World Class Poetry Blog

I have been meaning to purchase a copy of Mark Jarman’s new book of prose poems titled Epistles. It was my desire to bloviate, I think, but I put it off. I was hoping to share one of the poems on this blog this month in honor of religious poetry, but I have still not purchased the book. So I instead sought poems of his already published that might appear online. Lo and behold, I was successful. Found them (where else?) at the Poetry Foundation.

There I found four sonnets from his collection Unholy Sonnets.

Perfect, I thought. I’ll use one of those.

I’ve never bought a Mark Jarman book so I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never read any of his sonnets. It was a new experience for me. Quite frankly, I’m not impressed and I’ll tell you why.

A sonnet should rhyme. Enjambment is fine; each line need not end with a complete thought. I’m OK with near-rhyme even and rhyme that doesn’t look like rhyme or that forces the reader to move over the words from one line to the next so quickly that the rhyme isn’t noticeable until you stop to examine the poem word for word. All of that is fine. It’s what poetry is made of. But a sonnet, after all, is a sonnet. It is defined by two things: rhyme and meter. Leave one out and you no longer have a sonnet. Well, wouldn’t you know it: This New Formalist, a school of poetics that believes the old forms are still valid, writes a doggone sonnet that doesn’t rhyme. I don’t like it.

No. 1 wasn’t the first one I read. It wasn’t the last either. I read all four sonnets, and I’ll likely never read another poem from Mark Jarman. I won’t be buying Epistles. But it isn’t because of that one poem I didn’t like. I’m not fond of any of his sonnets.

“Unholy Sonnet No. 4″ rhymes. And I almost like it. My favorite lines are the first two - especially the first one - of the second stanza:

Not Dante’s rings, not the Zen zero’s mouth,
Out of which comes and into which light goes,

The allusion to Dante and alliteration with Zen zero’s mouth was impressive, but not elegiac, as one would expect of a religious poem. No. 4 isn’t his best of the four that I did read.

I found “Unholy Sonnet No. 13″ rather intriguing, but I’m ambivalent. I was put off at first by the repetition of the word drunk. Simply put, I found it unnecessary. Then he referenced Americans. I nearly puked. It seems out of place.

Nevertheless, No. 13 nearly succeeds. I do not like the repetition. I do like the near rhyme of some of the end words: bread, breed; stars, stirs. I do not like another/forever. I like the time and wine, and even the off-rhyme of moon. But the repetition of end words in place of rhyme is unnerving to me. It seems like a cop out.

Then there’s the juxtaposition of the divine with the mundane. I actually appreciate Mark Jarman’s attempt to employ this device. It’s one that I’m rather fond of in my own poetry and hope that I succeed at to some degree. The use of the word “Umbrian” in the first line sets me up for an expectation of something extraordinary, but I am let down by “two young Americans”. Why so parochial? It took me out of the poem despite some beautiful imagery in the pink cloud and marble smile. As I said, it almost succeeds.

I think the best of the four poems that I read was No. 1. It’s the one that I think is best crafted and it’s surprising because I wasn’t sure that I liked it when I first read it. I’m still not sure, but I do appreciate the craftiness of the poem. It was the first one I read. Reprinted below, analysis follows:

Dear God, Our Heavenly Father, Gracious Lord,
Mother Love and Maker, Light Divine,
Atomic Fingertip, Cosmic Design,
First Letter of the Alphabet, Last Word,
Mutual Satisfaction, Cash Award,
Auditor Who Approves Our Bottom Line,
Examiner Who Says That We Are Fine,
Oasis That All Sands Are Running Toward.

I can say almost anything about you,
O Big Idea, and with each epithet,
Create new reasons to believe or doubt you,
Black Hole, White Hole, Presidential Jet.
But what’s the anything I must leave out? You
Solve nothing but the problems that I set.

I like this poem best of all because it carries a simple idea from beginning to end. It starts out and finishes with that idea and is easy to follow. No. 1 reads like a prayer. It should. For that is essentially what it is. You know right away that the speaker is talking to God. He uses words that one would expect a person praying to God to use: “Dear God”, “Heavenly Father”, “Gracious Lord”. That’s a wonderful first line. It sets me up for the rest of the poem perfectly.

“Unholy Sonnet No. 1″ reminds me of Gerard Manley Hopkins in so many ways. The meter is a little bit uncommon. Unlike many sonnets, the iambic pentameter isn’t a sing-song twittering of musical simplicity. Each expression of divinity is capitalized - very reverent. Each is set apart as a clause, broken up by commas. Appropriate. And as you get further into the poem, the speaker begins to use names for God that are very uncommon and almost irreverent except that you know they are expressions of contemporary sanctity.

• Atomic Fingertip
• First Letter Of The Alphabet (Alpha - I like this one)
• Cash Award
• Auditor Who Approves Our Bottom Line
• Examiner Who Says That We Are Fine
• Oasis That All Sands Are Running Toward

Like traditional sonnets, the first stanza sets up the situation that the second stanza answers. It is sometimes defined as problem/solution, or question/answer. In this case, I think the proper characterization should be dilemma/cure.

The problem can be stated thus: What do we call God? Answer: Anything; it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is that He is there and we can call on Him. Cool.

The second stanza moves. I love how it starts:

I can say almost anything about you,
O Big Idea, and with each epithet,
Create new reasons to believe or doubt you,

The word “epithet” is perfect, and unexpected, because until now all we have heard from the speaker is words used to describe God in rather uncanny ways. They are really offensive. If I were God, I’d be offended. “Mutual Satisfaction”? I think not. But the names are not totally offensive. They just are not wholly reverent, and that’s the problem. It’s what makes the poem so believable.

