbolize?") and even formulaic
ignorance ("Why are your couplets so disjointed? I don't get this--there's no
narrative. What's the story here? Also, what does 'ghazal' mean?") Or,
sometimes, the poem and the reader just weren't meant for each other. Though
these are both acceptable, the poet still has a job to craft their poem as best
they can. Sooner or later, on some draft, the poet must make some conscious
decisions, even if only in terms of word choice, organization, line breaks, etc.
Whether good or bad, the poet should be ready to explain those decisions. While
they need not be as rational and analytic as Poe, there should be some basis for
the choices made.
I agree that either the poet's craft can fail or the reader's ability can be
inadequate to the poem. Perhaps I've seen too many know-nothings who are
convinced that, if they "don't get it," the poet is incompetent or somehow
mocking them.
In my experience, the process of producing the poem is nowhere near as conscious
and deliberate as I think you're saying. I think one negative aspect of
workshops is bringing everything down to a lowest common denominator. I've had
good readers of my drafts and poor ones. Sometimes the same person is a good
reader at one time and poor at another.
--Gino
from Pottygok 1 Some Things to Think AboutGino~ Some things to think about: --Accentual verse as opposed to metrical verse, i.e., instead of having "iambic pentameter" or whatever, a ghazal verse that focuses on 5 accented syllables. This allows more freedom, in terms of personal language/speech, but imposes, or maintains, a meter on the ghazal. --Performed speech vs. written language. Tracie Morris, in the book "Exaltation of Forms", speaks of hip-hop rhythms in performed speech. An example from SugarHill Gang: "now what you hear is not a test-- i'm rappin to the beat and me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet" Traditionally, this would be: u/u/u/u/ u/uuu/ u/u/uu/ u'u/u'u/ Or something like that, with "'" representing softened accents. However, performed, it becomes: u/u/u/u/ u/u/u/ u/u//u/ uuu/u/u/ In other words (and Morris describes it better), the way the poem is performed, especially when music or a similar background rhythm is involved, is different, theoretically, than when it is read on the page. Ghazals, as traditionally a performed form, could play with these as American, or urban, metrics, instead of relying on the traditional Greek metrics.--Syllabic metrics. You mentioned this, but it might be interesting to ignore stress and unstressed, and pay attention to things like syllables. Write a ghazal in syllabics, for example.Derek Attridge also has a section on rap in his Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1995). He sees rap as having a four-stress line similar to Anglo-Saxon, and he stresses that the performance over-rides the "natural" speech rhythms of the lyrics.
--Gino--Other sounds. Stress and unstress are not the only sounds in English poetry. An example would be the Old English verse, where accented syllables had to have alliteration. Playing off of sounds like this to drive the metrics of the ghazal. Ghazals in Old English verse lines?I'd like to see experiments in strictly syllabic meter for ghazals. I suspect that, with long lines, stresses would become prominent anyway. Maybe a shorter line?
--Gino