someone else's wisdom
Feb. 14th, 2004 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheA year ago around this time, I was reading A Poetry of Two Minds by Sherod Santos, and The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux. Here's some of what stood out to me.
A Poetry of Two Minds
In discussing a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell once observed that poetry, the best poetry anyway, communicates by a kind of reticence, by something the poem doesn't say that a reader still manages to get (p. 2).
[Poets'] meanings are carried in the effects of their words and not in their concepts. And since words are less mutable than ideas, what endures in a poem is a privilege of its language (as pleasure, not signification), just as what endures in music is a privilege of its sounds (as pleasure, not signification) (p. 4).
[T]hat pre-reflective consciousness which serves as the wellspring of intuition, perception, and poetry. . . [is] not. . . that ghost-haunted storehouse we call the subconscious, but to that heightened wakefulness we call 'attention'. And in poetry, it seems, everything begins with attention, with that alertness which Walter Benjamin called 'the natural prayer of the soul' (p. 5).
[For Salinger,] the serious poet, in other words, is one whose attentions are tuned, not to the lone frequency of the self's vibrations, but to the myriad bands that gather to compose the elusive flux of life (p. 6).
Though it's one of poetry's universal charms to make each thoughtful reader feel a special self-enfolding grace, a secret power of exclusiveness--as if the words were written for our ears alone--poets read other poets. For the poet/reader those words may do more than simply touch the wellsprings of your inmost life; they may also contain (for such is the nature of self-interest) some message encoded just for you, some personal clue to the workings of this art (pp. 11-12).
Although the poem is the poet's creation--just as the dream is the dreamer's creation--it is also the repository for secrets of which the poet has no conscious knowledge. . . . [My] premise: the poem writes the poet (p. 44).
As true for Shelley as it was for Keats, the death of the self was prerequisite to the birth of the poet (p. 49).
[I]n apparent contradiction to that age-old advice handed out like gospel in our writing schools--'Write about what you know the best'--it would seem [better] to suggest a reasonable alternative: 'Write about what you know the least, about that which you find the most unthinkable.' As Heidegger explained it in a passage inspired by Rilke, only then are we caught in the draft of thinking, for 'what withdraws from us, draws us along by its very withdrawal.' And, 'whenever man is properly drawing that way, he is thinking--even though he may still be far away from what withdraws, even though the withdrawal may remain as veiled as ever' (p. 55).
The Poet's Companion
Good writing comes from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's (p. 21)
In developing your own figurative images, don't worry if your language is clumsy or confusing at first. Just have patience and keep digging (p. 101).
It's impossible to reproduce the nuances of the human voice on the page. That's why it's especially important to pay attention to the tools we do have, to become aware of the sounds of language and begin to work with them--both in your choice of words, and how you organize those words into lines that are meaningful--not only in what they say, but how they say it (p. 106).
In poetry, the term voice has been used to describe that sense of a unique presence on the page--an unmistakable something that becomes the mark of a writer, a way of saying things that is the writer's own. This is usually what developing writers mean when they say they are trying to find their voice; some would argue that it wasn't lost to begin with, that we all have a voice already. But either way, this idea of a recognizable voice is an important one for writers (p. 115).
In actual speech, we don't choose our voice. We grow up inheriting speech patterns and physical structures that largely determine how we sound. In poetry, we may write with a voice that is also determined by things beyond our control--an innate sense of language, early education, and previous exposure to other writers. But just as someone might go to a speech therapist to rid himself of a stutter, or erase a particular accent, writers can develop their voice so that it becomes a more flexible instrument to articulate their concerns. Style is really interchangeable with voice, in this sense, and it's useful to remember that style in a writer is revealed by the characteristic choices a writer makes (p. 116).
Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time you sit down to writer, or the next, but little by little, as you become aware of more choices and begin to make them--consciously and unconsciously--your style will develop (p. 116).
Is your own subject matter too narrow or too broad? What are your subjects? Are you exploring the material you feel compelled to tackle? Are there new subjects for poems that you haven't considered? Asking these questions of your work may lead you to new and deeper material (p. 119).
Know your own work. Being aware of your stylistic strengths and weaknesses will not only help you to grow, but will help you to deal with criticism from others. Everyone has certain things they can do well, and other areas that need work (p. 121).
Mystery, creativity, inspiration--these are the words that come to mind when we think about certain aspects of poetry that are separate from craft. These are things that can't necessarily be taught, or learned. What we can do is try and access that source from which they spring, to circumvent or suspend the logical, linear mind with its need to control and understand everything (p. 130).
Richard Tillinghast, in an essay titled "Notes on Revision," says, 'The willingness, the ardent desire even, to revise, separates the poet from the person who sees poetry as therapy or self-expression' (p. 186).
If you consider what you've written in the early stages as pointing toward the true poem, rather than being the poem itself, it will be easier for you to be open to what still needs to happen for it to succeed (p. 187).
