The Contemporary Poem

Last night I had a discussion with some fellow poets about whether poetry is capable of dying. Poetry has been around us since we, as humans, have been able to speak, so we know that poetry has survived. But is Poetry capable of dying? I thought up a scenario where humans evolve to become sea animals and because we are sea animals we do not have hands, but fins. We lose what is the most important tool to a writer; opposable thumbs. Will poetry be dead then, if we can’t write it? “No,” as one of the fellow poets said, “because we will come up with a way to use our fins and we will write with whatever material we can get.” So then I came up with another scenario where all humans die of a sudden natural disaster. In this scenario we all die but all works of literature ever written is kept in an indestructible box that can only be opened by putting in the code “0000.” What if the giraffe evolves to create its on language–a language that is not at all similar to ours–and it finds our literature, but isn’t able to understand it? Is poetry dead then? There are two ways one can see this scenario. Either poetry is dead, or it is alive in a different species. For example, we are dead, but maybe because of our deaths the giraffes will create their own poetry based on how we died–the same way that we write about dinosaurs or any other extinct species. And maybe the giraffes have their own kind of poetry, so poetry is alive in their species.

So, my question is, will poetry ever die? I’ve been having an existential crisis, if you can’t tell.

 

db pena

In looking through my poetry from this semester, I find it very interesting to see what pieces have developed from the weekly exercises. A lot of the time when I would do these exercises, I would get an idea of what to write, but the poem would develop into something totally different by the end. I even felt weird about submitting it as an exercise sometimes because it changed so much throughout the writing process. Sometimes the poems ended up having nothing to do with the initial exercise by the time I was ready to submit them. I guess I felt the need to take advantage of what inspired me rather than following guidelines more closely. Did anyone else have this experience? Or do I just have issues following instruction?

So, while working on my portfolio, I came across this sudden feeling that the specific poem that I was working on needed to have a curse in it! That’s never happened to me before! In the past, I’ve always been worried about curses in my own writing and I’ve been skeptical of it in other peoples’ work. I guess it’s because we are trained to write poems that are “poetic;” poems that “sound and look beautiful.” Curses, I suppose, can detract from this sense of beauty and “poeticism.” I used to feel as if curses took the reader out of a poem–a curse is just so loud even without italics, or bold, or an exclamation point. So my question to all of you is: what do you feel about curses in poems? Have any of you ever used curse words (and if none of you are super shy about it, could you quote the line(s) with the curse(s) in it)?

Well, here we are: we’re getting down to the last few days before our portfolio is due. Ever the procrastinator, I have (naturally) left my biggest problem pieces for the final two days; I keep hoping that maybe if I wait another day, my Poetry Brain will be more awake/better/have a sudden flash of genius that will allow me to get some significant work done on these pieces. Of course, that isn’t how it’s going. I’m so stuck. I’ve been sitting & staring at a blinking cursor for cumulative hours at this point. Revision is such a tricky little mistress; sometimes, it flows so easily that I almost wonder why I didn’t put this into a poem in the first place. But sometimes, I wonder how I even got to the draft that I have. I do have a few tricks for when I’m really, well-&-truly stuck. First, the obvious: I think I’ve memorized some of the comments on my poems from re-reading them so much. Sometimes, I do an exercise to push past the block:  I take the last line as it is & write something new out of that. I completely un-break the poem, edit to make it do what I want without the benefit of line breaks or white space, and then re-break it.  Or, I step entirely away from the piece: do other homework, make dinner, go for a walk, waste some time on the internet for a bit. So far, all my usual tricks are coming up dry. I’m sure I’m not the only one in this slump right now, so I figured we may as well try to get an “anti-writers-block list” going, because we’re all on a deadline now. What do you all do when you have a horrifically stubborn poem, or when your brain seems to actually shut itself off but you have so much left to do?

Hey fellow poets!

So as the semester ends and we have time again to pursue our interests, I’ve been wondering what we’re all going to be up to. We’re all poets, but our creative talents and skills are not limited to poetry. There’s a world of writing, music, art, and other such things that we’re involved in, and I want to hear about what other kinds of creative endeavors you all are into, and how one creative outlet may influence the other(s).

For me, I like to make art on the side when I have a free minute, and I’m also into slam poetry. I like to tell stories, so I think this is evident in my artwork. Often I’ll make a drawing and will have an entire story of what significance every little detail has and how they all come together to tell a story. Every once in a while, I’ll also try my hand at fiction writing, but I feel as though I get so caught up in the language and imagery of the writing that I have difficulty ever completing my stories.

What about you? I know many of you like to draw or take pictures, or are involved in music and other fields of writing entirely, so let me know!