The rhyme scheme of No. 1 stays true to the form. Thanks Mark! But there is something about that fourth line in the second stanza that bugs me. Why “Presidential Jet”? Of all the names for God, that is perhaps the most obtrusive. Still, he follows that rather awkward line up with “But what’s the anything I must leave out?” and I know it’s the perfect follow up line. It’s a good question, for one thing, but it also points to the dilemma: Who is God? Why is He there? And that last line is the zinger, the whopper, the big squeeze. No matter what you call Him, he’s the Divine Problem Solver, The Eternal Cure For All Things, The Answer To The Questions I Didn’t Know I Should Have Asked.

I love the feminine rhyme in that second stanza - about/you, doubt/you, out? You. It shows Mark Jarman’s playfulness and attentiveness to language. But it also makes me wonder why we don’t see more of that. If he can do that in one poem, why can’t he do that in the others? I’m not prepared to say versatility for that would imply skill, and I don’t see that. What I see is sloppiness, a criticism he has lobbied against others. It’s odd, but that’s probably what he seeks most to avoid for I know that his poetic philosophy is defined by attentiveness to language, to words, and to craft. To some degree, he has it. So why aren’t I impressed?

Remember George Carlin’s comedy act, “The Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV?” It was very funny. Well, Bob Harris has penned the “The Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing,” only it’s not so funny. It’s tragic. And true. By the way, “penned” didn’t make the list, but it did get an honorable mention.

And now for something completely different (thanks to Monty Python):

This isn’t a political blog, but I found this on The Huffington Post and had to say something. Robert S. McElvaine suggests four ways for the Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to reach a modus vevendi (a disagreement to agree; I mean, an agreement to disagree, or whatever) while keeping the gun pointed at warmonger John McCain. Here are the four points:

Each campaign continues to raise huge amounts of money; they should make an agreement to turn over either a set amount or an agreed percentage (perhaps 20%) of what they raise to a joint Democratic campaign group with people from both campaigns that will produce commercials and other efforts to educate the public about Mr. McCain while the struggle for the Democratic nomination continues.

You know, this is actually a novel idea. It would be such a fresh approach to modern politics that every news network in the world would provide the Democratic Party with endless commentary and free publicity. The focus would be taken off the fight for the most powerful minority in the world to actually beating up on the guy they want to lose in November. Why didn’t they think of that?

Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama should agree that at the end of each commercial against the other that their campaigns produce for the rest of the nominating contest, after they have attacked the other Democrat, they will expand the closing tagline to say: “I’m [Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama] and I approve this message — and I also approve of [Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton] much more than John McCain.”

OK, now that’s a stupid idea. You only get so much time to present your message. Why would the candidates volunteer to give up some of that time to say “I like my opponent better than my other opponent?” We went from novel to ridiculous in a single bound. Well done, Stuporman.

The Democratic candidates should agree that during the remaining battles in their continuing civil war they will spend at least as much time in speeches contrasting themselves with Mr. McCain as they do contrasting themselves with each other. (Indeed, the Democratic candidate who focuses his or her fire almost exclusively on the “Bush-McCain” policies would very likely win more Democratic and independent support than the one who spends her or his time attacking the other Democrat.)

I don’t know about “as much time”, but the candidates should spend some time discussing the reasons voters should reject McCain. Of course, I can’t see Hillary doing that. She’s too focused on winning. I believe Barack Obama would be the more likely candidate to take periodic potshots at McCain and to create the image that he should be the one to represent the Democrats because he’s willing to fight McCain on ideology. And, really, that’s what this is all about. Ideology. There is a much sharper difference in ideology between Obama and McCain than there is between Clinton and McCain and that’s where the Illinois senator can capitalize. He is right on the three most important issues of today: War in Iraq, Ethics, and Energy. Those are also the three areas that McCain is wrong in (although he is most right on the ethics issue).

A final point in a Clinton-Obama modus vivendi would be much more difficult to achieve and may not be necessary if the first three points are agreed to: Each candidate could agree that when the nominee is chosen, he or she will pick the other as her or his running-mate and that the latter will accept.

Actually, I think such a move would kill the Obama campaign. There is way too much negative baggage with Clinton. The list is too long to mention. I’d end up still firing off my points on election day. While Obama is not the perfect candidate - for the Democrats or for the country - there is a lot less negative baggage that comes with him than with Clinton, or with McCain for that matter. In this case, experience is not what matters. What matters the most in this election year is ideology and vision. Neither McCain nor Clinton are showing much of either.

Agree with it or not, only Obama has a stark and distinctive voice in either category. His ideology is progressive and consistent. His vision is domestic, not foreign. Maybe you are not on board with that at all and you feel much more comfortable with a traditional Republican message (as I do), but you certainly won’t get that with McCain. And since McCain has bucked up to follow the Party line, which is decidedly anti-Republican having betrayed the principles that made the GOP strong in the first place, that makes Barack Obama’s non-interventionist ideology much more appealing to us conservative-leaning and libertarian independents. We may not like what we’ll get with him, but at least we’ll know what to expect.

Dilemma: How do you get that into a poem?

If you like reading reviews of poetry books, I just had a review published at Rattle, my favorite journal by far. I reviewed a book by Patrick Carrington. The title is Thirst.

The first paragraph of the review reads:

Rarely does a poet glow with grace on every page, but Patrick Carrington is no every day poet. Carrington won the Codhill Poetry Chapbook Prize for 2006. In 2007, Thirst burst forth a tall glass of water. Cool, refreshing, clear as cubes of ice.

To read the entire review, click here, go to Rattle.