As poets, we must know what our boundaries are, even if only to break through them. If we expect to be believed, we need to know what we believe and then question, without mercy, those very beliefs (p. 243).
A Poetry of Two Minds
In discussing a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell once observed that poetry, the best poetry anyway, communicates by a kind of reticence, by something the poem doesn't say that a reader still manages to get (p. 2).
[Poets'] meanings are carried in the effects of their words and not in their concepts. And since words are less mutable than ideas, what endures in a poem is a privilege of its language (as pleasure, not signification), just as what endures in music is a privilege of its sounds (as pleasure, not signification) (p. 4).
[T]hat pre-reflective consciousness which serves as the wellspring of intuition, perception, and poetry. . . [is] not. . . that ghost-haunted storehouse we call the subconscious, but to that heightened wakefulness we call 'attention'. And in poetry, it seems, everything begins with attention, with that alertness which Walter Benjamin called 'the natural prayer of the soul' (p. 5).
[For Salinger,] the serious poet, in other words, is one whose attentions are tuned, not to the lone frequency of the self's vibrations, but to the myriad bands that gather to compose the elusive flux of life (p. 6).
Though it's one of poetry's universal charms to make each thoughtful reader feel a special self-enfolding grace, a secret power of exclusiveness--as if the words were written for our ears alone--poets read other poets. For the poet/reader those words may do more than simply touch the wellsprings of your inmost life; they may also contain (for such is the nature of self-interest) some message encoded just for you, some personal clue to the workings of this art (pp. 11-12).
Although the poem is the poet's creation--just as the dream is the dreamer's creation--it is also the repository for secrets of which the poet has no conscious knowledge. . . . [My] premise: the poem writes the poet (p. 44).
As true for Shelley as it was for Keats, the death of the self was prerequisite to the birth of the poet (p. 49).
[I]n apparent contradiction to that age-old advice handed out like gospel in our writing schools--'Write about what you know the best'--it would seem [better] to suggest a reasonable alternative: 'Write about what you know the least, about that which you find the most unthinkable.' As Heidegger explained it in a passage inspired by Rilke, only then are we caught in the draft of thinking, for 'what withdraws from us, draws us along by its very withdrawal.' And, 'whenever man is properly drawing that way, he is thinking--even though he may still be far away from what withdraws, even though the withdrawal may remain as veiled as ever' (p. 55).
The Poet's Companion
Good writing comes from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's (p. 21)
In developing your own figurative images, don't worry if your language is clumsy or confusing at first. Just have patience and keep digging (p. 101).
It's impossible to reproduce the nuances of the human voice on the page. That's why it's especially important to pay attention to the tools we do have, to become aware of the sounds of language and begin to work with them--both in your choice of words, and how you organize those words into lines that are meaningful--not only in what they say, but how they say it (p. 106).
In poetry, the term voice has been used to describe that sense of a unique presence on the page--an unmistakable something that becomes the mark of a writer, a way of saying things that is the writer's own. This is usually what developing writers mean when they say they are trying to find their voice; some would argue that it wasn't lost to begin with, that we all have a voice already. But either way, this idea of a recognizable voice is an important one for writers (p. 115).
In actual speech, we don't choose our voice. We grow up inheriting speech patterns and physical structures that largely determine how we sound. In poetry, we may write with a voice that is also determined by things beyond our control--an innate sense of language, early education, and previous exposure to other writers. But just as someone might go to a speech therapist to rid himself of a stutter, or erase a particular accent, writers can develop their voice so that it becomes a more flexible instrument to articulate their concerns. Style is really interchangeable with voice, in this sense, and it's useful to remember that style in a writer is revealed by the characteristic choices a writer makes (p. 116).
Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time you sit down to writer, or the next, but little by little, as you become aware of more choices and begin to make them--consciously and unconsciously--your style will develop (p. 116).
Is your own subject matter too narrow or too broad? What are your subjects? Are you exploring the material you feel compelled to tackle? Are there new subjects for poems that you haven't considered? Asking these questions of your work may lead you to new and deeper material (p. 119).
Know your own work. Being aware of your stylistic strengths and weaknesses will not only help you to grow, but will help you to deal with criticism from others. Everyone has certain things they can do well, and other areas that need work (p. 121).
Mystery, creativity, inspiration--these are the words that come to mind when we think about certain aspects of poetry that are separate from craft. These are things that can't necessarily be taught, or learned. What we can do is try and access that source from which they spring, to circumvent or suspend the logical, linear mind with its need to control and understand everything (p. 130).
Richard Tillinghast, in an essay titled "Notes on Revision," says, 'The willingness, the ardent desire even, to revise, separates the poet from the person who sees poetry as therapy or self-expression' (p. 186).
If you consider what you've written in the early stages as pointing toward the true poem, rather than being the poem itself, it will be easier for you to be open to what still needs to happen for it to succeed (p. 187).
As poets, we must know what our boundaries are, even if only to break through them. If we expect to be believed, we need to know what we believe and then question, without mercy, those very beliefs (p. 243).