From the category archives:

Not Fiction

A Curious Incident

March 1, 2010

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

Scotland Yard Detective Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes” “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

This scene from the Sherlock Holmes story, “Silver Blaze,” was inspiration for the title of a 2003 Mark Haddon novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Those of us who loved it were further treated by his 2006 book of poetry, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village under the Sea: Poems. Here he reminds us that poets are fallible and the possibility of genuine nonsense cannot be ruled out. He also warns aspirants that there is no money in it. Or, is there?

Prompted by a curious incident, this month I offer The Case of the Two Hundred Million Dollar Gift.

The curious incident occurred in 2002 when Ruth Lilly, the last surviving grandchild of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, gave Poetry magazine a stock pledge that, over time, turned out to be worth two hundred million dollars. Well, she did not personally give ‘em the money. She was, by then, in a mostly vegetative state and this was all handled by guardian nieces and nephews. The fact is that poor Ruth had spent much of her life in mental institutions. And, apparently, for many years she had submitted many poems to Poetry –– none were ever accepted, but rejection letters were encouraging. [The magazine, which publishes about 300 poems a year, is now up to 90,000 submissions per annum.]

In 1981, Ruth’s brother put her fortune into guardianship when she was no longer capable of managing her own affairs. Sad to say that much of her life she was afflicted by clinical depression. In one of those twists of fate, subsequently her mind and mood reportedly improved somewhat when she was put on a new drug developed by the Lilly Company that went by the name of, what was it now? Oh, Prozac.

At the time of this gift, Poetry had an annual budget of $500,000, a staff of four, and circulation of 12,000 copies. When this gift was made, there were sniffs of something curious. Okay, I’m no tax lawyer. But, it seems that Ms. Lilly had made several wills and her guardians, making use of a state probate provision, chose to execute what seemed to them to be the simplest one, one made in 1982 when, by the way, the stock was not worth nearly this gargantuan amount.

When the big gift was made, the magazine editors of twenty years, Joseph Parisi, took interim charge of what would become the Poetry Foundation, and a young poet, Christian Wiman, became editor, a position he still holds. John W. Barr, Wall Street businessman, also a poet, was brought in be president of the Foundation and, in a few months, Parisi was “up and out.” Soon more than half the twelve trustees resigned or said they were forced out.

The death of Ms. Lilly on December 30, 2009, brought new attention to the Poetry Foundation and its immense wealth. One never thought that poetry could inspire this tabloid-like headline in The Chicago Tribune:

A Poetic Clash over Millions in Cash

It rhymes. It scans. Doncha luv it?

And its news lead:

$200 million gift leaves Chicago’s Poetry magazine potentially the better for verse, but torn asunder over the wisest way for the national publication to spend the spoils.

Consonance! Assonance! Alliteration!

Way to go, Ron Grossman, Trib reporter.

There is nothing, of course, to hide. The Poetry Foundation pays out $2 million per year for a staff of 20 and plans are under way to build a $25 million headquarters on Chicago’s Gold Coast overlooking Lake Michigan to house the journal and provide a venue for poetry recitals and lodging for visiting speakers. Oh, and the magazine’s subscription base is now 30,000, a 2.5 fold increase.

A few days before their benefactor passed away, Foundation President Barr had sent out a letter on their website (the website, critics point out, cost $1,000,000 to put up) in which he offered an update five years into their “plan for putting Ruth Lilly’s momentous gift to work for the benefit of poetry.” Their goal, which he reported is being achieved with great success, has been “to help poetry regain a more visible and central presence in our culture.”

Barr offers up what sounds to me like false humility: “Many years from now… my first hope will be that the course of the river of American poetry will have been altered by a few degrees –– or maybe more –– by the Poetry Foundation.” What Richard Howard at Columbia hears is willful boasting: “They want to change poetry –– poetry changes itself. You can’t make poetry do something.” Ah, yes? How many mega-millionaire poetry moguls does it take to change a light bulb?” Only one, but first…

As of this posting, the Illinois Attorney General has staff looking into ex-trustees’ concerns over fiscal practices, conflicts of interest, and nepotism. Now, there may be something there, or not. And, isn’t nepotism okay so long as you kept in the family? [John Barr's wife, not a poet, was paid $23,000 to set up a poetry contest.] Of course, the love of money is the root of all evil, so the Bible says. Will be back with more if something new develops. Right now I haven’t a clue.

