Respecting the Story, and the Perils of Poetry

A discussion on Flogging the Quill about author voice and respecting the story worth checking out.  I encourage INKers to join in.  This is an area of critiquing that's been on my mind lately and I don't think it's looked at as much as it should be. 

I've decided that I'm terribly undereducated about how to critique poetry (and how to take critiques of poetry) so I found this which will supply me with reading material for some time.  I thought I'd share because it looks pretty extensive and potentially useful.  On my initial perusal there appears to be a lot in common with prose critiques, but I noticed there's more emphasis on maintaining/supporting the poet's voice.  Prose critiques are expected to support an author's voice too, but that isn't talked about or constantly reinforced like I see in the poetry critique advice.  

I've got to learn to shut up more and listen more when getting poem critiques.  Not that I expect to write a lot of poetry.  It's a complex art form and I've already got my creative attention divided in too many directions.  But when I include a short poem or a partial song in a book I want to be sure (as sure as anyone can be, seeing as poems are even more subjective than prose) that the eye-roll factor is kept to a minimum.  I've seen poetry in fiction that's done well, but a lot more that's done very poorly and I don't need the reader distracted from the story.  It's supposed to add atmosphere, lyrical voice and immediacy, not make the reader feel like he has to squint and squirm in his chair or inspire someone to skip ahead.

The Lion

The Lion
by Hilaire Belloc

The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the Waste,
He has a big head and a very small waist;
But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are grim,
And a good little child will not play with him.

This poem seemed very appropriate given all the tiger and lion maulings I've seen on the newspages lately.

It's also a tidy little poem, and I am finding that I'm enjoying Belloc's work. I haven't read them before receiving them in my email. I subscribe to a poem a day list. It keeps me reading poetry, which is even more important now that I've decided to pick up writing poetry again.

Poetry has always been my first love, and while I adore fiction writing, there will always be a special place in my heart for poetry. I'd like to improve my skills in it as much as I have in fiction writing. Which means more practice. Which means more poems. Lots more poems.

But I won't subject INK to my word drool. I have found in my past experiences that critiques groups and poetry do not mix, not unless everyone in the group is a poet, too, and then the few of those I've been in didn't work so well, either, though I've been thinking about the Poetry Group at the local library. That was a great bunch of poets. Wouldn't that be something, having a great group of writers to help my fiction writing and a great bunch of poets to help my poetry. How lucky would I be?

Shout Out

Heya, Carole! I've been trying to leave you comments on your wordpress site, but for some reason it won't let me sign on, or it thinks I have logged in already but won't let me comment, so anyway, here it is:

I think it's awesome how much you are sending out there! Cheers cheers cheers! And way to go with the deletions! I totally encourage deleting when it serves the purpose of clarity. Clarity is good a think.

I think I'm going to join your parade of submissions and finally get the poems I edited out to the regional poetry contest. I've been sitting on them for too long.

Poetry

I've been thinking about poetry again, thinking mainly about how I haven't been writing any. It isn't unusual for me to go six months to a year without writing a scrap of poetry, but not much longer than that. I guess it's been about five months now.

As luck would have it, I also read about a local poetry contest. I entered it once back in 2003. I have better poems now, with stronger themes and clearer imagery, so I just spent the last hour digging through my files and picking four to submit. As luck would also have it, only one was within the line length, so I did some editing.

I enjoying editing poems, though it always hurts more to delete a line of verse than a sentence in prose. I'm usually more than happy to delete a sentence of prose. You might go as far as to say I get giddy with anticipation. But poetry is different. I labor over those individual lines far longer than it takes me to jot out a sentence. So there is always a growing pain when it comes time to delete.

Take my Indiana farmhouse poem. I loved the imagery in the first stanza, comparing the house to dandelion wine, but honestly, the first stanza was the weakest of the lot, with unclear structure toward the end and no real comparison to the rest of the poem. It hurt to delete that image, but the poem is stronger now, tighter and more focused. And it has the right opening line, finally. If this farmhouse spoke it would sound like him . . .

"Why Housecats Nap" got a bit of a face lift, too, with tightened lines. It reads better. And "Reflections" ended up with a changed line, the line that always bothered me, but the end word was the best fit to the rhyme scheme and I could never figure out how to fix the rest until today. That isn't unusual for me and tradition verse. Takes a few years, but eventually I end up with a sound poem.

"Fog" will need to cleaning up, too, but it's one of my newest and I need to let it seep a bit longer.

But in a few weeks, or maybe next week, I'll print off the copies and put them all in the mail and see how I fair. I don't enter many contests anymore, maybe one every couple of years. I should do more now that I have so many poems to work with and only a handful of which have seen publication. Maybe I could work up to one or two every year. Might encourage me to write a bit more poetry again.

And Verse

In prose its a stray sentence or phrase that makes me take notice. In poetry, it's a verse. Quite often, a couple lines of verse will endear the entire poem to me.

I adore Robert Frost for just this reason. Quite often, it's the last couple of lines of his that stay with me, such as the last line of "Mending Wall": He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors." In "Nothing Gold Can Stay," however, it is the first couple of lines that stay with me: Nature's first green is gold,/Her hardest hue to hold.

In Frost's "Death of the Hired Man," the lines come in the middle of the poem, and while they don't look like they have much to do with what is going on in the poem, which is a conversation between a farmer and his wife about the sudden appearance of an old man who isn't the best hired help, it actually ties in with a quietness that I prefer in poems: Part of a moon was falling down the west,/Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

I've been accused, quite often and rightly so, of injecting too many poetics into my prose writing. I started my writing life as a poet, though, and while I'm not as active a poet as I once was, it is still my first love in writing. Anytime I read a poetic verse that would be just as powerful in a story as in a poem, I want to cheer. Frost uses them masterfully, and I would recommend reading Frost to any writer who enjoys writing not only for the story and the characters, but those rare moments of capturing a truly powerful sentence on the page.