I’ve got a blank space, baby: White space?

Our in-class discussion today on white space was super helpful to me in terms of interpreting white space, but I feel like I still have a long way to go in the way of actually utilizing it myself in a way that feels genuine.  I’m very interested in it, and I love the way it can function in a piece.  A few months ago, I stumbled on this poem by Eugenia Leigh, and it stuck with me:

GENESIS

How carelessly God hummed us whole
with such pronounced
holes                for lungs.

How hollow                 we are. How

anonymous—six billion
pitchers—flicked—discarded
in a faraway warehouse.

I guess at this point I’m very interested in how white space can be used to denote physical space or a physical feeling, like it does in this one.  I absolutely love how the space functions in this poem in such a way that I have a physical reaction: I feel myself breathing, but I am also aware of the effort it takes for me to draw breath, somehow. I feel the holes in my chest.  One of my favorite things about poetry is its ability to elicit that physicality in the reader, and that’s something I really want to look into playing with.

That being said, white space is such a wonderfully flexible element, and I’m interested in how other people like to see it used/how others use it.  I know we did a brainstorm in class, but I’m wondering how everybody else views white space and how you go about incorporating it? I know what I like when I see it, but I feel like I struggle in incorporating it successfully myself.

What’s your image creating process?

For a while now, I’ve been feeling like my writing process gets in the way of the time I actually spend writing.  This is becoming problematic to the point at which I’m having a lot of trouble sitting down and writing a poem.  I think it’s because I’m so anxious to come up with images right away that excite me and inspire me, when really the ideology of “first thought, worst thought” usually applies.  So I’ll write down a bunch of random images (usually just words describing things I see that I find interesting): table, banner, swing, flower–none of which typically lead to me becoming next Rebecca Lindenberg.  Then I’ll brainstorm instructions/directions, except not explicit ones, more just the intros to them: “let me,” “go to,” etc.  Still not inspired.  These usually end up covering the top half of a page, not in any particular organization but across, diagonal, big, small, you name it.  Crappy images all over this piece of looseleaf paper.  And somehow if I do this for a long enough time–have enough bad ideas, look at enough domestic objects, make enough combinations of two words–I come up with a poem.

I am going to go out on a limb and assume that my method of writing is not your method of writing (it happens with critical analysis papers as well & I end up surrounded with six pages of paper, each with one important sentence on them.)  For a senior English major, it’s pretty embarrassing the time it takes me to come up with a poem/paper topic I can expand on, and saying that my process is all over the place & disorganized is an understatement.  So I guess what I’m wondering is how do you all start poems?  Any advice about delving in somewhere, or finding a topic that you can completely flush out in a technical, imagized poem?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

–A

From Stage to Page (and back again?)

I started doing competitive slam poetry at the age of 14. I didn’t have any actual poetry background, as teachers in school just told us to write poetry without explaining anything about craft or what makes a poem effective. I learned through watching others slam that all it took was a compelling subject (usually with some controversial aspect involved), vivid imagery, and some passion to weave together a piece. Add the “poet stance” (always rocking forward to your tiptoes), a cadence that could be identified as your own, and some deliberately placed dramatic choreography, and people were telling me that I was a promising poet. I won some local competitions, slammed in a regional bout where I beat people from big city teams like Baltimore and D.C, and found myself part of Delaware’s 6-person team in the quarterfinal rounds at Brave New Voices 2011, performing in venues all over Oakland and San Francisco and included in an HBO documentary. While the slam poetry scene diminished in my area as I finished up the rest of high school, one of my few goals for college was to compete (and make a splash) at CUPSI.

Fast-forward to today, and I haven’t performed in 6 months and haven’t written a slam piece I’m actually proud of in over a year. I realized that I was too obsessed with “being good” and winning. I started writing certain things into my poetry just because I knew they would get points (talk about domestic or sexual abuse, use ribcages, hang yourself from a noose, get emotional on stage) instead of writing poetry for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love acting, but poets are supposed to reveal their true selves, coaches always told me to be vulnerable on stage. I realized that I was only pretending to do these things, shying away from topics that actually affected me in the name of securing 10s and high placements. I decided to take a break from slam to reevaluate why I was actually writing. When I took creative writing here at Geneseo and entered the world of poetry in an academic setting, I started looking at everything differently. At first it was really hard for me to make the transition back to page poetry from slam. In slam, as long as what you’re doing evokes feeling, nobody cares where your line (or rhythm/cadence) breaks are or whether you rely on abstractions. Seeing page poetry from an academic setting has just made me that much more critical of slam. I want to return to the world of slam competitions, I met some of the most intelligent, diverse, and accepting people through slam communities, but sometimes I feel like I’m so critical and jaded at this point, that I don’t know if I ever can return to that community that grew me.

Does anyone else have trouble taking slam seriously after focusing on the nuances of page poetry? Any advice for reconciling the two?

My relationship with poetry

I’ve always struggled to take poetry too seriously. Poetry has always been something that I’ve derived great joy from reading and writing but also despised. The poet has always been a very enigmatic figure to me and I’ve toiled over understanding my true viewpoint on the topic. (Are poets writers? Or moreso artists?) I write poetry as an emotional expression and as an art form…so sometimes it is hard for me to apply literary criticism in the same vein that I would an essay. Some of the time, in a poem, the poet decides to place certain words places because they have nice aesthetic, not necessarily for any “deeper meaning”. So then it becomes hard for me to do poem analysis because I’m not sure how much I should be “reading into” the poem. I’m sure this is something I have to sit and think about more and hopefully come to a definitive answer further on down the road.