Just as all poets are individuals, so too are all poems individuals and should be judged on their own merits. Just because a certain poet has written 500 great poems doesn’t mean that she won’t pen the occasional bad one. Just because a bad poet has written and published over 1,000 lousy excuses for poetry doesn’t mean that he can’t finally produce a masterpiece. Every poem is an individual and must be judged on its own merits.

Millennial Poetics Review
Let’s review the 9 principles of Millennial Poetics one more time:

1. Craft is of utmost importance
2. There is no room for prejudice
3. Form is just another element of craft
4. Creativity and craft go hand in hand
5. No subject is taboo
6. There is no such thing as language that is too archaic
7. All poems are individuals
8. There is no acceptable method to writing poetry
9. All convention should be shunned

Today, we’re discussing the individuality of poems. If you haven’t read the earlier posts in this series then I encourage you to back up and read them all and return here when you are done.

All Poems Are Individuals
There is no sense in treating a body of work as a whole unless you are willing to look at each individual poem in the group to see how it fits in with the whole. This is true whether we are talking about a chapbook, a set of poems within a specific time period within a single poet’s life, an entire collection of poems from a poet’s life, a school or movement, or a set of poems surrounding a specific theme. There is value in analyzing poetry as a group and how that group is structured could depend on any number of variables, but no matter how the grouping is accomplished, every poem within the group is still an individual and should be analyzed on its own merits.

This may seem like it should go without saying and, for the most part, it does. But there is a tendency in poetics to see the whole and forget the singular. Poetic analysis can center around a single poet and so analysts discuss the poet’s contribution to literature, but then fail to discuss each individual poem. At the bottom of every group of poems is the whole set of individual poems within the group. Without the individual poems, there is no group.

This speaks to the liberty of poetics. The freedom of poetry analysts to judge poems on their own merits as individuals as opposed to complete bodies or groups of poems. Instead of judging the Beats as good or bad, or “homosexual misogynists”, we should judge each individual poet on his own then each poem by each poet on its own before arriving at a general conclusion regarding the entire school of Beats. There is a long range and variety of personalities to discuss with regard to that movement and many poets still living consider themselves Beats, or at least influenced by the Beats.

This principle is true and applies to all schools and movements and groups of poets. There are no exceptions. Instead of discussing the Nuyorican poets, why not discuss individual poets within the Nuyorican movement and read each poem by those poets as a single unit? The movement itself certainly has an identity, but that identity is wrapped up in the aggregation of the individual poets who identify with the group. Those poets in turn have individual poems that serve to define, or defy, or add to the aggregate definition of the group itself. It is possible for a poet to break with his or her poetic tradition and identify singularly with another group at a different point in his life, or with no group at all. This has been the case with Amiri Baraka, former poet laureate of New Jersey.

Why Is This Important?
Why should we concern ourselves with whether individual poems, or poets, are a unique identity unto themselves? I believe this is important because it speaks to the nature of poetics as well as the nature of the human condition. Poetry is an individual exercise, although some poets have joined together for collaborative projects. Even when poets collaborate, poetry is still handled at the individual level. There may be dialog, interaction, to be sure; but the internal reaction to what a poet writes and reads is an individual experience. That is true of the audience as well.

Because life is experienced as individuals living within community, and poetry is intrinsically about life, it is necessary to discuss poetry in the way in which it is experienced: As individuals within community. Community is not necessarily the closed community of poets. It is all of humanity. It is one’s identity group, one’s race, one’s local community, one’s nation or state, and one’s poetic school or movement. Community is all of those things, individually and collectively. The test for any poet is to write a poem that reflects the frame of reference with which he identifies. Does he do that well or does he fail? All poetics is centered around that question, but the question applies differently to each individual poem as it pertains to what it sets out to be as a poem.

A group of poems, and consequently a group of poets, cannot succeed in that endeavor. This can only be accomplished on a poem-by-poem basis. T.S. Eliot may have captured the zeitgeist of his era in “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Wasteland,” but did he do so in “Four Quartets”? The same poet who succeeds today can fail tomorrow. Just as a man in business may build a successful enterprise in one decade and fail to do so in another, so too can poets succeed in producing poems that attract an audience one day and fail in the same endeavor in another. This is the reason why the individuality of poems is a necessary component in Millennial Poetics. It could be said to be a central tenet. All poems must be analyzed on their own merits. Accept nothing less.

Because I felt that my last installment of the Millennial Poetics series was a bit incomplete I was prepared to expound on it a little more in this blog post. Instead, I’m going to reprint a poem from a poet I heard as a feature at a poetry reading tonight.

If you’ll remember, the last post in the series dealt with taboos. In poetry, there aren’t any. I approached the subject from the perspective of the audience-poet relationship. The poet must keep his or her audience in mind. But there really is more to it than that. I stuck to the extremes of sex and religious fervor because those two extremes seem to be at odds with each other in today’s world - at least in Puritan America. But taboos are not all sexual, nor are they all religious. Some taboos are emotional, or psychological. Others surround death. From culture to culture, what is considered taboo may vary and therefore it is difficult to discuss taboos as comprehensively as I’d like to.

The poet I’m about to recite is a Latin scholar. A former teacher of Latin, to be precise. I have heard her read in limited doses, but tonight, for the first time, I heard a full presentation as she was the featured poet in a poetry reading in Gettysburg, Pa. The event takes place every first Friday and is hosted by a friend of mine, Dana Larkin Sauers.

