Well, I've finally accepted the fact that it won't be possible to submit a manuscript this fall contest season at the same time as I'm completing my thesis collection. I'd wanted to do both simultaneously, just because of the fact that so many good contests do have fall deadlines and I didn't want to wait another year to submit the manuscript, but I'm just not enough of a multi-tasker to work on two different collections, one with 32 poems and one with the required 45-50 pages, and with different poems chosen for different reasons (I need to dig up every formal poem I have for the thesis, even if they're not my best or as fitting with the theme, and with the would-be book, I have to keep in mind that it will -- hopefully -- be "out there" in the world, to some small extent, and that at least my mom will be probably reading it :)
So I'll just focus on the thesis now, celebrate the completion of three decades of education, and then get the collection together for the few winter and spring deadlines. And then, barring happy news from one of them, get it ready again next fall...
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Prose Break
First it was rhyme; now my recurrent funks are inspiring fiction!
Today, climbing out of a funk, although I was relatively cheerful and well-caffeinated, if a bit sleepy from early rising for a car repair errand, I wrote a page or two as a downpayment on my long-planned novel.
Now, the actual writing of this novel has to be mostly on hold until I finish my degree in December and get the poetry book together, and even then can't start in full force until I've put out the debut issue of the lit mag I'm working on a few months after that, but it's okay to start in bits and pieces, now that those goals are well under a year from completion.
What I wrote was the opening piece of the kernel of my story. It's not a central part of the plot, in terms of what I'd include in a synopsis, but it's the kernel of the story because it's the kernel of my character's psyche, if not her "character," so to speak.
I was surprised as well as thrilled that it flowed pretty well. And encouraged.
There's something really satisfying about fiction that is lacking in poetry. Things can be said outright rather than hinted at because there's more space to develop thoughts... they're stretched out, so there's less need for strict economy.
It's true that things can be said outright in a poem now and then, but only a very few things per poem, and then the rest of the poem must work around those things and shroud them with a bit of mystery. With fiction, one can use style to create some mystery, yet things can also be said outright much more often, which is both more cathartic and also just plain easier than the restraint that poetry demands.
I have to say I'm kind of looking forward to my fiction-centric sabbatical from poetry next year. I've had this novel brewing for a long, long time.
Today, climbing out of a funk, although I was relatively cheerful and well-caffeinated, if a bit sleepy from early rising for a car repair errand, I wrote a page or two as a downpayment on my long-planned novel.
Now, the actual writing of this novel has to be mostly on hold until I finish my degree in December and get the poetry book together, and even then can't start in full force until I've put out the debut issue of the lit mag I'm working on a few months after that, but it's okay to start in bits and pieces, now that those goals are well under a year from completion.
What I wrote was the opening piece of the kernel of my story. It's not a central part of the plot, in terms of what I'd include in a synopsis, but it's the kernel of the story because it's the kernel of my character's psyche, if not her "character," so to speak.
I was surprised as well as thrilled that it flowed pretty well. And encouraged.
There's something really satisfying about fiction that is lacking in poetry. Things can be said outright rather than hinted at because there's more space to develop thoughts... they're stretched out, so there's less need for strict economy.
It's true that things can be said outright in a poem now and then, but only a very few things per poem, and then the rest of the poem must work around those things and shroud them with a bit of mystery. With fiction, one can use style to create some mystery, yet things can also be said outright much more often, which is both more cathartic and also just plain easier than the restraint that poetry demands.
I have to say I'm kind of looking forward to my fiction-centric sabbatical from poetry next year. I've had this novel brewing for a long, long time.
Friday, May 30, 2008
On a happier note...
It must be that time of year when poets get confused as to whether they should be skipping through the fields like Wordsworth or sticking their heads in the oven.
Even so-called moderate ones.
But here's a much Spring-ier poem from my old friend Rumi, via Coleman Barks:
What Was Told, That
Even so-called moderate ones.
But here's a much Spring-ier poem from my old friend Rumi, via Coleman Barks:
What Was Told, That
Now I know how Keats must have felt.
I was having such a rotten day, I just wrote a poem that rhymed. It didn't start out rhyming, but by the time I woke up in the middle of the night and tweaked a few lines, I realized it was well nigh a sonnet. If I can just manage to sustain this mood all weekend, I could have a terza rima. And if not, well, it's a win-win situation.
But I think I really needed this for my thesis, having chosen (what I'm coming to realize) is probably the only poetry program in the country that favors form over free verse. But it was a good program; and I probably needed that rhythm in my head. Who wants to learn stuff they already know? That's depressing enough to inspire a sonnet.
Wouldn't it be funny if I wound up a formalist, after all?
Nah, 'twas a passing fancy, I think.
But I think I really needed this for my thesis, having chosen (what I'm coming to realize) is probably the only poetry program in the country that favors form over free verse. But it was a good program; and I probably needed that rhythm in my head. Who wants to learn stuff they already know? That's depressing enough to inspire a sonnet.
Wouldn't it be funny if I wound up a formalist, after all?
Nah, 'twas a passing fancy, I think.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Mark Strand
I saw him read at Politics & Prose last month, a tall man with a presence to match his voice, on the page and off. He signed my copy of Man and Camel.
Many of the poems he read displayed his dry, at times black, sense of humor. The following isn't one of those, though I still think it's lovely, if stark, like the landscape it describes.
My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer
Many of the poems he read displayed his dry, at times black, sense of humor. The following isn't one of those, though I still think it's lovely, if stark, like the landscape it describes.
My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Plath-o-Rama
From Bookslut on Girlhood Plathophilia: Rereading Sylvia
By the way, I just realized that SP was born on the same exact day, month, and year as my father. One of those not-improbable yet nevertheless odd-seeming coincidences. But, no, my dad doesn't write poetry (that I know of.)
By the way, I just realized that SP was born on the same exact day, month, and year as my father. One of those not-improbable yet nevertheless odd-seeming coincidences. But, no, my dad doesn't write poetry (that I know of.)
Friday, May 2, 2008
Quote: Katrina Vandenberg...
... the author of Atlas writes in the latest issue of Poets & Writers, in a great article about putting together a book of poems, this prosaic yet perfectly succinct summary of what a poem is:
A poem is an accumulation of different kinds of repetition. When you repeat a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, you get meter; when you repeat sounds you get alliteration, rhyme, assonance; when you repeat images, you get a motif; when you repeat an idea, a theme. A poem's natural compression heightens these sensations of repetition.
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