[lit-ideas] How To Write A Poem.
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:40:02 -0500
At first I thought I'd leave the body of the message blank. Good joke, eh?
Ha, ha!
"Then I thought of a better thing."
That's one of my favorite lines from Merwin ("Departure's Girlfriend").
I've repeated that line to myself almost as often as I've prayed the Hail
Mary. I've never actually brought to cognitive fruition the thought of that
"better thing", but I believe it's out there. "Then I thought of a better
thing." It's my hope, my faith, my conviction.
But so little of living seems connected with thought. Elvis never sang: "I
think you, I apprehend you you, I perceive you with all my brain." Ach! (as
Erin would say -- maybe even underwater she would say that. What's with
this underwater thing anyway? It took life 3 billion years of evolution to
climb out of the sea, and what is the first thing she wants to do? Go back
in! -- insane, I tell you, insane. or atavistic -- yes, atavistic! I get to
use that word so little that I'm not really sure what it means anymore).
So let's get back to the how of poetry writing. Lesson 1: steal. A dear
friend of mine in college, a very talented writer who converted his talent
for writing into a talent for courting rich women -- and successfully!. He
would jot down poems like throwing bread crumbs to pigeons, poems that had
none of the club-footed emotional proclamations that I practiced, rather
they were imagistic gems, some stolen from Joyce, some from Faulkner, some
from Baudelaire. At least he was creative enough to mix them originally.
At the time I didn't realize his plagiarisms, I thought he was brilliant.
So did a bunch of rich women in Memphis and even Nashville. Their husbands
weren't so impressed with my friend, but neither were their wives so much
impressed with their husbands anymore either. Anyway, he ended up marrying
very rich and gave up the facade of sensitive soul to manage her properties
as only a poet can.
Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how to write a poem. Then I had a
better thought -- write a play! Then I had a better thought -- teach high
school. Then I had a better thought -- learn air conditioning. Then I had
a better thought -- have kids, have grandkids. Then I had a better thought
-- write a novel. Damn they're long!!! So then I had a better thought --
write a poem. Here 'tis.
THE DROUGHT
Second year of drought,
fields of dust,
dry creek bed,
pond all but gone.
Awakened in the dawn,
come see! come see!
Looking out the window
at all that brown ground world
all the way down to the pond,
there at the edge of a small
pool of brown water,
a crane of some kind,
standing on one leg,
a crane,
doubly pink in the pink dawn,
a flamingo?
O visitor, O victor, O victim,
praise you.
Praise all being.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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