Today’s discussion, however, centers around Marilyn Tenenoff. She is a very intelligent and passionate soul whose poetry comes alive on the stage. Her readings are vibrant, passionate, and full of verve. On the page, her poems come alive as well. I will be writing a full review of Marilyn’s book, Watch the Watering Can, but for now I want to reprint one poem:

De Brevitate Vitae

When Marilyn Tenenoff finished reading that poem this evening, Gary Ciocco, another friend of mine, turned and whispered to me, “That’s blasphemy, isn’t it? That’s blasphemy.”In contemplation, I nodded assent. Indeed, I believe it is. But is it permissible?I think to understand and appreciate this poem in all its nuances, you have to understand the origin of the phrase “Gaudeamus” and its associative counterpart, “De Brevitate Vitae,” the poem’s title. The latter means, “on the brevity (or shortness) of life.” The former means “let us rejoice.”

According to the Wikipedia entry for “Gaudeamus Igitur,” the first words to a Latin song by the title, “De Brevitate Vitae,” the lyrics are a bacchanalian celebration of the fact that we will all one day die. The song references sex and death throughout, either in jest or irony, but the intent is to “spit in the eye of Death.” That is, we claim victory over death. The sentiment is the pagan equivalent to the Christian doctrine of Christ’s victory over death as expressed in the words of St. Paul, “Grave, where is thy victory? Death where is thy sting?”

“De Brevitate Vitae” is sometimes known as “The Gaudie,” but whatever it is called, it is almost always ribald and encased in revelry. One could say it is the reverse expression of Carpe Diem. Instead of “seize the day” for life is awesome and should be taken like a bull by the horns, it is more like “death is not so great and has no power over life” so let us dance and drink and fornicate on the graves of the “dear dear dead.” One could just as well say, “Fuck the afterlife!”

Marilyn Tenenoff’s poem is the perfect example of what I mean by no taboos. Poetry is an expression of a point of view. Agree with it or not, judge it by its poetic merits. Tenenoff’s “De Brevitate Vitae” has a raw, uncontrollable passion. It sets its own music. The poem moves to a crescendo as the tension is built up from the first word all the way up to “This force of life is warm.” Then, the poet masterfully takes her reader by the hand and leads him to the poem’s logical and grand finale, that finishing act, the terrible, blasphemous end, where livers and lovers do the dirty deed on the homes of the dear departed. In a frenzy of fire, the fornication isn’t so much dirty as it is a celebration. We’re not dead yet, so let us rejoice.

I suppose at 88 years of age you don’t have much to worry about. That’s the impression I get from reading the memoir-like blog of Mary A. Kaufman. Meander With Me, as it is called, is a nice blend of poetry, philosophy, and creative nonfiction.

Mary’s blog is currently categorized with six categories for her writing:

• Essays
• Opinion
• Poetry
• Stories
• Thoughts
• Uncategorized

She moves about freely and at ease between these categories and a variety of topics from day to day and will often include a bit of commentary before and after her original poetry. A self-avowed atheist, she has lately been on the subject of God, Christians, and faith. While her diatribes may come across as listless rants to the less keen, to me they appear more as a scurry for justification by one who has experienced life from several angles, including the wife of a Mennonite devotee.

While Mary’s arguments against the existence of God are a bit sophomoric (she really says nothing I’ve never heard before), her insights into philosophy, mythology, history, and culture are much more engaging. Unafraid to drop an allusion that might go over the head of an average reader, she provides some erudite insights into life and isn’t afraid to speak her mind as is evident in her poems that address racism and bigotry and other hard subjects. Her poetry, however, is an interesting mix of fine craft and sloppy editing.

I admire Kaufman’s willingness to write about subjects that most people wouldn’t tackle - death, racism, apologia to reason, politics - and her range is remarkable. I get the feeling that she is well read and thinks deeply on these topics before writing about them. But the writing itself is a little raw and needs some honing.

It is evident that, in her poetry, she likes to rhyme. But her rhymes are not sing-song rhymes in the vain of trite iambic pentameter. Rather, she has a tendency to slip into blank verse and she reminds me a little bit of Percy Bysshe Shelley - heady and rhapsodic. The problem is that the blank verse isn’t tight enough. It does at time stumble upon itself and I like the fact that the rhyme is unpredictable most of the time. Her rhymes are more like T.S. Eliot’s Modernist rhymes where there is no set pattern, no predictable abcabc or abab. They look more like a meandering rhyme where a couplet might follow an abab scheme followed by an abcacbba; in other words, the rhyme scheme is not formulaic. But she does have a tendency to use the same style and tone in almost all of her poems.

A little more variation would be nice. Not in subject matter, but in meter and elements of craft. Kaufman also needs to watch cliches. For the most part, her images are original and she does a good job of saying things in a new way, but there are times when the verse is too long and rambling and that’s when she has a tendency to underwrite. Otherwise, I find her verse a bit refreshing and not at all pretentious. Nor is it simple in the sense of being simplistic, though she does keep the poetry simple in terms of uncomplicated and that’s welcome, particularly on a blog that isn’t trying to reach for the atmosphere.

Meander With Me is a fabulous blog with a great theme. Mary Kaufman does indeed meander and her blog is aptly titled, though her meandering is intentional and done with purpose so I don’t count it as a negative. Kaufman has self published a book of poems titled Butterflies and Bumblebees. With some editing, she has the potential to create verse and creative nonfiction that could find its audience.

Late last night I posted a pre-critique version of a poem and promised I would post the post-critique version today. The time has come.

Before I post the revised poem, I’d like to make a few observations.

