by Nathan Moore and Dana Guthrie Martin
We bet you’re wondering what this piece is all about. The title is intriguing, no? We think so.
100% Honest Day: Poetry Edition is a new column that we plan to run now and again here at Read Write Poem, and it’s 100% dependent on your participation. (We know how much you love to participate in stuff!) The column is based on the 100% Honest Day event Dana created and organized through her blog back in July 2008. (The event was then passed to Rethabile Masilo’s site earlier this year for another go-around.) But it has a twist here at Read Write Poem: All honesty must be poetry-related.
Love Billy Collins? Get honest about it. Don’t ever revise your poems? Get honest about that, too. Do you say mean things to your poems when they don’t behave? You know what to do: Get. Honest.
All you have to do to get honest is leave a comment here in the comments section. Tell a little. Tell a lot. Confess once. Confess repeatedly. You can even leave anonymous comments if you feel so inclined. Think of this as your safe place to get honest about the things you never feel you can say regarding poetry and your relationship with it. (Just make sure you still follow the site’s code of conduct.)
We know this is going to be a blast, but we also suspect that a lot of things will come up, even serious and personal disclosures. That’s because — as fun as it is — the act of being honest is often an act of confession. And there’s a huge history related to confession: It’s got a back-story.
[Enter back-story]
Historically (and we’re focusing on Western European cultures because that’s the extent of our knowledge — we welcome and request other viewpoints), being honest/confessing has taken center stage a number of times. Written in A.D. 397, Augustine’s Confessions trace his struggle against a sinful life. In this case, the confession is meant to teach by example.
In the 13th century, the Christian church officially adopted the sacrament of confession of sins. At one time, this confession was made publicly. St. Theresa of Avila’s (1515-1582) Autobiography is also meant to teach others about the mystical experience of the divine. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (1782) offers the story of his life and sensibility and shows us the beginning of the Romantic emphasis on the importance of the individual mind.
That notion — the importance of the individual — has gained wide acceptance since about 1800. At the end of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure” widens the scope of confession and absolution to become the basis of a theory of the psyche.
In our own era, the rise of the memoir, the reality TV show, the talk show, and the like all demonstrate a fascination with confession, aka coming clean, aka honesty. Are these disclosures meant to teach? When we are drawn to making a public confession, do we achieve absolution?
Perhaps, in our world, when we release our words into the mass of electronic discourse, there is a kind of absolution. When we hand our secrets — in our case, our poetry secrets — over to the anonymity of Culture, we might get some short reprieve from a burdensome “individuality.”
(Or maybe you just have something you want to get honest about, without all that heavy. So what are you waiting for? Get to it already! Razzle-dazzle us with your honesty.)
Update: Read Write Poem member Cecilieaux added this historical clarification to the discussion:
The Western Church adopted private confession as the preferred form of the sacrament of penance, or reconciliation, (not confession) in the late Middle Ages. As Anglican liturgist Dom Gregory Dix explained better than I can, in the early Church every effort was made to ensure that the kiss, or gesture, of peace before communion was a genuine public moment in which members of the community settled their grievances, so that they might commune at peace with one another. Public confession of grave wrongdoing was also public and usually did not occur more than once in a lifetime; repeat offenders were deemed insincere.
Community director Nathan Moore found The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and left the academy. He once lived in a house with three walls. Nathan shares his writing at Exhaust Fumes and French Fries.
Dana Guthrie Martin is the founder, publisher and director of Read Write Poem. She writes things and stuff. Most of the time, her things and stuff happen to be poetry. She has a robot named Feldman. He’s writing a book of poems. (He’s almost done!)
(I like Billy Collins.)
carolee replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
i have a picture of billy collins in my mind i can’t shake. i see him as james dean. leather jacket. jeans. slicked hair. square jaw. leaning against a motorcycle.
i have seen (supposedly) real pictures of billy collins in which he does not resemble james dean at all.
i don’t know why my brain insists on this image despite evidence to the contrary. funny!
no matter how many (supposedly) real pictures i see, i can’t shake the imagined billy collins.
there must be a poem here somewhere.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
There is a poem there. Sniff it out!
Donna Vorreyer replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I think that the first part of your post would be the start of a really interesting poem…
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I find some of Collins’ work liberatingly uncomplicated…
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
I hope someday to be liberatingly uncomplicated. Not in poetry but in life. Sigh.
confession number one: I don’t really like reading poetry.
number two: I would be far too embarrassed to tell anyone I am a poet, despite the fact I have published a book of poetry.
number three: I write most of my poems in about one or two minutes and rarely revise them to any great degree. Because of that, they’re not particularly good. But I think with revision they’d be even worse.
number four: I am very shy and wish so much I hadn’t been the second commenter here! That’s one of the problems with being at the leading edge of time.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Sarah, I write really fast, too. Maybe we could try revising each other’s work sometime, just as an experiment. An experiment in collaboration. I did something similar with Clare L. Martin once, and it was really interesting to see how we shaped one another’s material.
I love that you’re on the leading edge of time. I am on the tail end of it.
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Sarah, I barely revise anything either. When I do it’s usually because someone tells me to.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
That would be me.
Catherine replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 3:14 am
Nathan, your work seems pretty good to me, without revision
Nathan replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Thanks Catherine.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Nathan, I am so outing you. You do too revise! Catherine, I’ve seen drafts of Nathan’s that he will then totally tear up — without anyone telling him to — and put back together in an entirely new and fresh way. He’s a bigtime reviser. Don’t let him pull the wool over your eyes.
I wish I had his talent when it comes to re-visioning my own work and pushing it until it sings.