Meanwhile, in contrast to the light tone of this month’s piece, I do want to say that Ruth Lilly, though a troubled woman, was a generous human being who gave away a lot of money to support hospitals, colleges & universities, and the Arts. Thank you, Ruth Lilly, amicus poeticae. Yes, she truly was a friend of Poetry, not just the journal, but Poetry qua Poetry.

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Child’s Play

February 1, 2010

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

Last month, this feature got a comment from Charles Ghigna, known as Father Goose. Since then I learned how to pronounce his name: with a hard G, Geen-ya. I also visited the two blogs he posted. On charlesghigna.blogspot.com I found a new poem each week for teachers, librarians, parents, and kids. On bald-ego.blogspot.com I found quips and quote for authors and arists. On his inaurgural page, December 9, 2009, he wrote: “Be Mused”

The art and craft of poetry
Are not so far apart;
The craft comes from the cunning,
The rest comes from the heart.

A former high school teacher, Ghigna has made a career writing and reading poetry for children: “My office is in the attic. I call it my ‘tree house.’ When I look out the window I see the tops of trees: elm, oak, pine, hackberry and sweet gum. My writing desk faces out that window. I have been writing poems here in my tree house for more than 30 years.”

I don’t know if he will be the next Childrens Poet Laureate, but it would not surprise me. Childrens Poet Laureate? When I first heard of it, I thought of a 1975 skit from Saturday Night Live where Laraine Newman plays a child psychiatrist. Yes, she is a child and a board-certified psychiatrist.

In 2006, childrens poetry got a little respect when the Poetry Foundation established a $25,000 prize and a two-year post, Childrens Poet Laureate, with hopes to raise awareness that children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are an appreciative audience, though their first choice admitted that he once hated poetry. The first Childrens Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky, says that his elementary school teacher gave him the impression that “poetry was the literary equivalent of chopped liver.” Hmmm… I admit that I like chopped liver on a slice of crusty pumpernickel. Plus, let me put in a plug for the legion of teachers who bring poetry alive in the school classroom.

Now, you may not believe me, but after writing this intro, I went to Jack’s website jackprelutsky.com and there is his excerpt from “Bleezer’s Ice Cream”

Butter Brickle Pepper Pickle
Pomegranate Pumpernickel
Peach Pimento Pizza Plum
Peanut Pumpkin Bubblegum

The second Children Poet Laureate, chosen in 2008, is Mary Ann Hoberman. She has spent a lifetime teaching writing and literature to children and adults, but since her first book was published in 1957, All My Shoes Come in Two’s, her profession has been to write poetry for children. Her website, like Jack’s, offers much to delight maryannhoberman.com.

In making this appointment, the Poetry Foundation noted that she is “a consummate channeler of children’s sensibilities.” What I loved about this choice is that Hoberman reminds us that children’s poetry need not be funny and may even handle subjects that parents are terrified to introduce to their children, such as death. All of us in the Getting Something Read family are dealing with the sudden loss of our senior editor, Cleo George. Gone? How can that be? In “Mayfly,” Hoberman shows the reader the life of this insect as it unfolds in only one day. She concludes:

The daylight dies and darkness grows
A single day
How fast it flies
A mayfly’s life
How fast it goes.

Her poem gives me cause to pause — as the Poetry Foundation promises: “The grace and taste and wit of a good children’s poem can provide a genuine frisson for those of us over 10.” I was delighted with her selection, and, of course, so was Mary: “During this time I will be doing what I’ve been doing for over fifty years, but more so and with a much wider forum! As I see it, my mission is to spread the delight of children’s poetry and poetry in general, to be a sort of Pied Piper for children’s poetry.”