1. A poem is never really complete. Just because it has been workshopped or critiqued and revised doesn’t mean it is finished. But at some point, for the poet’s own sanity, it’s best to lay the poem to rest.
2. During critique, different people will see different things in a poem and not everyone will focus on the same thing. I’ve learned that some people are very adept at discerning metrical patterns while others are better at slicing the nuances of word choice or diction. Others may be better at fixing punctuation. And some poets are just capable enough at making less keen observations, but which are very helpful in the process as well. There is no level of experience in critique groups more important than others as every reader will notice different things and make comments based on experience, background, education, etc. It is up to the poet or the person presenting the poem for critique to determine what comments are most helpful and which ones are not and decide for him or herself what should be changed based on what they value the most and the intent of writing the poem.
3. One of the most important aspects of critiquing a poem is to try to ascertain a poem’s theme or its author’s intent in writing it. If you don’t understand the message a poem is trying to convey then it’s either because the poet didn’t do a good job at presenting the message and therefore that needs to be brought up in the critique or it is because you perhaps do not have the proper experience in addressing what the poem needs. For instance, a member of last night’s critique group brought a poem based on a particular view he had while vacationing at the Alpines. Since I had never been to the Alpines, it was difficult for me to critique parts of the poem because I couldn’t see the same scene that he saw. But I could see the scene that he described in the poem; what was difficult was knowing whether that scene testified to the actual scene he wanted to write about. In that kind of a situation it is best to simply tell the author of the poem what it is his poem makes you feel, think, or what you see through the imagery he presents.
4. Finally, it is not necessarily important to understand every element in a poem during critique. I have always thought it was not necessary to defend or explain a poem to members of a critique group because I wanted to see if they could catch all the nuances I intended on their own. If they could then I knew I was effective in presenting them. If they couldn’t then it meant I had some work to do. If a certain critique said something odd that I thought was off base then I’d simply discard it. For instance, I received one critique that mentioned a particular word choice as too “antiquated,” which was intentional and therefore it didn’t matter to me that the person didn’t like that word. I just figured she didn’t pick up on the point that I was trying to present a poem that contained a message that is relevant for all time so the archaic expression was intended to do that. If other people respond favorably and seem to get the message, as was this case, then you know it isn’t your poem or the way you expressed it. That happens. What you want to look out for are those expressions that no one gets.

The following revision is my current draft of the poem that I had critiqued last night. My changes are based on the comments that I received about the poem, both verbally and in writing, and reflect a group consensus regarding changes that would be improvements to the poem as I intended to write it. Notice that the changes, nor the critiques, were meant to make the poem a different one; the idea is to improve on the original intent. I believe these changes do that, but I’d like to hear feedback and see if you think the same thing.

The Armor Dims

Chivalry fights to the last breath,
gasps on Chivas to bury
ripost upon ripost, cries
like widows restrained by
their own sad impulse.

Death dawns,
dearth and drawn
in upon itself, the poor
still swill of liquor in the mouth
as it kills the miming will.
And the prenatal murders,
the blast of powder and keg
while young boys scream out
to the loves who will never know
them. The men whose bondage
descends from the stairwell
of civilization feast
upon the scraps
of their own brown
brothers; electric chairs,
ropes burned crisp with fresh
flesh, inner cities full
of needles
and fields of fire.

We’ve searched hard
for the tarnish of blade
or blood steeped in stool,
aiming to save one man
from the loss of another
trembling strain.
But in vain.

We’ve wrapped ourselves tight
in fear and doubt,
dying to climb out, spread
our weakening wings like a
blazing banner in harrowing heat.

Then –
I know, in the cusp of my grave
need, no knight stands without sacrifice.
This is the culture of death.

Some final notes:

While revising this poem it became apparent to me that I was going to have to make further changes, beyond those that were suggested by my critique group, in order to achieve the results of the critique. This was most evident in certain line breaks. For me, line breaks are very important. Which word ends a particular line is determined by two things:

1. Visual effects on the page
2. The sound of the word as the poem is read aloud

A poem is, above all things, a sensual experience. If it is read silently then the sensory experience is visual. If it is read aloud then the sensory experience is auditory. In addition to either of these, it is also always kinesthetic. A poem must make a person feel. And I want each line to contribute to the whole of the experience - visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. These things are not always talked about in these terms in a critique group, but these are always on my mind when I write and rewrite.

A critical point to this poem is its speaker. My critique group seized upon that right away. And they were able to fix the major difficulty I had, and didn’t know I had it, with one simple suggestion. The suggestion was to take “I” out of it - at least at the beginning of the poem - and to personify Chivalry. It was a great suggestion and I liked it. We later decided to bring “I” in later in the poem and then that led to the discussion of the plural first person, “We.” We decided to move from the third-person personified to the first person plural to the first person singular as a progression within the poem. I loved the suggestion. Even though the change of POV is not something you would want to do in most poems, it worked for this poem and was just what the poem needed in order to achieve the effect that I was going for. Other suggestions seemed to compliment that one.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think of the revised version of this poem (Did you notice the title changed?)? Which version do you like better - the pre-critique version or the post-critique version? And is there anything else we can do to improve it?

I’m a little late tonight, but I’ve got to get this in.

Attended a crtique group I haven’t made in a while. All - well, most - of my favorites were there: Anna, the group leader, a seasoned poet I admire; Michael Hoover, who is the Hanover, Pa. poet laureate and one of the best poets in this part of the world (he has a precision instrument built in, I believe, which allows him to see into portals between worlds); Rich Hemmings, who is the best promoter of poetry I have ever met in my life; Debberae, his significant other, a damn fine poet in her own right; and Janet Lohrs, another seasoned poet, who brought a poem, a Villanelle, that needed no correction. I was in great company and they are the perfect group for critiquing me because they are all my superiors in some way.

I took a poem that is not very old but which I plan to include in my Iraq War collection - a group of poems that were mostly written while in Iraq in 2005. This one was written since I’ve been back, but it fits the theme I’ve been working on.