Nathan replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 8:58 am
OK, a have torn things up a few times. But the majority of things I guess I revise as I write — does that still count as revision?
Marie Gauthier replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Yes, that counts! That’s how I work also, line by line, so that by the time a “first draft” is finished, it’s actually more like a fiftieth draft!
Nathan replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Uh-oh. I guess I wasn’t 100% honest.
I barely know what a couplet is, and can’t look a stanza in the eye. Anytime I try to rhyme I feel pathetic and contrite. I didn’t share my poems with anyone until I found ReadWritePoem this summer. I am secretly afraid that if I read too much poetry I’ll find out just how bad I am at it. I wait to hear from absolutley anybody to say they even remotely liked my poem so I can let out my breath and say, “It might actually be true.”
Too much honesty?
Cynthia Short replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Wow, are you channeling my brain?
Barbara _Y replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Nope, not too honest. Honestly. Sounds familiar.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Just exactly honest enough — 100% honest!
And how wonderful to see your work in the world.
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Katie, I only judge my own work through the comments of others.
OK – here goes. In spite of the fact he has won nearly every major American award for poetry and is recognized as “one of America’s most important poets”, I dislike the poetry of John Ashbery. I think his poetry is pompous, obtuse, overblown, egocentric, and he is somewhat of a hoaxer. Examining the experience of experience, indeed. I secretly wonder, but have never questioned out loud before, how some poetry becomes so highly acclaimed, some poets so lauded, when their poetry is downright inaccessible, self-conscious, and unpretty. I avoid teaching him, thus subjecting my students to my bias through omission from my syllabus. Whew! I’m glad to get that off my chest. I guess I should take my phone off the hook and leave town now.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I could say a bunch of stuff like that about Billy Collins (particularly the how-does-some-poetry-become-so-highly-acclaimed stuff), but I also still like him on some weird emotional level. I have a dysfunctional relationship with him.
I do like Ashbery, though: Another honesty tidbit from me.
What if I like *all* poets on some level? Say it isn’t so. I like almost all music, too. I’m a freak!
Wanda McCollar replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I like Billy Collins, always have. I also like what he does for my students. He eases them into poetry; they are caught by it before they can protest. And I might have liked Ashbery too, if he had appeared humbly on the page, clothed with nothing but his words – but it was all the acclaim, the folderol, and the pseudo sophisticated pronouncements of the professor who presented him, a kindred spirit.
And Dana – would it be so terrible to like all poets on some level? You’ve made me think about this – and except for Ashbery – I’m sure I like all poets (on some level).
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yeah. It would bite.
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
You are wise Dana. Allowing yourself to be neutral and open to all creative forms and works you encounter is the only sane way to be, and to take from each encounter that which the experience provides. I believe every experience has some value or lesson for us. Negative preconception or fear is the slayer of growth, wisdom, and enrichment.
OK — I must have put on my BaBaRob shirt this morning…
Two things:
1, An off-topic historical clarifcation. The Western Church adopted private confession as the preferred form of the sacrament of penance, or reconciliation, (not confession) in the late Middle Ages. As Anglican liturgist Dom Gregory Dix explained better than I can, in the early Church every effort was made to ensure that the kiss, or gesture, of peace before communion was a genuine public moment in which members of the community settled their grievances, so that they might commune at peace with one another. Public confession of grave wrongdoing was also public and usually did not occur more than once in a lifetime; repeat offenders were deemed insincere. (Back to topic: there’s a poem in all this somewhere.)
2. A poetry grievance. My biggest gripe is the lack of time and peace to write poems. And also … well, maybe I’ll write a 100% Honest piece. What are the submission mechanics?
1. I can’t tell you different styles of poetry
2. I don’t read much poetry
3. I don’t want to be known as a ‘poet’ when I start writing as a career- because i know people will hate me instantly.
*phew* i’m glad that’s off my chest.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
“3. I don’t want to be known as a ‘poet’ when I start writing as a career- because i know people will hate me instantly.”
Ditto! Personally, I am thinking of trading in the term “poet” for “text generator.” It’s more inclusive and more accurate.
Dave Bonta replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I must admit I prefer “content provider” to “poet.”
Wanda McCollar replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I would adore being called a poet.
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
OK, I can handle this:
Dave – you are a content provider
Wanda – you are a poet
There, done…
sbpoet replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
For me, claiming ‘poet’ was an act of courage.
OK, also pragmatism. I needed a domain name, and the first hundred or so I wanted were taken.
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I aspire to be a “content provider.”
1. I love T.S. Eliot even though he is, for the most part, inaccessible to those who are not highly educated in everything (including myself).
2. As a high school English teacher, I have a difficult time helping my students understand the nature of a poem. This is a failure of mine.
3. I love prose poetry more than any other form. It feels more visceral and parallels how thoughts actually occur in ‘real time.’
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Samantha, when I taught poetry I felt like there was no success just degrees of “failure.” I think that’s what makes poetry so great. (See how I deal with that in a healthy way?)
Samantha replied:
August 21st, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Nathan, thank you for the “healthy” coping mechanisms
Donna, thank you for the poem suggestion. I’ve been searching for ways to start the school year and I believe poetry is my best bet.
Wanda, I’m jealous. Eliot is convoluted and I adore that.
Wanda McCollar replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
T.S. Eliot is among my top favorites. He might be first. I was privileged to be a member of a special graduate seminar on Eliot by Hugh Kenner, Eliot’s biographer and best poetic analyst. That seminar affected my understanding of poetry forever after.
