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[novapsyche]

When I was in college, my friend vylar began a poetry group called Pretentious Crockpots, of which I was a member. One of the texts she often used as material for our informal workshop was The Practice of Poetry by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell. When I told her of my writer's block last year, she told me to get that book. By chance this week I saw it at Barnes & Noble. Some things fall in your lap just as you need them.

I've flipped through about half of the book. I'm excited, because I can use it as material for the poetry group I hope to start in a couple of months. In the meantime, I took three of the exercises and put pen to paper.

Write a ten-line poem. The poem must include a proverb, adage, or familiar phrase (examples: she's a brick house, between the devil and the deep blue sea, one foot in the grave, a stitch in time saves nine, don't count your chickens before they hatch, someday my prince will come, the whole nine yards, a needle in a haystack) that you have changed in some way, as well as five of the following words:

cliff               blackberry
needle              cloud
voice               mother
whir                lick

You have ten minutes.


The world is going to heaven
in a hairnet, a cloud-like to-do.
Beehive Babel, watch us march up
a mountain of sulfur tufts
toward the needle of light. It keeps retreating.
Listen for voices to follow
through the follicle fronds. Your mother's
off in your right ear. She'll keep
your feet on the curl going up.
Her chatter will keep you from the cliff.



Recall a brief incident from your own life that has for you a high degree of intensity. It can be a very fragmentary moement or scene and above all does not need to be a complete "story." Jot down notes, the more incoherent the better, that are only details from that incident. Do not generalize about its meaning. Try to pick details that give you its tone, its emotional core.

Now try to imagine and invent an incident that is not your own experience but is set in the same location as the scene above. Make the tone of this new incident contain a significant contrast to the previous one.

Write a narrative poem that combines or superimposes these two incidents using as many words and images you have accumulated as you can.


Foreshadow

At the bar I sit next to him,
young shock, beard scrag,
a tic in his cheek like a song.
Three sips of wine to go,
then stem's up, my fourth in a row.
The fight last night, the drink
for someone else's girl, is still
in the floor as crumbs of glass.
I notice when he touches my knee.
Sand-small, swept in an arc
by a careless broom. A parenthesis.



I'll put the next exercise in its own post.

Comments

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

1) "The world is going to heaven
in a hairnet ..."

Did you write this?

2) That sounds like a wonderful book. Maybe you could post prompts from it in poetryslamming or some such place?

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Yes, I actually wrote "The world is going to heaven/in a hairnet".

It is a very useful book, especially if you're suffering from writer's block! poetryslamming is getting chock full of stuff, but maybe it would be welcomed there. Or maybe even write_away.

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

The hairnet poem is *quite* lovely. You should send it out to magazines if you haven't yet.

As I mentioned to L / charisma just now, write_away seems to be dying down in that the last umpteen entries there gave garnered about five editorial comments. So maybe that book could help save it ... or maybe it would be better to find an lj more interested in critical feedback.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to think about "Hairnet". I was pretty much just playing around. I've used that prompt before; it's very worthwhile. I don't think I've ever used "whir", though.

Other than poetryslamming and heart_on, I don't think there are many other communities out there willing to give in-depth critique. And that's an indication as to how involved the members are.

[blankdrift.livejournal.com]

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

This is a good attempt for an amateur (I too am an amateur).

What I would suggest is that you concentrate on how your words might read to a reader, a third person. What do you want to tell this person?

A lot of people have the mistaken idea that poetry should or must be frilly. Actually, the great majority of poems, especially those written today, are quite down to earth. I would suggest making your poems logically consistent, at least in terms of syntax (the way your sentences read, which words follow which). For example, "Wrap entirety, gently through ease" doesn't quite make sense. Find out what you want to say, then say it.

If you can, sit down with a good anthology of poetry and see how others have handled the art.

Good luck!

[blankdrift.livejournal.com]