I’m always amazed at the things that people pull out of a poem during critique. I work on a poem until I think I have it polished; at least, it is as polished as I can get it on my own.

I usually have two approaches to critique:

1. The first approach is to take a poem that is far from finished and which has me stuck. I know it needs a lot of work when I take it and I’m not surprised when it is picked apart.
2. The second approach is the one I prefer, and that is simply to work on a poem until it is as near to finish as it can be, then take it to critique group to see how it can be improved upon.

I always think, on that last approach, that I’ve got a poem that is so close they can’t possibly find anything wrong with it. I’m always wrong. They pick it apart and tear it down and I always come away with a better poem. Critique group is fun that way. It’s almost like my creation is a community project, only the community never gets credit for it. In this case, I give them credit.

I’m going to share with you the pre-critique version of my poem now. Tomorrow, I’ll print the post-critique version and I’d like to get your feedback on which one you like better. Here’s the pre-critique version of the poem:

The Shining Armor Dims

I’ve seen chivalry
fight to the last breath,
gasping on Chivas to bury
ripost upon ripost, to cry
like widows restrained
by their own sad impulse.

I’ve witnessed the dawn
of death, dearth and drawn
in upon itself, the poor still swill
of liquor in the mouth as it kills
the miming will. And the prenatal
murders, the blast of powder and keg
while young boys scream out to the loves
who will never know them. The men
whose bondage descends
from the stairwell of civilization
to feast upon the scraps of their own
brown brothers; electric chairs,
ropes burned crisp with fresh
flesh, inner cities full
of needles
and fields of fire.

I’ve dabbled deep,
looking for the tarnish
of blade or blood steeped
in stool, thinking I could save
one man or child from the loss
of another trembling strain.
But in vain.

I’ve wrapped myself tight
in fear and doubt,
wishing I could climb out,
spread my weakening wings
like a blazing banner in harrowing heat.
(Aaaah!) Admit, effete.

Then, in the cusp of my grave need,
I know this is the culture of death. No
knight stands without sacrifice.

Tomorrow I’ll share the revised version after going over my critique notes and consolidating them then rewriting. I’m looking forward to the new version. I’m sure it will be an improvement.

I received the following comment this morning from a reader and thought I’d oblige the request:

I hope that you dont mind me asking,BUT, would you mind viewing my poetry blog and let me know your opinion on my poems (good or not so good). I have never set up a blog before so any advice on how to prehaps get a bit more recognition etc would be very helpful. Thanks and hope you enjoy reading them as much as i enjoyed writing them.

First, I’d like to thank Stacey for the request and I’ll be glad to offer some tips. I apologize if anything I say comes across hurtful or harsh. I have a tendency sometimes to be very critical, but I think there is benefit in that, which I hope you will see.

Secondly, I want to make a distinction between someone who writes poetry and someone who is a poet. This may come across as elitist, but I assure you that it isn’t intended that way. It is simply a distinction between a person who enjoys a certain activity and a person who is centered on making it a profession.

I recently purchased an automobile from a guy who buys clunkers, fixes them up, and resells them. I don’t mind such a person making a profit on the transaction because he does something I have no interest in. His skill in diagnosing a problem and taking the necessary steps in getting that problem fixed so that someone like me can have an affordable and reliable mode of transportation is a valuable skill. However, he is not a mechanic. He said so himself.

The gentleman, rather, is a person who likes to work on cars and resell them. He is a businessman, but he is also somewhat of a hobbyist. He does retain a mechanic, a professional with more in-depth knowledge of automobiles, to fix things that he himself cannot fix due to his limited but working knowledge. Poetry is much the same way. There are professional poets, people who study craft and learn successful ways to communicate through the medium of poetry, and there are people who know a little bit about poetry and like to tinker but are not really interested in taking the full plunge into the world of professional poetry production. There is nothing wrong with either brand.

Why This Distinction Among Poets Is Important
I make this distinction for a couple of reasons. No. 1, if I say something that is above your head or that you have no interest in knowing because you are just “tinkering” and not interested in promoting your poetry for publication then you can feel free to discard it. It likely doesn’t apply to you. The second reason I make this distinction is because it helps to know where a person is coming from. I approach the subject of poetry, and writing in particular, from the perspective of someone who has spent his entire adult life attempting to craft his own poetry in such a way that it is worthy of publication and studying the work of others who do the same. This doesn’t make me a better poet, of course, but it does mean that I approach the criticism of poetry from the perspective of what is important in terms of achieving the highest standards of craft. I refuse to do it any other way. I won’t tone it down just to be nice and if you’re offended by that then please don’t ask me to critique your poetry.

A Commendation And Welcome
I’d like to take time out to welcome Stacey into the blogosphere and for taking the plunge to publish her poetry online. She is now a part of that rare breed I like to call “The Poetosphere.” It is that subset of a larger population commonly referred to as the Blogosphere, but which consists solely of poets who write blogs.

There are two types of poetry blogs: Those that publish poetry, either their own or someone else’s, and there are those that simply offer commentary of some sort without publishing poetry. There are plenty of the first kind, but far fewer of the second kind. World Class Poetry Blog strives to be in the second set, although I do on occasion publish a poem, either my own or someone else’s. That is not my main focus, however.

That said, I will be up front and honest and say that I am not particularly fond of the first kind of poetry blog unless it is a blog that takes submissions and publishes a variety of poets as a literary journal does. The reason I do not particularly care for poetry blogs that primarily publish the blogger’s poetry is that this type of blog is simply a hobby and not the work of a professional seeking a poetic avocation. Again, there is nothing wrong that, but in terms of literary quality, the most of what I’ve seen from these types of poetry blogs is not of the same quality as what you would find in a literary blog that operates on submission guidelines. In that regard, Stacey’s poetry is pretty much arm in arm with the rest of what is out there in the poetosphere.