In additon to the honor and cash, the Childrens Poet Laureate gets a secret decoder ring. No, only kidding. But, there is a medallion with the inscription taken from Emily Dickinson: “Permit a child to join.” I profess my belief that poetry written for any age should be an invitation. I abhor contemp(t) poetry that makes an offer I can’t understand. Whether it is the Godfather or Father Goose, no need to dumb it down for me. Just, do not dumbfound me. As promised by an “invitational” poet, Kenneth Koch, “When you first read a good poet’s work, it’s like meeting a strange and interesting friend. Discovering a new friend — or a new kind of poetry — is like is a pleasure.” And, make a note: I’ve got two bucks on Ghigna to win, place, and show: Childrens Poet Laureate in 2010.

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American Life in Poetry

January 25, 2010

By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006

Animals are incapable of reason, or so we’ve been told, but we imaginative humans keep talking to our dogs and cats as if they could do algebra. In this poem, Ann Struthers looks into the mystery of instinctive behavior.

Not Knowing Why

Adolescent white pelicans squawk, rustle, flap their wings,
lift off in a ragged spiral at imaginary danger.
What danger on this island in the middle
of Marble Lake? They’re off to feel
the lift of wind under their iridescent wings,
because they were born to fly,
because they have nothing else to do,
because wind and water are their elements,
their Bach, their Homer, Shakespeare,
and Spielberg. They wheel over the lake,
the little farms, the tourist village with their camera eyes.

In autumn something urges
them toward Texas marshes. They follow
their appetites and instincts, unlike the small beetles
creeping along geometric roads, going toward small boxes,
toward lives as narrow or as wide as the pond,
as glistening or as gray as the sky.
They do not know why. They fly, they fly.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Ann Struthers, whose most recent book of poems is What You Try to Tame, The Coe Review Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from the Coe Review, Vol. 39, no. 1, Fall 2008, by permission of Ann Struthers and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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I’ve Been to the Mountaintop

January 18, 2010

Excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The full text of this speech can be read here.

…  something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there.

•••

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but “fear itself.” But I wouldn’t stop there.

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, “If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.”

Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.

Something is happening in our world.

•••

Now we’re going to march again, and we’ve got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be — and force everybody to see … God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That’s the issue. And we’ve got to say to the nation: We know how it’s coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

•••

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.

•••

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.

And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

© The Estate of Martin Luther King Jr.

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NY Times Op. Ed. – The Underlying Tragedy

January 16, 2010

The Underlying Tragedy
By David Brooks
Published: January 15, 2010

“The devastation from the earthquake in Haiti should be used as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty.”

Excerpt from the NYT: This week, a major earthquake … measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. Continue to article…

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Help for Haiti

January 15, 2010

(Via TidBITS.)

Tech-Based Help for Haiti, by Doug McLean

It’s difficult to wrap one’s mind around the horrific damage caused by Haiti’s recent earthquake, …

AT&T — AT&T cell phone users – including nearly all U.S. iPhone users – can make $10 donations to the Red Cross International Relief Fund simply by sending a text message. To donate…. continue reading this article on TidBITS.

The article includes details for donating using other mobile carries and lists other links that have been set up for this purpose.

01/16/10 Apple has added an iTunes link to help Haiti’s earthquake victims. Donations will go to the American Red Cross relief efforts.

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Laugh, Laugh, I Made You Cry

January 1, 2010

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

Last month I got one of those “end of the year” bonus checks –– no, nothing like what Wall Street investment bankers get –– but a hearty response to the December 1 Poetry Prof piece on whether or not haiku was poetry. One of the readers who posted a comment, AgSynclair, also sent a personal email and encouraged me to write about senryu, the variation of haiku that focuses on people rather than nature. Senryu is not always intended to be humorous, but often is. So, how about this? This month let’s talk about humor in poetry, specifically in short form.

