Unit 1

Unit 1

Lecture

Note: Unit 1 will have the longest lecture because we are just beginning. Hang in there and read everything so you don’t get lost in the assignments. When I think it’s time to review, I will refer back to this area in later units.

Poetry

There are three basic concepts in this course. The first is my fundamental belief that everyone is creative and can write poetry. The second is that understanding the difference between sophisticated writing and simple writing is necessary to the writing process for this class; knowing the difference between a well-crafted poem and a spontaneous outpouring of emotional words on paper is a must. And lastly, that the process of editing is probably one of the most important parts of the poem equation. So let’s look at what makes a poem a poem.

Poem Content – Working with memory

Most of the poems you will write for this class will be memory poems. Memory poems are grounded in your senses as you put yourself back in the moment of the memory. You will use the free writing exercises to stimulate the creative process; the details in the free writes will enrich your poems. When you send me your poems, I serve as your editing guide as you learn the difference in scene or story poems and just putting words down on the paper.

Form or Shape of the Poem

The structure or appearance of a poem on the page conveys to the reader certain expectations. The “idea” of a poem sometimes can be felt by the way the poem looks. Thumbing through a book of poems you’ll notice how much space the poem takes up on the page; the relationship of black (the lettering) to the blank whiteness of the page; how the lines look as your eyes trace left to right, top to bottom. Consider the following:

Poem shape 1 (prose poem)

“Title of Poem”

_______________________

A poem shaped like this, at first glance, looks like a paragraph. I like to think of this poem’s shape as looking like a deck of cards on the page, (there are examples of this shape in the first writing assignment).
Closer reading though reveals all the elements of a traditional free verse poem with the exception of the line break.
You’ll find concentrated language, image and thought fragments, sometimes a lack of punctuation or capitalization of letters.
There is a feeling of “weight” in a prose poem – by that I mean that it is more than an image in paragraph form – there is the sense that a story is being told. This is established by the “tone” of the language used.
Sometimes several stanzas are connected together to form a multi-stanza prose poem and sometimes the prose poem is one long run-on sentence.

Poem shape 2 (free verse poem)

“Title of Poem”

____________

_______

_________

_____ ________

_____

______ _______

_______

This “free verse” shape usually is fragmentary and floating.
Sometimes the spacing of the fragments or words like this helps to direct the reading of the poem because it will be read in starts and stops.
The lines used as illustrated above could be random thoughts or words that form a complete image when read as a whole.
Punctuation and capitalization is usually not used in a fragmentary poem shape like this.
It is hard to construct a multi-stanza poem in this shape because it is hard to determine just when stanzas begin and end.

Poem shape 3 (free verse poem)

“Title of Poem”

___

____
__
_
__
___
__
__

___

A long, thin poem usually signals a single thought where the shape dominates by making the reader follow the words down the page very quickly.
This poem should feel that the weight of the poem falls to the bottom much like a weighted sinker on the end of a fishing line does when dropped into deep water.
Because of this “weighted” feeling, the most important word or phrase should be used at the end.
Beginning poets frequently use this shape because they are inexperienced in how to extend images into a “story poem.”

Poem shape 4 (free verse poem)

“Title of Poem”

______________

______

__________

_________

_______

__________

______

______________

_________

____

________

_________

______________

_______

____________

____
_______

This is a free verse poem of three stanzas; there may be more than the three stanzas. Notice the double spacing between the stanzas; this is a signal to the reader that something is changing.
The expectation of this poem is that there will be a feeling of beginning, middle, and end.
A sense of “story” should be present through the movement of the lines.
There is logic in the sequencing of the image. Let’s think about what this means exactly – a poem written about how someone spends his or her day would logically start with dawn, move to mid-day, and close at night.
Organization can be around any subject (time, seasons, dreams, an event or trip, a lifetime, sounds) as long as there is logical movement from one stanza to the next.
Movement in multi-stanza poems is accomplished with the use of transitional lines as explained in the next section.

Line Breaks, Enjambment, and Punctuation

About line breaks and enjambment:

A line break in poetry is, simply, the place where the poet breaks a line to direct the reader’s attention to the next line. Sometimes this occurs at the end of a sentence, sometimes at the end of a phrase, sometimes in the middle of a phrase – possibilities in contemporary free verse poetry are wide and various. However, that said, remember that the lines in most poems are broken quite deliberately by the writer and there is a certain pleasure in shaping the poem which is part of the writing and editing process.

Think of the breakage as a directional guide to the eye. What do you want the eye to see all together - an image or phrase? Someone has said that a line break can be considered to be a short pause or breath, whereas a stanza break is a longer pause or deeper breath. Lines and stanzas are analogous to the sentence and paragraphs in prose. Long lines sometime tend to be more effective for poems that tell an expansive narrative (story) or pull numerous threads together, while very short lines seem more appropriate for imagistic, closely focused poems. Exceptions do abound, however.