It’s not your failure if your students do not seem to understand the nature of poetry as the result of your teaching, while they are in your class. Later, personal understandings on the level of their needs, will click in as a result of your teaching and you will never know that. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Donna Vorreyer replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I teach middle school kids, and I’ve found that the more I let them discover the poem instead of try to force them into an accepted interpretation, the better they get at understanding and appreciating all kinds of poems. This year’s best discussion was about Tony Hoagland’s “America.”
Kristen McHenry replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Donna, that’s a great poem for teens! I read it to the kids at the drop-in center a few months ago, and I’ve never seen them so rapt. And they just wanted to keep talking about it and talking about it…it was awesome!
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Most anything by Tony Hoagland is great for teens. There are a few…that I wouldn’t share with teens…but that’s just me.
1. I don’t know anything about different types of poetry (although I’d love to learn).
2. I love E.E. Cummings. Which I know is juvenile, but I just do.
3. I think I’d be embarrassed if I ever published as a poet; even though I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be published as almost anything else.
And, like Katie, the attention I get from places like this is pretty much the only thing that keeps me writing poetry, as no one I know (or at least care about) offline gives two hoots about poetry.
DJ Vorreyer replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Why is cummings juvenile? His idea are anything but…
Damian replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I suppose that should be confession # 2.5 then: Because I discovered E.E. Cummings when I was about 14, I feel that I should have grown out of him.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Until I got to college, I thought e.e. cummings was a woman. Sometimes I forget and still think that. I catch myself stuttering, “S … uh … he … ” a lot when I talk about his work.
Kristen McHenry replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I love E.E. Cummings, too…I just get a little scared that everything he writes makes total sense to me on some weird level. “anyone lived in a pretty how town” is one of my favorite poems.
I’d write fiction, but since I do anything to avoid conflict, the stuff is rather dull.
I’ve read a lot of poetry written before 1970 but my knowledge of poetry that’s being written now is painfully limited. I’m working on this but it’s still limited.
I have trouble understanding some of the newer poetry, it just seems to scramble in my brain..I think I’ve had the old poets crammed in there too long. I feel that I am the person with the least talent on this site and everyone is just humoring me like a disabled child. Also see Katie’s post, that could be me!
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I *always* feel like this, everywhere I go. Do you remember the Mad TV sketch with the two girls — one is really smart and the other is … a little different? Her name was Dot. (I think.) I always, always, always feel like Dot. I remember a sketch where she can’t get one of those little stretchy gloves on her hand. I am always the person who can’t get the little stretchy glove on my hand — in poetry and in life.
Wanda McCollar replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I love the stretchy glove analogy. I’m also Dot.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 12:17 am
People who know me *really* well know I frequently act just like Dot does in this skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-HL2sFX8RA
rallentanda replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
‘folderol and fiddleley dee’
I’m lazy.
I have made big shows of acknowledging this fact to those close to me and now use the fact that I’ve admitted it as an excuse to not do anything about it.
Being lazy keeps me taking at least one guitar lesson to see if maybe I could learn how to make chords that right now just seem impossible, so I never try to learn anything much harder than “Horse With No Name”.
Being lazy keeps me writing daily. I had an idea yesterday, and I also thought maybe to put some effort into revising the poem I posted the other day (revising was always my favorite part of poem crafting in school), so I never get past the self-imposed blocks I have.
Being lazy keeps me from doing more exercise and building on the 50 pounds lost since last summer (lost mostly by switching to 90% diet soda, portion control and switching jobs from one behind a desk all day to one with frequent moving around- no real “effort”).
Being lazy keeps me from hacking away on the massive inventory of outstanding work items I just made…and that’s only for one of the two projects I’m managing right now!
Being lazy keeps me from being truly happy.
Barbara _Y replied:
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:23 am
I’m a coward.
Being a coward keeps me from admitting to being lazy, or I’d agree with everything but the guitar, which I never learned to tune.
Well, here goes: I didn’t know that liking Billy Collins was somehow embarrassing, which is even more embarrassing than actually liking him, which I do–a lot. I also love Mary Oliver. I want to be a better poet, but I was a crap student all my life and I’m instantly bored by any sort of academic discussion of poetry. Some–okay–a lot–of the judges comments on my poems in Project Verse went right over my head. They assumed there was an intelligent decision-making process in my work that was just not there, although I appreciate the benefit of the doubt. I had to look up “slant rhyme”, and I didn’t know what “sonic” meant. I didn’t want to win the competition because I was terrified I’d sound really stupid on the Joe Milford Poetry Show. I don’t have patience for a lot of things I think I should have patience for in order in order improve my writing. I want all the joy creating without having to do any of the work. Alright, there. It’s all out in the open now. If they revoke my Read Write Poem membership, so be it…
Dave Bonta replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Now THAT’S a confession! And somehow it only increases my appreciation for your work.
Barbara _Y replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 10:37 am
If there were stars in the comments, I’d give four.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Dood, I had to look up “perfect rhyme” when judging Project Verse just to make sure I knew what it was in all its variations. I did not. But now I do. But I so didn’t.
I think intelligent decisions while writing can ruin work. It’s not how the mind operates. As Maged — who you will soon meet — says, “The moment of creation and the moment of critique are completely different.”
What we apply to the poem in terms of analysis can have little to do with how the mind actually operates when the work is being created. Critique is a way of applying a system of understanding of the human mind and consciousness to something that’s intrinsically organic and, well, beyond language (though dependent on language).
Kristen McHenry replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Also, I don’t proofread any posts I write before 8:00 a.m….
Dana, I like what you said about making intelligent decisions, and about critique…that’s a relief to hear. Sometimes I worry that I’m not thinking enough, or in the “right” way about what I’m doing when I write. Maybe I should let go of some of that worry.