In the meantime, I hope your summers are all filled with creative things and beaches and mangoes and fantasy novels and hammocks and happiness.

-Pam

Anybody see the Greek Tree today? It was covered with poems! I’ll call the poem-covered Greek Tree the “Poet-tree,” also it’s a fun play on words. Anyway, the tree was “painted” with poems by a group / collective of students called Guerrilla. They aim to foster a closer and more open writing community, and to publicize student art all around campus. Their mission made me curious to ask you guys: what would you like to see happen in Geneseo’s writing community that isn’t already happening? We have a lot going on–a popular slam scene, open mics, a strong writing program, but do you think we need more avenues for publish work and getting together to talk about it?

Okay, so first of all I apologize for being so solipsistic, but I am going to use this blog post as a way to directly ask for help on a poem that I’m completely stuck on when it comes to revisions. The poem is Post-Transplant, which I submitted for workshop a few weeks ago. I know you’ve already spent time with this poem and offered me a lot of awesome feedback, but I’m still stuck. I’m not happy with the poem the way it is, but I don’t know how to change it to make it work! There are a few things I’d really like to preserve: First, the original prompt was to write about something that was displaced or moved somewhere else with unexpected consequences. I’d really like that to come across in the poem. Second, I’m pretty set on the use of couplets here, particularly because I’m generally happy with the way the first couplet is functioning. But here’s where it gets tricky—the acrostic. The reason I’d like to try to make it work is that there’s something important to me about the word lymphoma being in the poem, without it really being in the poem. Right now, though, I feel like the acrostic just looks like a big hunk of words with forced line breaks in the middle of a bunch of couplets. Also, I’m worried the acrostic is too showy or tricky, like it might cheapen the poem. I honestly don’t know what to do with it. I’m thinking maybe I’ll allow the acrostic to be there, but break it into couplets and mess around a lot with the language and line breaks of that stanza (which will then become six couplets—another problem, what do I do with the last letter?!?!). If I do this, the acrostic will become basically unrecognizable to the reader, but something about its presence, even though unrecognizable, is comforting to me I guess… I think… I don’t know. I need help. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Hi friends!

So if you haven’t yet looked at the poems being workshopped tomorrow (or if you’re on your game, try to do this for the ones being workshopped next week), it might be fun to try this exercise. Try not to look at the poem, not even the format of it on the page, and read the poetic statement. As you read the poetic statement, jot down 3 or 4 things you are expecting of this poem, maybe it’s content related, a structure you think lends really well to what the poet is speaking of, or a question you expect to be answered by the poem. Then, read the poem and see how it aligns with your thinking. By doing this, we are completely eliminating the possibility of the poem itself swaying our views of what it should accomplish, and might even allow us to give more objective advice for revisions.

For an extra challenge, try and write a few lines of the type of poem you expect after reading the poetic statement and compare that to what the poet has actually written.

See you all in the morning! 🙂

As the due date for the inevitable portfolio (which I’m sure we’ve all been avoiding thinking about all semester) approaches, I can’t help but question the revision process. Looking at the poems I’ve written throughout the semester and revising them until they’re “finished” is quite a daunting task. I mean, when will they ever really be finished? It’s intimidating enough to submit a piece for workshop, but at least then I know people are aware that the poem is a work in progress. Sure, I can take my classmates’ and professor’s advice and improve the poem, but I feel like there’s always more to be done. In fact, I bet we could spend one whole semester of this class each only writing one poem and revising it more and more each week. Even then, we still probably wouldn’t feel that the work is done! Maybe it’s just me, but I never get that “okay, NOW this poem is completely finished and perfect” feeling. I honestly don’t know how published poets do it, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that one of my poems is good/finished enough to submit for publishing–this class’ portfolio is intimidating enough! Does anyone else feel this way or am I just crazy?

As the end of the semester draws near, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about this class.  I remember when I signed up, I was so excited to have a reason to write poetry: finally, something to keep me accountable and twist my arm a little into making sure I kept up the practice.  In the past, I’ve found that my writing is one of the first things that gets swept under the rug once I no longer have something (like a class) to keep me on track. Simply put, I have motivation issues. I don’t exercise unless someone is counting on me to do it (hence my current involvement in the fitness challenge). I’m guilted into eating my vegetables because my housemates know I would otherwise forget to buy them. I want to keep writing poetry. I don’t want to lose this groove I’m in. At the same time, I’m well aware that the lazy side of me that says Netflix is easier than writing will probably win out. So I guess my question is this: how do you all stay motivated to keep writing when you are the only one to hold yourself accountable? Do you have any tricks for those periods in life where you know you should write because God, it’s been forever, but can’t seem to make it happen?