Where The Critical Rubber Meets The Poetry Road
In case you are wondering, Stacey’s blog is located at http://poetry-by-stacey.blogspot.com/. Upon first glance, Stacey’s blog is a lot like anything else you’ll see online. It is a Blogspot blog and that’s fine for a hobby blog. I wouldn’t recommend Blogspot for a business professional or for a poetry professional who is trying to write a quality literary blog that seeks to brand itself and attract serious attention as a literary blog. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Blogspot is the No. 1 bad neighborhood for spam on the Internet. If you are not up on search engine optimization tactics and strategies then that might go over your head, but suffice it to say that Blogspot, owned by Google, consists of about 75% spam blogs, aka splogs. Judging from my own observation, I’d say the majority of the rest of it consists of poetry blogs.
2. It is almost always better to own your real estate than to rent it. With few exceptions, I’d say having your own domain name is better than a blog that sits on the server of a free host. But for most poetry hobby blogs like Stacey’s I’d say that is the one exception where it might make more sense to be with Blogspot. After all, if you are just tinkering and you are not even sure if it is something you are going to stick with long term then it’s good to “try your hand” at something new to see if you like it. But once you decide that you’re in it for the long haul, you might want to consider purchasing your own domain name for $10 per year and hosting your poetry blog on your brandable domain name.

Back to Stacey’s blog: Right away I know it’s a hobby blog. I can tell by its plain, non-brandable look - the background, the font colors, the entire face looks and screams, “Hobby!” As far as hobby blogs go, Stacey’s is about par in terms of looks. There could be more information and sidebar widgets, but since she is new at this and just getting started I would expect it to be rather plain. That’s all it really needs to be for right now.

I love the bio. It’s simple and not full of fluff. I think that is always best. It’s personable and says, “I’m friendly.” Perfect for a hobby blog. But I’d ditch the flowers and put a photo of myself there instead. That would complete the personal feel and make yourself more accessible to your audience, which I presume is other hobbyist poets who like to write poetry and read the poetry of others.

But let’s move on to the poetry and discuss it from a standpoint of craft ….

Poetry By Stacey: A Critical Look At A Poetry Hobbyist’s Verse
The poem I like most of Stacey’s collection is “Cope.”

I like “Cope” because it is simple and follows a particular meter. There is nothing complex about it. It avoids the overdone “I” that beginning poets often make. It carries a message that is easy to grasp and strikes an emotional chord, which good poetry is supposed to do. It elicits a reaction and that’s always a plus.

But “Cope” does have its problems. First, the metrical pattern is perfect for the theme, so that’s a plus. The short, choppy lines make me think I’m trying to cope along with the subject in the poem. I’m not at odds with the simple dimeter that is set up in the first two lines. But the poem doesn’t maintain a consistent meter all the way through.

The places where “Cope” trips over itself are in the line “The involuntary urges” - there is one syllable too many - “Always wins” needs one more metrical foot at the beginning; and the final stanza has too many syllables. In fact, those last three lines let me down completely. If I were to rewrite them, I would do it this way:

Stop and stareOr carry on
Refuse to care

You want those lines short and choppy like the rest of the poem and the rule of thumb is to take out all unnecessary words. Generally speaking, words like “the,” “and,” and other connecting words are not necessary in poetry unless they contribute to the metrical pattern. In this case, they detract from it so they’ve got to go.

Now let’s discuss a poem I didn’t particularly care for - “A Life Is Taken.”

The title does its job and piques my interest. Right away, I want to know whose life we are talking about. I am set up for an experience that ultimately lets me down and it does so in the very first line.

That first line is almost a repeat of the title. In some cases that’s not a bad thing. In this case, I don’t like it because I already know, after having read the title, that a life is taken so I don’t need to be told again. The only new information I get from that first line is that the life is “young,” but that really tells me nothing. Lots of young lives are taken every day and young lives being taken in literature is one of those things that has been done over and over again. If a poem is going to address a “young life” being taken then it must be exceptional right from Line 1. Otherwise, I’m off to read another poem.

“Headlines” in Line 2 just reiterates my point above. It’s another cliche that is not necessary and by now you’ve failed to capture my attention so I don’t even feel like reading any more.

Everything about this poem, from the words used to the meter and the rhyme scheme just overflows with triteness. There is nothing new here. Stacey needs to capture my attention from the very first word and make sure that I read the rest of the poem. She does this very well in “Cope” with the lines:

A gasp in her breath
Chill in her spine

Yes, gasp and chill are common words used in literature to provoke a sudden excitement or fear or communicate that feeling about a subject, but the mode of communication, the short and choppy lines, the metrical pattern, all of it together makes the expression new and different enough - plus, the hardness of the language - ensures that I keep reading. Those are the elements that “A Life Is Taken” and the other poems on Stacey’s blog lack.