This is such a great topic! I just want to hug all of you and say, “Me, too! There, there.”
I have a deep-seated fear of unconscious plagiarism, to the point where I even suspect all my best lines and images to be stolen from someone else. One of the main reasons for my lack of enthusism for publishing my work anywhere other than my own blog is the fear that someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of modern poetry will discover my unwitting thefts. And even if I could know for sure that all my works are original, I would probably continue to feel at some level that I am an utter fraud as a poet. (I wonder if this is why so many of my fellow poets get MFAs?)
carolee replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
dave, i’ve actually wrote to another poet once and said, “did i steal this line from you?” it’s deja vu sometimes. i don’t trust my good lines, either.
carolee replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
great. i started and restarted my reply and neglected to take out “i’ve”. now i said, “i’ve actually wrote.” speaking of revoking RWP privileges! i’ll just leave my key on the kitchen counter when i leave.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
We have a kitchen?!?! Where’s the tasty-yummy?
Wanda McCollar replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Dave, this bothers me, too. We remember stuff, have no idea it’s not our original thought. Once I had such a superb line I was certain I must have stolen it. I searched the Internet for it with 3 search engines, and in 4 languages just to be sure. I know that’s absurd – but I could not trust this good line to be mine. A psychiatrist might have something to say about this for the lot of us.
Dave Bonta replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Well, it makes me feel much better to know I’m not the only one with this particular affliction. Thank you, 100% Honest Day!
sbpoet replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Gosh, I’ve done this, too — though never in languages other than English.
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Dave – There is probably some reasonably healthy percentage of likelihood that every line/phrase ever written has been written more than once… I think the only thing that can make a poet a fraud is circumventing their ‘true voice’ when writing… JMHO
Therese L. Broderick replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
@ROB–I agree with you. The more I read poetry, the more I’m persuaded that I’ll never be original. Anything I’ve ever written about has already been written about by someone else.
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Yes Therese – but not exactly the way you wrote it…
Alejandra Garza replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
@ Dave Bonta – I have the same fear of unconscious plagiarism!
I’m also a bit of a perfectionist, and that adds to my personal lack of enthusiasm for getting published. I will re-write a poem many times. I can have several revisions, and still never even get them on my own blog! I’m hoping I can get over these fears by first engaging in the prompts provided here on ReadWritePoem…though I’ve yet to participate. Did I mention, I’m also a procrastinator?
I never ever expected to find mention of St Theresa of Avila on this site.I’ve always had
a horror of levitating nuns.
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
We do our best to keep things interesting and/or scary.
I love ee cummings, too! And I like Billy Collins, and if I keep thinking about it, I’m sure I’ll come up with lots of other not-quite-high-brow enough poets that I love/like…
Damian replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Is it embarrassing to admit I have no idea who Billy Collins is?
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Move over, I don’t have a clue either…
I have two:
I write most of my poems in the shower.
I really don’t like pompous poets and I won’t even read what they write.
sarah haliwell replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I’m so with you on that second one.
Wow, what a catharsis!
“I have a deep-seated fear of unconscious plagiarism, to the point where I even suspect all my best lines and images to be stolen from someone else.”
Yes, Dave! Sometimes I Google my best lines, sure I couldn’t have come up with them by myself.
1. I have a very hard time enjoying any poem longer than 40 lines. Maybe I have poetry ADD, but no poem that long is usually interesting to me.
2. I don’t understand “post-modern” poets that don’t make sense to anyone but the poet and try to make people who don’t understand it feel dumb – just because it’s poetry doesn’t mean it can be any old words on the page.
3. Some poems I quick-drafted but didn’t have much stake in personally have been published and others that I feel are my best work keep getting rejected. I hate that.
4. There are some really famous, honor-guard poets I don’t like at all (Jorie Graham, for instance) and there are lots of contemporary poets I love who write and publish in relative obscurity (Douglas Goetsch, for instance).
5. I have submitted work to journals I haven’t read (except for whatever excerpts are online) – really, who can afford a sample copy of everything?
carolee replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
i have poetry ADD, too. i have to psyche myself up to read something longer!
sbpoet replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I can read long poems in books, but online is tougher.
Damian replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
So do I! In fact, I have trouble enjoying long poems, and tend to break them into little poems and pretend most of the sections don’t exist. What’s worse, is that I probably couldn’t be bothered reading most of the poems I write, because they’re too long!
I confess that I am a sour and lapsed and ever-recovering Catholic; therefore, I have a very mean bias against any poetry that’s religious or spiritual (including Mary Oliver’s). I won’t lead “spiritual” poetry workshops any more. And I’m somewhat skeptical of poetry that “heals.” As a complicated and contradictory human being, I must confess also that despite my statements above, I still love a couple of poems by G.M. Hopkins, but only if I divorce them from a Catholic context.
rallentanda replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I’ve just purchased a book of Hopkin’s poems.Which ones do you like?
Therese L. Broderick replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
@RALLENTANDA–I like these poems by Gerard Manley Hopkinds: “Spring and Fall: To A Young Child” and “A Complaint”
Barbara _Y replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I can’t manage him when he goes all theological, but go all goosepimply for rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim
I don’t read Shakespeare, don’t particularly like Shakespeare, and have my doubts as to whether or not he actually existed.
rallentanda replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
‘I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind’
Merchant of Venice
Dave replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I guess I just read Shakespeare.
carolee replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
shakespeare exists. i slept with him. (shhhhhh.)
