[lit-ideas] The Writing of Poetry
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:40:47 -0400
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and super ideas. I am so excited to
get started on my new career as a poet. I find that writing poetry is much
more difficult than writing about current events, and it's taken me some
thinking. But, I am pleased to say that I have, in fact, begun writing my
first poem, and I'm starting with the title. Are you ready? Over the Hedge.
What do you think? Over ? the ? Hedge. And it rhymes with so many things,
ledge, on the edge (get it? ledge, on the edge?). From there it?s a short leap
to fudge, pudge, which in turn flows right into foxes jumping over fences (note
the alliteration). Writing poetry is everything it's cracked up to be.
Actually, I think it's not for no reason that I was in the polar bear class,
back of the room no less. Writing poetry is a heck of an undertaking. I truly
did try to come up with some phrases as a springing off point and got a glimpse
into how much fun it has to be to manipulate words. In the little bit of
mulling around that I did, I realize that poetry is not an emotional experience
at all. It's very much a cerebral activity. Emotions are incompatible with
poetry except perhaps in the reading of it. Certainly not in the writing or
criticism of it. That might explain the high rates of mental disturbances in
poets, i.e., as a precondition for writing poetry, especially for someone?s
criticism, they must suppress, repress, depress, their emotions (the
professionals, and not all of them obviously). Especially the confessional
poets; it's as if they tease their emotions without actually feeling them. The
visual arts lend themselves better to emotional expression; there
is even such a thing as art therapy. Regarding Shakespeare, quite a bit is
actually known about him. He was a successful businessman as well as the
consummate observer and recorder of what he saw. I don't believe there is any
evidence that he was anything other than coldly sober in his writing, not a mad
bone in his body. Mozart was essentially a hack. He wrote on demand anything
and everything that was asked of him. It was a living, seriously.
I think madness is overrated. Far from romantic or artsy, I suspect it has no
redeeming value at all. Those who are truly mad cannot write poetry, virtually
by definition. Some, like Berryman or Adrienne Rich, might reach into their
hurting and put words to it without ever processing it (which is to say,
feeling it), the result being that they simply explode one day in self
destruction. Or, it's possible too that Berryman was following in his father?s
footsteps. Alternatively, they can cover up their hurting in machismo like
Hemingway (or the Islamists). Or, most of the time, people simply kill
themselves, like my next door neighbor, alone and without fanfare or poetry or
music or anything at all. I continue to think that what most people think of
as madness is simply emotional pain they don't know how to express or what to
do with, so they symbolize it or act it out in some way.
Thanks again for all your helpful and thought provoking suggestions. I will
see if I can play with words and come up with something, truly. I suspect the
talent is sorely lacking but it might be fun playing in spite of it. I'll
start with a heavy topic like, making the bed. Let?s see, over the hedge there
was a bedge, no, a badge, er, badger ?
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