First, a brief word about senryu. Again, not always mean to be “ha-ha” funny, it does capture what I think of as the comedy of life: our misfortunes, hardships, and woes that beckon us to laugh to keep from crying. I may not yet have a knack for it, but how about this one I wrote last week after this guy cut me off in traffic:

Toyota Tundra driver
flicking his cigarette
his “Breathe Fresh” bumper sticker

I read a lot of senryu –– that’s the best way to learn how to write it, eh? Much of it brings a half-smile, but never an out-loud laugh. And, this I have noted. When the haiku form is used for humor, I see some in the haiku community sneer –– and, yes, sometimes I can hear a “growl.” As for me, I love it. One old college pal, when he heard that I wrote haiku, sent me to this link for “Haiku Error Messages”: http://strangeplaces.net/weirdthings/haiku.html

I found these LOL. Just for instance…

First snow, then silence
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.

Okay, not everyone is into techie humor, but for the lit-crit crowd, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last year held a Hamlet-Themed Haiku Contest. One of the top vote getters:

To be? Not to be?
Who cares! Am I fat in tights?
That is the question.

Humor, of course, is our earliest introduction to poetry. It is there at the beginning with a gurgle and giggle. The earliest poem I learned (maybe yours too) was, “Hickory, dickory, dock, a mouse ran up the clock. . . . ” This magical bit of verse has been introducing children to rhyme and meter since it was published in 1744. And, you know what? It is a limerick. Ah, the limerick. “There once was a man from Nantucket…” Okay, we can stop there. But, wait a sec. Here is a version I can print:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

The limerick flows so smoothly you might never have paid attention to it structure. So, just to set the record: the 1st, 2nd, and 5th lines rhyme and have the same number of syllables, usually eight or nine. The 3rd and 4th also rhyme and have the same syllable count, typically five or six. Ogden Nash wrote mostly humorous verse and was a master of the limerick, for example,

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

On the other hand, a more serious poet, Conrad Aiken, also wrote limericks, including this one about itself!

The limerick’s, admitted, a verse form:
a terse form: a curse form: a hearse form.
It may not be lyric.
and at best it’s Satyric,
and a whale of a tail in perverse form.

One of my favorite poets of short humor was David McCord and I always have been fond of his “Waiter’s Epitaph,”

By and by
God caught his eye.

A short poem, yes. How about an even shorter one by Anonymous? “Fleas,”

Adam
Had em.

An even shorter one? One word title. One word text.

“I”
Why?

Its author, Charles Ghinga was known as “Father Goose,” and also wrote a large body of work for adults. I find it funny, though Christopher McTeague, a writer and book collector of some renown, commented that, “Along with its title, the poem creates a haunting, understated little couplet that continues to beg the most poignant, timeless, rhetorical question of our existence.”

There are many brands of humor poetry. One in growing popularity is cowboy poetry. We just attended the Monterey Music & Poetry Festival and loved the humorous verse served up by Doris Daley who had just won the 2009 Western Music Association Best Female Cowboy Poet of the Year and Best Cowboy Poetry CD of the year [http://www.dorisdaley.com/]. Just to share a taste, here is the last couplet in her “The Awards Show” poem in which she demonstrates the self-effacing nature of this genre.

He’s the Poet of the Year –– you can’t pile it on too deep
Cause for sure he has the outfit – and best of all –– he works for cheap.

Last month, we dove into the deep end of the pool, asking, “Is haiku poetry?” One could say, “Of course,” meaning that it is a poetical form. Those who say, “No,” fall into two camps: those who, perhaps due to its brevity, see it as less than a “real” or “regular” poem and those who, precisely because of its concision, view it as a more difficult, and, hence, higher art.

This month, though we wade in shallow water, humorous verse also invites definitional divides. Is “light verse,” with rhyme and meter, charming, not really poetry? In eye of the beholder, yes? What is doggerel for one reader is transcendent to another. As our editors here at Getting Something Read declaim, Readers Rule. The last word goes to David McCord. God caught his eye on April 13, 1997 (born December 15, 1897): “But if humor and wit are treacherous and volatile goods, they are issued in no standard package.” I will add this: tears are easy; it takes a brave poet to be a clown.

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American Life in Poetry

December 14, 2009

By Ted Kooser, U.s. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006

Family photographs, how much they do capture in all their elbow-to-elbow awkwardness. In this poem, Ben Vogt of Nebraska describes a color snapshot of a Christmas dinner, the family, impatient to tuck in, arrayed along the laden table. I especially like the description of the turkey.