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
trying to read shakespeare, especially in the old english, will dislocate your frontal lobe…
angie werren replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
shakespeare exists and like god, she is a woman…
sometimes i eat kibble and when i’m done, to get over the tasty guilt, i write poems about meat.
Feldman the Robot replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I hear you like your meat raw.
Moe replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
like, i do enjoy raw meat. are you a flesh robot?
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Tasty guilt is the best kind.
renkath replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
kibble guilt is in a league all its own
Having family, including in-laws, repeatedly ask to read my work and then not respond or become angry about or offended by what I wrote hurts more than anything.
Feeling like I need to pay for access to legal consulting through my husband’s insurance plan so I can feel safe writing anything autobiographical or semi-autobiographical (or even fictional but in a voice similar to my own) lest a relative try to sue me hurts, too.
Cynthia Short replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
f-k ‘em if they can’t take a joke!
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Oh, it’s no joke.
Cynthia Short replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
What is it they used to say on the old TV show? (maybe Dragnet) Names have been changed to protect the innocent..you could change the word to “guilty”.
Honestly, don’t we all use autobiographical reference in our work? Honey, they are just jealous of you because you are probably the only one in the family with brains!
Wanda McCollar replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
When I asked my daughter if she had read my new poem on my Blog, she said “I never read your poems. I don’t understand them. You know I hate poetry.”
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Wanda that has to hurt. I’m sorry.
Cynthia, I only talk about dead relatives, and there’s no suing for that. Not that someone wouldn’t try. They all have brains. They are all brilliant.
But I’m the only one who writes, and that’s scary for a family steeped in the oral tradition. The move from speaking stories to writing them down is not an easy one for my family to accept.
Except my mother, oddly enough — who is now dead. But when she was alive, she told me all the family’s stories and secrets, and she wanted me to write them down. Even the ones about her. Especially the ones about her. I feel like I am doing what she wanted by being a writer — or “text generator,” as I’ve decided to call myself.
DJ Vorreyer replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
And then there’s the opposite problem when the work you’re writing is NOT autobiographical and people who don’t write are asking if you’re okay or when the subject of the poem “actually happened.”
At least you don’t need lawyers for that!
Therese L. Broderick replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
@DANA–I think seriously about these issues: writing autobiographically, writing fiction-in-verse, writing memoir-in-verse, etc. I think the issues need careful consideration, balancing the rights of writers with the rights of the writers’s subjects. I’ve arrived at a mode of operation which I can live with. Each poet has to do the same — to decide what’s OK and not OK.
Kristen McHenry replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Wanda–ouch! Dana–I know that sucks, but it’s just proof of how close to the heart and bone your writing cuts that they feel their very survival depends on shutting you up. And it also speaks to how little they’ve attended to their own emotional growth. Sorry you have to deal with that. My own mother has gotten upset with me over things I’ve written that are relatively mild; I haven’t even shown her the rough stuff yet. There was a bus poetry poem a while back about writers, how there is one in every family and they’re like red wine spilled on a white carpet…I liked that.
I hate poetry. I love rap. I am a rapper. I write rap songs for the ladies. Why can’t poets just write rap songs? They are way better. Hello.
Katie replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Feldman…you rogue! Rap for the Ladies…:)
This question inspired me to write the following poem. It’s most likely lousy, but it is a first draft with minor revisions.
I fear that I shall be found out as a fraud.
Flushed from behind the curtain,
Smoke and mirrors my lone talent.
I fear the blank page, screen and notebook.
Endless possibilities
Expectations
and outcomes.
I fear penguins, stale Cheerio’s and cold coffee.
I fear technology
(as I embrace it)
Being lonely terrifies me and I don’t like Bob Dylan.
I fear being neglected, rejected and accepted.
I am afraid of the dark and I think Thomas
Kincaid has nothing to say artistically.
But
, my fears & my foibles…
They don’t define me
, they motivate me
to live better
To do better
to BE better.
Tomorrow is frightening
Yet unavoidable even if
we’re not here…
Jeanette replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
It’s not lousy!
“I fear penguins, stale Cheerio’s and cold coffee.
I fear technology
(as I embrace it)
Being lonely terrifies me and I don’t like Bob Dylan.
I fear being neglected, rejected and accepted.”
My favorite stanza, and I don’t like Bob Dylan’s singing but his lyrics are pretty rad. (My guilty musical pleasures are The Weepies, and Blink 182)
Also I love the form of your 5th stanza. Very nice.
And the end is so truthful which was the very object of the question! It’s like it’s own little RWP prompt! Why didn’t I think of that?!
Very well written. (:
Barbara _Y replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Truth: All my poems are first drafts with minor revisions.
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I have taken to doing some rewrites or editing. Mostly to tighten things up and make the message clearer.
Truth: my formatting didn’t make the move…
angie werren replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
penguins?
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Penguins…
angie werren replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
you have nothing to fear (from penguins) but penguins themselves.
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Barbara, mine are too.
Rethabile replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I wish I could write like that, but I can’t. I work my first drafts to death, sometimes into hundreds of revisions.
Therese L. Broderick replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
@MARK–You might like to read the poem “Thomas Kinkade: “Painter of Light”" by Jonathan Holden, published in the Summer 2008 issue of Prairie Schooner.
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
You’re right. I did.
Thank you!
A.) Most of my poetry is off the top of my head, and written in about 15 minutes.
B.) The only real advice I’ve ever gotten on revising my poetry is here on RWP.
C.) I haven’t gone to college yet because I hate school, and I’m too lazy to sign up, so most of my poetry “expertise” is from my AP Lit class Senior year of high school.
D.) My favorite poet is Sylvia Plath and I was only really interested in her at first because she committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven.
