Author: Abby Barrett

Ah, my friends…and I am back to writing about songs.

Aren’t songs the wellspring of poetry?

Or is poetry the origin of song?

In any case, the lyrical has always had the striking ability to create and sustain emotion by tonal shifts and dialogues. In particular lately, I’ve been thinking of Jack Johnson’s song “All At Once,” which is strikingly lovely, melancholy, openly afraid and hopeful all at the same time. As the lyrics are fairly straightforward, I won’t offer heavy commentary, but I will say that a song about climate change that is this generous and warm is what we need in our current politico-cultural climate, especially considering that the UN has just given us the world 12 years to collectively get our shit together.

Continue reading “First Song to Break My Heart”

My partner Noah is both a lover of as well as constructive critic of my work, and for this I appreciate him a lot. He’s not afraid to say this is really good and I don’t understand this in the same breath, and furthermore, he’s not afraid to say this is not your best work and this would make it better.

Naturally, I use email to send him a lot of my work, and I often write funny little comments in the email’s text. But what I’ve been doing for a while now is typing “pome” as the subject text and then simply saying “a pome” as the email message with the attachment. I’m not sure when this started, but he and I have a history of purposely fudging words. “Yocky” in place of “yucky” was a childhood misspeech for him, but soon we’d find ourselves saying “bogs” (for insects) and extending our vowels in all sorts of ways to sound funny. We have a similar sense of humor, so this tends to work. I like how “pome” sounds like “poem” but softer; it’s shortened to one syllable and immediately brings to mind my favorite Christmas fruit, whose seeds are seen through a translucent ruby exterior which is juicy and tart and sweet, and crunches when bitten. If a poem is anything like a pomegranate then I would say it’s wonderfully successful. (Ironically, “pome” generally indicates apples or pears, not pomegranates, but the latter always come to mind first upon hearing the word. Connotations, what can I say.)

Continue reading “a silly story about my boyfriend, and a Robert Hass pome”

In middle school and high school, my two self-proclaimed favorite bands were Guster and CAKE. I didn’t know why I appreciated these bands, exactly, but along with the “alternative” likes of Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens, and the Weepies, they did something to my adolescent mind. Something I liked, something that quickly released dopamine through my brain cells to create contentment and relaxation. Part of it was that these bands reminded me of my older sisters, who would play their music. But once I decided I liked the music for its own sake, there was a reason behind it.

Continue reading ““Ramona” by Guster: a desire for intimacy”

David Herd’s Through is not only a well-written, cohesive collection of poems; it’s a story about how syntax, about “who leaves the language” (11), about appellants who are “rarely white” (12), who are “spirited away. Barely rendered present in the first place” (13). Through is a story about immigration rights in England, a rendering that causes anger and frustration, a desire for change.

Continue reading “A note on “Law” in Through”

Carlson-Wee places the poem “Steampipe” within section II (of V) of his collection RAIL. In reading RAIL, I immediately identified section II as a bounded network of poems connected deeply by violence. In “Steampipe,” Carlson-Wee explores the contrast created by form against empty space. His speaker describes, for example, the vapor created by methamphetamines as “perfectly odorless” and “colorless,” and yet, the occasion of the poem is a participation in getting high, which I would presume to be a detail-oriented, colorful experience. The character of a tadpole is introduced as the darker element of the poem: “I got one here, he says, seined us a toad. / He holds up a little black tadpole, / kicking its one black leg in the air.” Not only is the tadpole twice categorized as black (in opposition to the odorless, colorless drug), it is also the object of violence: “Put it in the bowl, the first man says, / and positions the lighter beneath / the pipe.” The moment continues; the man who captured the tadpole laughs as it’s “writhing now, / knocking its head against the glass.”

Continue reading “Metaphysics in Kai Carlson-Wee’s “Steampipe””

Last week in my blog post, I made a statement that I feel I should clarify rather than leaving it decontextualized on the page:

“There is nothing stopping every single poet in the world from simultaneously summarizing their future work into much smaller segments, except perhaps for the fact that detail is required in most cases to make the work as nuanced as it needs to be.”

With this post, I attempted to make a point: Brevity does something interesting and very compelling; however, the context needs to be appropriate for it to work effectively. My previous statement, in its condensed form, has a specific meaning: Every writer could choose to condense their work into much shorter segments by being overly summarizing, but this could (and probably would) result in a loss of detail and nuance that would make the piece entirely different. However, because I failed to incorporate detail into this very brief statement (only one sentence, in fact) it lacks nuance and clarity and thereby can be confusing to readers with little context. (It proves its own point). It has not been unpacked; the sum is not the constituent whole of its parts. A detailed piece becomes much more than the summary of the same piece could be.

Continue reading “Brevity, pt. II”

There is nothing stopping every single poet in the world from simultaneously summarizing their future work into much smaller segments, except perhaps for the fact that detail is required in most cases to make the work as nuanced as it needs to be.

This summer I purchased and read the poetry collection Girl with Death Mask by author Jennifer Givhan. Givhan is a talented Mexican-American poet who often writes from her raw experiences about culture, identity, womanhood (and patriarchy), et al., and how these things have troubled and changed her speakers over time. I enjoy Givhan’s work and so I would like to look in depth at her poem “I am dark, I am forest” in order to examine its constituent parts as well as admire it as a whole.

Continue reading “Jennifer Givhan’s “I am dark, I am forest””

Of course I am aware that this blog is on a public domain, but more importantly, I know that the members of Lytton’s Spring 2018 poetry class read it. And I wanted to recognize the incredible work we all have done this semester which was reflected in our final portfolios. I am so proud of us for the hours and hours spent reading, writing, revising, recasting, and reconsidering ways to write poetry–stretching how we think about form in general and sound in particular. I can say that I’ve learned so much this semester, and I am grateful for the feedback you all have provided for me. Being a part of a community is so important, and my vision and hope for all of us as writers (and authors) is that we are part of not only a visual/word-oriented community but also one in which we care for each other as human beings who are inherently and incredibly valuable. This vision was reflected in earlier blog posts, in my portfolio, which was all about relationships, and in the way I live my life (I hope). I love people, and I love being a part of a community, and I am so grateful for all of you. TC Tolbert and Shara McCallum, while they were here, both impressed upon me the importance of community and helping others, and Lytton Smith did this every week we met together, every time he introduced a visiting poet, and really, every time I saw him.

To conclude this semester, I would like to leave you all personally with a final note, based on your portfolios and what I know about you all as writers. Don’t worry; again, I know this as a public domain, so I won’t be too personal. Email me if you want to get more personal and I will give you my mailing address to be a penpal/postcard buddy (shameless plug–I <3 snail mail).

Continue reading “Epilogue: Personal Notes to My Fellow Poets”