Sometimes line breaks are fundamental, organic, springing out of the writing process itself. You FEEL what they want to be as you write. Not something planned; you may begin to see the poem in your mind very quickly as the words start to come faster and faster. Don’t fight this impulse when you are writing – remember you will craft the shape of your poem later.

In this class as you learn to edit your poems, line breaks become part of the editing process. This is why I don’t want you worry about line breaks when you’re first drafting; this is also why I don’t want you to center your poem lines – it is really hard to learn how to correctly break the line when all the lines are centered.

About enjambment at the end of the line:

When a phrase or image “straddles” two lines, a poetic device called “enjambment” is used. When this happens, the word ending the first line should be selected to “force” movement down to the next line. This is a directional convention used by the poet. Using enjambment keeps the poem from being a series of monotonous line after line of image or phrasing. Enjambment also moves the poem by making the lines flow more smoothly.

Notice in the following lines how the poet uses “enjambment” to make the poem flow one line into the next. The words used for enjambment are in red.

The lines are taken from “The Significance of Location” by Pattiann Rodgers.

The sun has been intercepted in its one 1

basic state and changed to a million varieties 2

of green stick and tassel. It has been broken

into pieces by glass rings, by mist 4

over the river. Its heat 5

has been given the board fence for body,

the desert rock for fact. On winter hills 7

it has been laid down in white like a martyr.

Notice the movement of the poem in lines 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 – the phrasing here makes going to the next line necessary to complete the image.
Compare these lines to the last line, which is the only line in this stanza that could stand alone as a completed image.

About punctuation in poetry (my version):

I have only one rule for this class with regards to punctuation of the poems – use it or don’t use it. The beginning stanza of your poem sets up the expectation your reader will have for the rest of your poem. If you begin the poem by putting a comma after the first line break, it will signal to the reader that this will be a poem using punctuation – the signal is like a contract you have with the reader in which you have made a promise to “correctly” use punctuation throughout the poem. Not just occasionally or when you think you should or because it’s been several lines without punctuation – but in a carefully thought out manner.

The following guidelines will help you punctuate your poems.

__________ 1. using no punctuation = smooth drop to the next line with out stopping when reading.

_________, 2. using a comma = small pause or end of phrase or image.

_______; 3. using a semicolon = longer phrase and a formal poem because of the complexity of the sentence that requires a semicolon.

_______: 4. using a colon = a device used by poets to signal a list is coming.

________. 5. using a period = definite stop – longest pause.

_______ 6. not using a period at the end of a stanza = go to the next stanza quickly.

About Language:

Remember at the beginning of this unit I said that understanding the difference between sophisticated writing and simple writing is necessary to the writing process for this class; knowing the difference between a well-crafted poem and a spontaneous outpouring of emotional words on paper is a must. Language is an important element in determining the sophistication of a poem. The definition of language for this class is simply the choice of words.

Language sets the tone of the poem through the images painted on the page as you try to let the reader “see” the image in your mind. The scene is revealed by your choice of words and the more sophisticated your language the more complex your scene will be.

Let’s look again at the Pattiann Rodgers’ poem excerpt.

The lines are taken from “The Significance of Location” by Pattiann Rodgers.

The sun has been intercepted in its one

basic state and changed to a million varieties

of green stick and tassel. It has been broken

into pieces by glass rings, by mist

over the river. Its heat

has been given the board fence for body,

the desert rock for fact. On winter hills

it has been laid down in white like a martyr.

In this poem the poet invites the reader to consider what a ray of sunlight reveals. She doesn’t just say, “I walked outside and the sun was shinning.” She explains that “The sun has been intercepted in its one/ basic state and changed” by what intercepted it.....”green stick and tassel...broken into pieces by glass rings....by mist over the river....and the list continues in beautiful sophisticated language to the last line where....”it (the sun) has been laid down in white like a martyr.” So she creates images for us in her poem that lets us know what she “sees” in her mind. Using language like this is called specificity of detail. This specificity of detail is what makes the poem rich. We’ll see the rest of this poem later.

We don’t go around saying things like – “oh look at the sun; it has been broken into a million pieces by a board fence.” But in poetry there’s another voice and that voice is the “poetic” voice of the poem. Sometimes when you are trying to use language that you don’t use in your everyday life it is uncomfortable – but that’s ok. I will invite you to “push your language, concentrate your image, find your poetic voice” when I edit your poems.

What I don’t want you to do in this class is play it safe by focusing on broad abstractions like love or peace. An abstract concept like love might call up the image of a father’s love for a child or a love of pizza – think of a poem that raves about pizza, a poem that focuses on the smell, taste, sight as it comes hot out of the oven – isn’t the image more graphic than saying, “I love pizza.” Later in this unit Reginald Gibbons shows us images of his daughter – through his beautiful sophisticated choice of images we “see” that he “loves” her.