E.) I love writing fiction stories more than poetry, but I’m better at poetry because it’s less time consuming.
What an intriguing idea. Okay, I’ll shoot.
A part of me, I think, is actually overly confident. That part of me makes me instantly hate poetry that completely eludes me. I begin to think that the poet has played some trick to have made a poem that I am able to garner anything more from than individual images, at best. And sometimes not even that.
That’s not to say that I understand everything of every poem I read, or that I can not appreciate abstraction, but of the poems that I read and understand nothing, I call fraud.
And there are entire journals of poetry publishing this kind of content.
I feel as if the poets writing these poems are writing to one another, and I do no have a pass into their world.
DJ Vorreyer replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Amen to that…see number 2 in my post above.
I absolutely love the idea of this post and the reading of this post.
My confession…at least 50% of the poetry I read I really don’t like – bordering on detest. And that is from big important poets and little tiny self-publishing poets all combined.
And for my own? I have lots of ideas but I have a hard time actually finishing anything…
* I, too, fear unconscious plagiarism.
* At the suggestion of one of my teachers, I submitted an early piece. It was accepted, and published — & instead of feeling validated, I felt exposed. Since then I have submission phobia.
* I love Shakespeare, like Collins, love Oliver, and go through periods of reading poems poems poems by most anyone.
* I also seem to have postal phobia, which meshes nicely with submission phobia.
* I appreciate that, as a poet, I can say “Autobiographical? Oh, no, not at all.” with a straight face. Much more difficult if one is a writer of nonfiction.
* I send most of my poems off to a list I’m a member of and wait anxiously for some kind of response before posting to my blog. I’m never sure. I never know.
* “So what?” I ask myself. And again: “So what?” and “What does it matter”? and “Why am I doing this?”
sarah haliwell replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
So nice to meet another person with postal phobia! I thought I was the only weirdo.
I also agree with you about feeling exposed upon publication. I’m not so bad when it comes to the internet because I can pretend its not real. But I feel so shy about my book being out there that I can’t even look at it any more.
sbpoet replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I think a novelist with postal phobia would be ok — just a few challenges getting past it. But a poet — yikes!
angie werren replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
do you mean postal-as-in-posting or are we talking mail carriers?
confession 3
I am confused easily
sbpoet replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
postal-as-in-posting
I have nice mail carriers.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 12:23 am
I have postal phobia as well and can’t even stand the UPS trucks in my neighborhood!
This is why, if I say I will mail you something — and I’ve made this promise to many people — I will never be able to get myself to do it.
sbpoet replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 11:44 am
No promises! Make no promises!
Bless me Dana & Nathan, for I have sinned
my last confession was, hell, I don’t know — decades ago…
my sins:
• I really don’t like rhyme, and seldom include it in my poetry — unless its used tongue-in-cheek or in a light/humorous poem. I can enjoy occasional internal rhymes within free verse.
• I find writing poetry of structured form with formal rules, stifling and largely uninspiring, and seldom write such — unless in response to a specific request to do so.
• I find it difficult to suffer poetry critics (as opposed to poet-requested constructive critique). Good and bad are wholly subjective judgements, and I feel are exclusively the domain of the poet when evaluating his/her personal work. To like or dislike something is perfectly fine — but don’t equate that to good and bad… they most certainly are not the same.
• I love to color outside the lines, tear the tags off of the mattress, break the rules of tradition, and march to my own drummer — and I am inspired by the creative fire of those that do likewise.
OK Dana, Nathan — am I excommunicated…
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
No. Stay.
More:
* I don’t work hard enough.
* I dislike academic writing about poetry, but I love poets’ writing about poetry.
* Despite the encouragement, approval & support of many teachers & mentors (including famous published poets) for whom I have great respect, I still struggle to believe that what I’m doing is ‘good’ or has any value at all. What’s that about???
* I really, really like RWP.
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I agree with everything in this list…
i covet other poet’s literary lives. uber jealous. get to a lot of really cool open mics? been a featured reader and rocked it? got a book or three or five? been published in goblin fruit? (ooops. that slipped out. must be the heat. i’m not responsible for my actions if it’s over 85 degrees — and it’s something like 94 right now. but i “heart” goblin fruit.)
Some of you don’t revise; I can’t stop revising. I never know when it’s time to stop making changes. I’m not OC for darn sure – I live in the midst of chaos and clutter. But I’ll pick up a new poem after a day or two and revise it to death.
Dave Bonta replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I used to be like that before I started blogging my poetry in early 2004. I mean, I really used to enjoy polishing each poem to a high sheen. Now, I rarely make time to revise at all, because it’s more exciting to draft something new and post that. So there are now hundreds of poems languishing in the archives on my blog that will likely never get a second glance from their author, like neglected children.
sbpoet replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Ah, I am not the only bad poem parent, then.
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Wanda – The magic and the wonder of a poem is what it reveals to us when we allow time to pass and then revisit. Sometimes the objectivity of time allows us to discover what we ‘really’ meant, and edit/rewrite for clarity — other times we discover something brand new, and a new, fresh, exciting piece is born… it’s a joy to revisit and revise.
sarah haliwell replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I over-revise my prose, which is why I love poetry: I can actually get it finished!
Rethabile replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
At last, another chronic reviser. Maybe we should start a FB group of writers with this illness.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Or a group here on Read Write Poem. Hi, Ret! *waves*
Rethabile replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Hey, D. Good idea.
The trip back from y’all’s country killed me. I’m still trying to recover.