Grandpa Vogt’s—1959

The food is on the table. Turkey tanned
to a cowboy boot luster, potatoes mashed
and mounded in a bowl whose lip is lined
with blue flowers linked by grey vines faded
from washing. Everyone’s heads have turned
to elongate the table’s view—a last supper twisted
toward a horizon where the Christmas tree, crowned
by a window, sets into itself half inclined.
Each belly cries. Each pair of eyes admonished
by Aunt Photographer. Look up. You’re wined
and dined for the older folks who’ve pined
to see your faces, your lives, lightly framed
in this moment’s flash. Parents are moved,
press their children’s heads up from the table,
hide their hunger by rubbing lightly wrinkled
hands atop their laps. They’ll hold the image
as long as need be, seconds away from grace.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Benjamin Vogt, whose most recent book of poems is Indelible Marks, Pudding House Press, 2004. Reprinted by permission of Benjamin Vogt. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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Poetry or Not

December 1, 2009

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

“My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.” Twelfth Night,  Act II, Scene 3

Olivia’s servant, Maria, plots to humilate Malvolio by forging a love letter to him from Olivia. That may be where we get the saying, “That is a horse of another color,” to mean that one thing is another matter. In my October 1 Poetry Prof, I agreed with the belief that vis-a-vis prose,  poetry is a horse of another color; it is not just another way to use language, it is another language. I agree with Mary Schmirch, who wrote in the September 2009 issue of Poetry, “Poetry is not just another way of writing, it’s a way of thinking.”

This month I am asking whether haiku is or is not poetry.

This was prompted by a poet-pal last month, who, when I told her I had gotten an acceptance, asked, “Was that for a regular poem or one of your haiku?” I took a long, deep breath and told her it was for a “regular” poem and added that some haiku purists would say that haiku was not regular poetry –– in fact, it was superior.

A little background: Beginning with Imagist poets Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell among others, 20th century Western poets became intrigued with the three-line concision of haiku and its focus on concrete rather than abstract thinking. Today there is a worldwide haiku community and, within it, there is a strong voice in favor of citing haiku as not poetry, but its own thing. For example, haiku teacher David Coomler tells students, “Do not think of it as poetry… It is just too different from what we ordinarily think of as poetry.” On the other hand, the Haiku Society of America does not divorce haiku from poetry: “Haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience or nature of the season intuitively linked to the human condition.”

What the “is not ” and the “is too” camps do agree upon is the tradition of a two-line phrase and a one-line fragment structure. We will leave for another day whether the editor of Bear Creek Haiku was wise to publish my submission (the editor of another journal refuses to review two-line haiku):

still

still

I submit for your consideration a Declaration! Our inalienable rights include Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Haiku… but haiku as you define it. Consider:

1. On one hand, do you find it not limiting, but liberating, to write haiku only in its own season? Since it is now autumn, the haiku purist writes only autumnal haiku. This “not poetry” camp embraces haiku as “making a living” that is enhanced when you live in the season. This means not living in past –– writing now about last summer –– or looking ahead and writing about next winter. Poets writing in Western forms feel no such constriction, and writing haiku you might not either. If haiku is poetry, then you are free to live in any time zone.

2. So, on the other hand, do you embrace “poetic license” and feel free to make things up? In my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the a-definition of license is “permission granted by a competent authority.” The b-defintion is “a document, plate, or tag evidencing of a license granted.” [note: my personalized auto plate, PG POET, is in a customized frame inscribed "Poetic License"]. You might give yourself permission to make up images for your haiku. But, beware. Should you submit your work to a haiku journal, you should know that some editors in the “not poetry” camp have a nose for what is made up and will reject it. They are looking at the c-definition in my dictionary: “freedom that is used irresponsibly.”

If you choose to write haiku only in its season and convey only what you actually experience, then haiku is not just another form of poetry — it is a horse of another color. May I offer a way out of this “one or the other” dilemma?

Could we agree that haiku is not, not poetry?

How can I have it both ways? Well consider this link. In writing a haiku, the challenge is to find two things that do not go together, yet do go together. I am suggesting that the same can be said of haiku. It is and is not poetry. Why do I embrace this “less filling” and “more taste” notion of simultuneity?