Overall, Stacey needs to watch out for a few things:

1. Not every poem needs to rhyme. Play around with other elements and learn how to communicate through poetry without relying on a set rhyming pattern. That doesn’t mean that rhyme is bad, but if you’ll read contemporary poetry, much of it does not rhyme. Sometimes, you can create the sense of emotion that you are aiming at by approaching your poem from a different style and tone. More versatility, less rhyme.
2. Proofread your poems before you publish them. This is a big pet peeve of mine. As someone who has been a published writer for most of his life and has been an editor for a literary journal as well as a newspaper, I know that even the best editors sometimes have misspellings and grammatical errors. But you should do everything you can do to limit those. I do not like reading a poem, and literary journal editors won’t either, where the poet did not take the time to edit and correct misspellings.
3. Stacey needs to read more and experiment more. Contemporary poetry is vast in terms of voice, tone, and poetic elements. There are so many schools, or genres, today and while you can’t know them all, you should try to find out where you fit in. Read more contemporary poetry and study the poets who are writing today. What are they writing about? How are they writing about it? Why do they write it the way they do instead of using traditional patterns and schemes? It is important in finding your own voice that you try to get a better understanding of what others in your era are doing and why they are doing it - even if you choose to do it differently.

My Final Words To Stacey (And To You)
I have no idea who Stacey is, how old she is, or why she writes. I do know that she is British, even if she didn’t tell me in her profile. The word “cheque” in “That Look” gives it away because U.S. citizens would spell it “check.” With that one word, I know she is likely either British, Canadian, or Australian. But none of those are bad things. It does say that dialect plays an important role in style, tone, and versification. Play to those strengths.

Poetry is an art form. If you are serious about writing poetry and getting published then you should study the art and that includes learning how other poets write and why. If you are a hobbyist and just want to write what you write without considering publication then it doesn’t matter. You have to do what is best for you. In the end, it all comes down to what you want out of it and what you have to offer others.

I wish Stacey all the best. Thank you for letting me read your poetry and having the opportunity to discuss it on my blog. I hope my comments help you in some way. If you want to dig a little deeper into the elements of poetry, poetic style, and really learn how to write poetry with craft in mind then I recommend that you stop by World Class Poetry and read some famous poet biographies along with a few of their poems, learn more about the types of poetry, and don’t forget to check out the section on poetry terms to learn more about the different ways you can craft a poem as you write.

I recently reviewed a chapbook of poems titled Harpoon, written by lawyer Michael Cavendish. You can read the full review at World Class Poetry.

Right now I’d like to offer a critique of one of the poems in the chapbook, “The Poppies.” According to the Foreword, written by an anonymous endorser, “The Poppies” was written “as a form of lyrics accompanying the silent music of a show of paintings by the artist Tayloe White. This, I believe, places the poem in the category known as Ekphrastic.

First, I’d like to say it intrigued me that the art of Tayloe White inspired the poem, which is effectively organized into numerous sections. Just how many sections, I don’t know, for the entire poem is not printed. Only sections 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8, enumerated by Roman numerals, appear in the chapbook.

Harpoon is a rather short chapbook. It consists of seven poems. Four of them I like, “The Poppies” is one of them, and three of them I don’t. Even the ones I like have some imperfections. “The Poppies,” as I state in my review, is a fitting opening poem for Harpoon simply because of its craft.

I’m not going to reprint the whole poem, but I will take a few lines from each section and reprint one entire section, below:

The Poppies

II

From worm’d rooty tilldirt
Spilled with bloodcurdle
On greenlegs and razorfish’d leaves

…

III

…

Bulbous boned breakwind bred of
scorched butter and stale strawberry wine
magni-munificent, resplendent in breeches of

Lime and saltpeter veinings,
hemmed with sashes of rock fungi black
impetuous rude liver spot, this

…

V

Dahlia-O-Pidgin holds a summer kitchen
twain the snail track and grasshopper jetties

where spindle-foot suckers and short-legged-armored truckers
collapse down deep to feed pails of plenty

and bounteous and full-fare selections,
her raw preparations du jour

slurping dribbles of clear shelled crustaceans,
antennae whirled in boar-boor–ish rapture

Dahlia delights in their tankering fests
each scrap and shaving an earning

for her wintry strongbox-cum-underdirt chest
(afull and afilled and locked from the rest)
which rumbles with sparrowcock’s spring yearning.

VII

akimbo from the acorn fall
cicada beaks busy at labor
trim jademint wainscott and emerald upholster
and seaglass porte …

VIII

…

nameless fellows there toil unreclined
kerchiefs in waterstain, cheeks rough with seed
puffing hues of onecandy salt-crabapple mellow
look polychrome sunshower downpours to find.

Cavendish’s obvious strengths are his sensitivity to language and vision. “The Poppies” does a good job of setting its own music, but it does an equally good job of breaking its own rules. At times, the poem shines and in other places the shine turns pale as contrivances enter in and Cavendish has a tendency to over reliance on alliteration, though his near-rhyme is splendid.

The opening lines of the poem are a beautiful start. I like how he takes ordinary words and makes them extraordinary by combining unexpected nouns and buttressing some of his nouns together with their adjectives. His employment of assonance and consonance are great when not overdone, but the overdone parts are thick and muddy. He certainly has imagination and I give him credit for that. When he doesn’t overwrite, he is honest, creative, and playful. Those are refreshing qualities and the playfulness doesn’t get in the way of the poetry as is the case with former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, which is even better.

I like the Dahlia-O-Pidgin segment best, which is why I chose to reprint the entire section. Right off the bat he gives me action and beauty. A simple scene that I can visualize. The first line of the second stanza startles me with its length, but the internal rhyme brings me back to earth and the following line rings so musically that I want to kiss him. The lines that follow maintain the music, tone, and pace, but the long dash in the middle of “boorish,” done intentionally to draw attention to the back-to-back boar-boor, is so amateurish I’d like to turn my kiss into a kick. It murders the rapture, which is the perfect follow-up word. But Cavendish recovers from that mishap to take Dahlia to a sweet finish.

All in all, Cavendish writes well, but he is undeveloped. “The Poppies” is inventive and playful, and fits Tayloe White’s artwork well. Maybe too well.