In conclusion:

What you’ve just read is what I believe to be the “nuts and bolts” of writing poetry. These are unwritten rules poets learn through trial and error after many years of writing. After awhile these will creep into your memory bank and become automatic as you write just like writing your name with a capital letter at the beginning.

As you can see, there’s a lot to writing a well-crafted poem. Don’t worry – I don’t expect you to master all of this first thing – we have a long semester in front of us. There’s a saying poco a poco – little by little – I hope you have fun while you are learning the process.

Your first writing assignment is a prose poem; so let’s look at the properties of that poem shape.

Prose Poem:

What then is a prose poem? The best working definition I can give you at this point is that it is a genre of poetry, written in prose and characterized by the intense use of all the devices of standard free verse poetry except the line break.

The special properties of the prose poem as we use it for this class:

the use of intense, often concentrated language,
shape (should look like the shape of a deck of playing cards on the page),
the use of fragmented images or closely linked thoughts connected by dashes,
the use of tone to establish emotion
a sense of story that hints at a larger picture.

Let’s look at the following two examples of prose poems.

Gibbons Poem

Five Pears or Peaches - Listen to the poem.

(Notice: To view these video programs, you need to install RealPlayer 7 or greater.

RealPlayer 6 has problems connecting to the Streamin Media server.)

Buckled into the cramped back seat, she sings to herself as I drive toward her school through the town streets. Straining upward to see out her window, she watches the things that go by, the ones she sees – I know only that some of them are the houses we sometimes say we wish were ours. But today as we pass them we only think it; or I do, while she’s singing – the big yellow one with a roofed portico for cars never there, the pink stucco one with red shutters that’s her favorite. Most of what she sings rhymes as it unwinds in the direction she goes with it. Half the way to school she sings, and then she stops, the song becomes a secret she’d rather keep to herself, the underground sweetwater stream through the tiny continent of her, on which her high oboe voice floats through forests softly, the calling of a hidden pensive bird – this is the way I strain my grasp to imagine what it’s like for her to be thinking of things, to herself, to be feeling her happiness or fear.

After I leave her inside the school, which was converted from an old house in whose kitchen you can almost still smell the fruit being cooked down for canning, she waves goodbye from a window, and I can make her cover her mouth with one hand and laugh and roll her eyes at a small classmate if I cavort a little down the walk.

In some of her paintings, the sun’s red and has teeth, but the houses are cheerful, and fat flying birds with almost human faces and long noses for beaks sail downward toward the earth, where her giant bright flowers overshadow like trees the people she draws.

At the end of the day, her naked delight in the bath is delight in a lake of still pleasures, a straight unhurried sailing in a good breeze, and a luxurious trust that there will always be this calm warm weather, and someone’s hand to steer and steady the skiff of her. Ashore, orchards are blooming.

Before I get into bed with her mother at night, in our house, I look in on her and watch her sleeping hands come near her face to sweep away what’s bothering her dreaming eyes. I ease my hand under her back and lift her from the edge of the bed to the center. I can almost catch the whole span of her shoulders in one hand – five pears or peaches, it might be, dreaming in a delicate basket – till they tip with their own live weight and slip from my grasp.

Explication of Five Pears or Peaches

by Dorothy Barnett

Zilker Park - Video Clip

(Easter-Midnight)

Sometimes there is a stillness in the park and empty swings seem unfamiliar. It is like that tonight. A lone yellow dog crosses the soccer field, stops its canter long enough to look back at my moon-silvered car. The dog and I move through this emptiness towards something else. He seems so sure of his destination. I know only the certainty of the next corner then the right turn into the neighborhood where I’ve lived for sixteen years. All those years, in this night quiet I feel that I don’t belong among these native stone and red brick houses with pampered lawns. I remember the slat-backed familiarity of the wooden rocker on my grandmother’s front porch, long for the red sandy loam yard, the fireflies light across the road in the darkness of the hog wallow where they said Slick Brown disappeared. There is little history in my life now, a few black and white photos of giant sequoia, Oregon logging camps, faces fading from my memory. My children will remember other things and long for those. The cedar chest by my bed holds baby clothes from thirty years ago and little else.

Explication of Zilker Park

Links to other prose poems in the ACC student literary journal:

The Rio Review – Spring 1998

better homes by Wells Dunbar

Night by Marie Fleischmann

Worm Tracks by Judith Glenn

The Rio Review – Fall 1998

Nana by Calais M. Black

The Rio Review – Fall 1999

The Men of West Texas by Ken Cameron

1702 Windsor by Thomas Patrick Miller

Car Culture by Thomas Patrick Miller