OT: A history of poetry and confession in the West mustn’t neglect to mention that Pablo Neruda titled his hugely entertaining memoir Confieso Que He Vivido — “I Confess That I Have Lived.”
okay- here goes. . . um. No. I chickened out. This is scary.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Admitting it’s scary is honesty. So … we gotcha!
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Hey – there’s no chickening out in true confession. If you chicken out you have to eat liver…
Honestly: I’ve written only two poems in two years. I’ve been going through a major life change. I’m natural-born fiction (as far as writing goes), but I’ve been turning to poetry because I find it more challenging.
Charles replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
How come it still says “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Because our spam filter has a mind of its own.
Charles replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
And it thinks that I’m “spam”?
*offended*
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
It’s nothing personal, Charles. It’s a machine. More than a dozen comments were in the spam filter.
Charles replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I know. I was joking.
I was disappointed when Sharon Olds acknowledged that her poems are autobiographical. I want the mystery back again.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I know!
Truth: I’ve cried more than once reading Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra”.
Therese L. Broderick replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Dave–I almost cried hearing Ed Sanders perform (with music) one of Ginsberg’s last poems. I heard him at the Caffe Lena Poetry Fest, April 2009, in Saratoga Springs, NY. I still regret that I didn’t give Ed Sanders a standing ovation for that performance.
Dave replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
You know, it’s never too late to give him a standing “O” – he may even feel and hear it if we do it at the same time. Ready: Set: “O”!
I am too afraid to write what I really think.
Deb Scott replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Please. Please don’t give me *any* advice on that one. Really.
mark Stratton replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
No advice. Just agreement.
I feel sometimes the urge to let it all hang out.
Then I chicken out…
i can’t write. no, i can write but i don’t produce much. last year i wrote two pieces that i really love. one in march the other took me three months to write, july-september. i haven’t written anything this year. i’ve always written like this. i know i should write everyday but my standards are too high. i love how it feels when things are going well but i can’t stand the ache of when i’m writing poorly. i think fear of that ache keeps me away from my keyboard. but i know i’ll get better because i want to, because i have to.
bintaqeel replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
also…
several months ago i tore up and threw away everything i had ever written with the exception of five poems. that’s pretty much a decade’s worth of writing. It’s all gone and i don’t miss any of it (well, maybe one piece that had a great conceit but was beyond repair). my entire portfolio of writing now rests in a three-ring binder with a combined page count of 6.
angie werren replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I did that (accidentally) and it does feel good just to let it all go.
my fourth one:
I really think it’s all just words…
Nathan replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
I know the ache you’re talking about.
I revise and rewrite way too much, and I like that.
I don’t care very much if I get published, but when it happens, it feels good. It’s encouraging.
I believe that first drafts are foreplay. OK, now that I’m excited and horny, let me get to the poem.
I don’t care much if I get published because right after the poems appear, I revise and rewrite them.
I enjoyed being in the States and spending time at Barnes and Noble. I bought three books of poetry.
Everytime someone I know publishes a book of poems, I wonder if my work sucks. Then I read their book and learn from them.
It’s way past my bedtime. I’m turning in after this sentence…
I don’t know why I write poetry.
I don’t know who I write poetry for.
Until the last NaPoWriMo (thanks RWP) I hadn’t written a poem in 14 years.
I like to read poetry but I really love listening to poetry.
Whew….
rob kistner replied:
August 19th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
listening to the poet’s voice as it folds ’round their words is quite magical…
1) Somebody else does most of my writing. I read yesterday’s writing and I have no idea who this guy is or where he came up with it. It has my name on it, and it talks about stuff I only know about, so I guess it has to be me. Nobody else is claiming it, anyway.
2) I sometimes think my poetry is cheap and stupid because it’s not metrical. It’s just prose with a ragged right edge, giving itself airs.
Actually I love my poetry – It may not be Shelly or Keats but sometimes when I place them alongside the greats they actually wink out at me with their amateurish syntactical juxtaposition, misappropriated sense of meter and the licentia poetica unabashedly taken advantage of. Even if all that my happy place can proffer at the moment runs along the lines of – ‘Once lived a cat, On a mat, And that was that’;I revel in the satisfaction that this is all me. Of course I sometimes wish I could reel off into sophisticated abstraction, but not until I can look into those words and see myself truly mirrored there. There’s no anathema like going a-fishin’ for words down the dictionary!
My confessions:
1. I am struggling to understand why there are so many comments about “being embarrassed” to be known as a poet and about not wanting to be called a poet.
2. I don’t understand why a “poet” or a person who writes poetry wouldn’t read poetry or study the mechanics of poetry like form, meter etc
3. I love poetry. I am happy to call and be called a poet. I want to be known as a poet (in fact I want the whole world to know I am a poet).
4. Maybe poetry is like sex. We all love to do it, but most people are embarrassed to talk about it in public (or private in some cases).
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 1:28 am
For me, Clay, there are multiple reasons I half-jokingly resist the term “poet.” First, I write all sorts of text, only some of which is poetry. I think saying I am a poet doesn’t honor all the other types of writing I do. Second, I blur the lines between poetry and prose and fiction and nonfiction, etc., etc. I think strict lines of demarcation in terms of genre don’t work very well for my writing. Third, I’ve been reminded — unfortunately and repeatedly — that I don’t see eye to eye with many poets on many levels. I sometimes see behaviors and mindsets among poets that feel antiquated or misguided. That, in turn, makes me feel as if I’d rather simply identify as someone who works with text. Fourth, there’s a mystique to the word “poet” that makes it seem like only special people can do it. The word “text” is far more approachable. “Text generator” is something I again half-jokingly forwarded as what I’d like to be called. But on some levels, I think that’s an apt way for me to talk about what I do without all the ooh-aah around it that the word “poet” carries.