My Relationship with the Ampersand

Hey fellow poets, I have a question for you all on the usage of the ampersand (&) in poetry. I like the thing well enough in handwriting, because it’s fun to make those funny flowing loops. When typing, however, my soul becomes conflicted. So my question is this: why use the ampersand and not use the word “and”? For my last poem, I caught myself just about to use it before I started questioning it and my whole poetic life. What is its purpose beyond abbreviation — or is abbreviation the ampersand’s only purpose? Does the symbol exist to create some aesthetic variety on the page? I’ve noticed many of you using it, so what’s your personal reasoning for “&” over “and” or vice versa?

Favorite Author

For an education class that I am in I had to make something called a “literary timeline,” or a timeline of types of books I have read throughout my life.  It got me thinking about all my favorite authors.  My all time favorite author has to be Ellen Hopkins.  She writes prose in poetry form.  She takes advantage of white space, of creating images with her words.  My favorite book by her is titled “burned.”  It is about a Mormon girl who acts out against her religion.  If you are looking for something poetic to read but not necessarily poetry, Ellen Hopkins is a perfect choice.  Her imagery and writing style apply particularly to the senses.  I have attached an excerpt from “burned” when the narrator realizes her father is sending her away for the summer as punishment for acting against her religion.

A Poetic Problem

In our recent class we were told to write down some of the strengths and weaknesses we have in our writing.  I find some of my weaknesses to be meter and rhyme.  I have never been very interested in writing in meter and therefore have never worked to improve my ability to write it.  I think that I would benefit from practicing writing in meter but I’m not sure how to start.  Any suggestions?  Rhyme, on the other hand, is something that I do enjoy adding to my poetry.  I believe it can help the movement of the poem and make reading more enjoyable for the reader.  I usually have trouble finding words that rhyme without it sounding forced.  I was wondering if anyone had any techniques for rhyme, or if it is something that easily comes to them?  Thanks a lot!

All Poems are Love Poems (???)

In class recently, we touched very briefly on the idea that poems don’t have to be about romantic love–a stance that I wholeheartedly agree with. After browsing some definitions of love, I’ve come to one basic conclusion about love: it’s indefinable. In order to create definitions for the word “love,” it is first important to recognize that there is no clear and concise definition that can be easily agreed upon by the masses. The origins of the English word “love” can be traced through various levels of Germanic and Proto-Indo-European languages. Throughout all of the influences and changes this word has undergone, there is a consistency in themes like affection, passion, and concern. However, as we have all figured out by now, love is not related only to feelings of happy tenderness. Love is closely related to fear, envy, jealousy, and (yes) even hate. Emotional mapping can help us visualize how our emotions connect, and how they intersect. There are basic emotions, like primary colors, that produce secondary and tertiary emotions that blur lines between what we would normally consider to be entirely separate experiences in practice. So, what does this have to do with poems? In my personal (and somewhat under-qualified) opinion, these intersections of emotion are the places where our best poems create themselves. While not all poems are related directly to romantic love, they all spawn from some sort of passion or dedication to our content, style, and belief in ourselves as poets. Essentially, all poems contain some derivative of love–the fear of losing it, the things that scare us, our obsessions, and so on. Are all poems love poems? Probably. Poems are reflections of life, and life, in essence, revolves around love (or lack thereof) in all its forms.

In regards to Children’s Poetry posts

The posts about children’s poetry (c is for cup and Lemony Snicket stuff)  reminded me of Shel Silverstein poetry and how its got some pretty adult content, in regards to incredibly dark humor, and I don’t know just general scary bizarre things like being a bare skeleton or having hinges on your head-accompanied by drawings. They also teach real world mature lessons. I think it’s pretty interesting that this poetry is lauded and deemed acceptable for children (I mean I personally have no problem with children reading it, and think it’s great, but I do find it interesting that it’s not like controversial or anything.)  I have a terrible memory, but I do remember some of Silverstein’s poetry from when I was really young, it definitely stuck with me.  I remember thinking this dark humor was funny and didn’t realize it was dark because I was a child, I enjoyed more that they were kind of riddles.  I think that this tint of darkness definitely makes these poems more appealing to older audiences.  Interestingly Johnny Cash’s song “A Boy Named Sue” is a Shel Silverstein poem- I mean I am not sure if this one is meant for children but here, because it is great/ <3 Johnny Cash.  There is also a version with Shel Silverstein playing along with Johnny Cash but wow it is so horrible I really suggest that no one watches it. Anyways I am definitely going to have my kids read his poetry because now looking back, I can see the value of this poetry from a different perspective.

Similar to Kallie and Katie/ Slam Poetry

Both of your posts brought up slam poetry in my mind.  I never really know how I feel about slam poetry since it incorporates tonal shifts in voice with actually performing and moving–and these tonal shifts are so much more exaggerated then when you hear a poet read their work.  I think I’m on the fence mainly because it kind of makes me uncomfortable for some reason, which is saying a lot coming from me.  I think the fact that poetry is so personal to the narrator, and then there they are loudly expressing it, is the reason for this, or maybe it’s because I can’t read it alone in my own space.  Either way, this is one slam poetry video that I actually enjoy.  I think it is really well done, but maybe I’d be on edge if I was in the audience.  I’m curious about other people’s thought on slam poetry/ if they have considered doing it.