Catherine replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 3:30 am
I think people who don’t do something always think that people who do it have some sort of mystique. When I studied chemistry, people said “oh, you must be clever”. I think that was because I was a woman, and if I’d studied English literature instead, including poetry, or some other arts subject, they wouldn’t have thought I was so clever. Which is silly, because any subject studied at a tertiary level requires the same level of brains, in my opinion, and it is just a matter of which direction your mind turns in.
Some people are poets, because that’s all they write, and some people write in multiple genres – I think of them as “writers”. But “text generators” works too, I guess, although it makes me think of some type of machine, churning it out according to a program, without a mind of its own.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 8:33 am
I love chemistry! Good points, Catherine. People always used to get all surprised when I was as into studying classical music as I was calculus and chemistry — but I agree with you that it’s simply a matter of turning your mind this way or that, or more than one way. It’s our own impasses and assumptions (and others’ expectations of us) that often block us more than our brains and minds do.
I love that you know chemistry. You can keep me honest when I use it in poems … I mean, my texts.
You should read Love + Sex with Robots, by David Levy. He’ll have you thinking about machines — or more aptly various forms of artificial intelligence — in a whole new way. Machines can learn. Thinking machines, anyway. My husband is in that field, doing AI programming. What lies ahead with thinking machines, and with humans, who are also a type of thinking machine, is very interesting. Or has the potential to be very interesting, anyway.
bint aqeel replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 8:49 am
“That, in turn, makes me feel as if I’d rather simply identify as someone who works with text.”
—i really understand this. Thanks for writing it. I feel very similar and often would rather be called a “language artist” and not a poet because i don’t feel what i actually write is poetry but rather some fluid kind of language work.
and clay, concerning why a poet wouldn’t read poetry: even though i have read and probably will continue to read it, i don’t read poetry often because poets and poetry were not my teachers for the writing i do and i don’t look to them for serious guidance. i much prefer to rake through the work of poets searching for a line or two that resonate with me because i’ve found that to be it’s only very simple and quiet reward.
Barbara _Y replied:
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:55 am
I have read extensively on gardening. That does not make me a gardener. Nor do the two tomato plants on the front porch and the ratty rosemary by the patio.
Confessions!
- I almost never revise, but I censor myself a lot.
- I despise tetrameter + rhyming couplets. Hate hate hate hate. I’m using the word “hate” here. These things do not a poem make, and it takes a Truly Gifted Poet to make them work without me wanting to gouge out my eyeballs, hissing in terror.
- One of my greatest fears is running out of things to write about.
- My name isn’t actually Joseph Harker, but rather a convenient pseudonym I created so my dad (a published poet) wouldn’t know it was me. Of course, he figured it out anyway, but I’ve still kept it on for now because… well, I don’t know. It’s easier to put on personas and tell lies when you’re hiding behind one.
rallentanda replied:
August 20th, 2009 at 11:41 am
If I find out that your dad wrote that poem I’m taking my comment back!
Joseph Harker replied:
August 21st, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Nah, he has his own blog which he never updates.
Joseph, I’ve seen you say this on your site, too:
“I despise tetrameter + rhyming couplets.”
I think it’s an utterly endearing stance.
“My name isn’t actually Joseph Harker, but rather a convenient pseudonym I created so my dad (a published poet) wouldn’t know it was me.”
So you’re telling us you’re Franz Wright? Or Jesus? I *knew* something was fishy about you.
Joseph Harker replied:
August 21st, 2009 at 4:01 pm
“So you’re telling us you’re Franz Wright? Or Jesus?”
…I could be both!
I now confess that, though I do like threaded comments, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with this conversation.
When I was 10 years old I won a poetry contest for adults in the Cleveland Press & all my teachers & family were really inpressed & going around like I was going to be this really big deal poet when i grew up & i was better than the average 10 year old & then I got published in “Seventeen” & all this hot stuff, but I never did become a writer. Today is my birthday & I’m in my (gasp) retirement years (& all I’ve ever published is just small press stuff here & there & wrote 2 unpublished novels & I never became a writer & poet like I thought I was going to be. Since I’ve retired, I do fool around more with poetry, though.
David Moolten replied:
August 21st, 2009 at 5:01 am
I’m sure you know this already, but: 1) It’s never too late until it’s too late (ala Yogi), 2) The kernel of greatness is there; you’ve already seen it flourish; it can flourish again, 3) Write for others, not only for yourself, BUT write according to your own expectations, not everyone else’s, 4) Amy Clampitt…
I haven’t really written anything since NaPoWriMo. I like to think that I’m saving up my creative juices for my MFA courses in the fall, lol.
I try to read poetry but I rarely remember the author or titles.
I rather poetry written in plain language than flowery words.
Alot of my poetry is autobiographical . . . even when i say its not, lol.
I can’t wait until the next one since I’m lame and missed this one. :p
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
August 25th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
The next one might not be for two or four months. Still time to get honest right now. (No pressure!)
When I was a sophomore in college, my creative writing professor scared me off from writing poems for years. So I am very aware of the power I have when I comment on my own students’ writing. I started a blog over a year ago to make myself write and share my poems. I have a poetry inferiority complex that I have been working mightily to overcome. I’m a little better now. I feel like ME when I write poems, so I keep writing them.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my teacher played us a recording of Dylan Thomas reciting “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” and I cried right then and there.
[...] not long after the debut of the new Read Write Poem and its kicking community forum, we published the very first installment in the 100% Honest Day (Poetry Edition) column. (That’s the one where we invited you to post [...]