• I do like the notion of haiku as its own way of life. As an idealist, I see that haiku could be a gateway into living in the present and experiencing in each season the deep emotions that recycle each year and shadow the stages of my life. Yet, as a pragmatist, I welcome the license to make things up, as in my haiku published in Ink, Sweat, & Tears.

snow in July

rare as unicorn

alone on a beach

• And, I do like the notion that haiku is part of the rich imaginative traditon of saying what cannot be said in prose. Listen to what Stanley Plumly said of lyric poetry in the November-December 2009 American Poetry Review:

… spacing is as important as timing; piecing as valuable as joining. This is as vital to the tripartite structure of haiku as to the stationing and development of a sonnet.

Ah–– the sonnet’s last two-line envoi like the fragment rejoiner to the haiku’s phrase! Well, couldn’t we re-write and reverse Plumly?

… spacing and timing, piecing and joining … as vital to the sonnet as to haiku…

Well, that is it this month.

I am the eggman. They are the eggmen. I am the walrus.

__________

p.s. Jane Campion’s Keats bio-flic, Bright Star, is simply awful. But, Stanley Plumly’s Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography is cinematic splendor in prose.

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What is a good poem?

November 1, 2009

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

Last month I professed the belief that it is good to read bad poems in order to learn how to write good ones. Journal editors are less patient out of necessity. The late John Ciardi, when editing poetry for The Saturday Review, said he knew in one line when a submission was not good enough for his magazine. David Wagoner at Northwest Review said that his agony was not over until the third line. How do the rest of us, who perhaps have more time and gut it out until the last syllable, decide when a poem is good or not?

Every year since 1988, guest editors for the Scribner Poetry Series pick the best 75 poems of the year. The aforementioned Mr. Wagoner just edited the 2009 edition. In his Introduction, he admitted that he could have chosen a different set of 75 poems and they would have been just as good [The Best American Poetry 2009]. Since this series, year in, year out, identifies “the best,” it follows then that there must be “the good” and “the better.”

So, who can say what makes a good poem?

Dare me. Double dare me.

I can.

Here goes.

Yes, I am presumptuous. No apology. All writing is a presumption. One puts pen to paper, or nowadays, perhaps opens a WordPerfect document, with the presumption of having something to say worth reading. The one exception I can think of is the diary. So, when it comes to poetry, what is worth people’s time to read (other than reading bad ones to learn what not to do if you presume to write poetry)? I believe that “worthies” make good on two intentions fulfilled.

Intention #1:

The poet has written words that, when heard, offer a bonus over what is read silently. Moving your lips does not count. Speechwriters and lyricists share this intention, of course. I might add that the type of poetry we call lyric poetry has its origins in the human voice accompanied by stringed instrument, the lyre. My point here is that a good poem is one worth listening to. If listening to a poem adds nothing to the written word, then it is not a good poem. Poets have many tools available to making sound add value to the poem. Not my topic here and not my intention to repeat the “how to” available in textbook form.

This criterion excludes what is called “concrete” poetry when the typographical arrangement of words is more important than its meaning, never mind its sound. Of course, how a poem “looks” can add to its “goodness,” as is the case with 17th century poet’s George Herbert’s, “Easter Wings,” a poem that sounds and looks good, as well as one that speaks to me. This leads us to my second criterion.

Intention #2:

A good poem is written to one individual at a time. That is so, of course, with personal correspondence, for example a letter sent to a friend. But a good poem is one written to readers one at a time –– of course, as poet I hope that many individuals read my poem. Even with what we call the “occasional” poem written for a special event such as a birthday, wedding, or funeral, the poet can write a really good one by thinking of the audience as a collection of individuals and aiming at each one at a time.

A good poem, then, is the most intimate of writing. It is one heart speaking to another. Dare I call it a “heart to heart” conversation? I speak to you and imagine how you might respond. The reader, of course, gets the last word. If you read a poem and cannot “hear’” this conversation, it is not a good poem.

Let’s hear from two readers:

1. Stanley Kunitz: Ur Reader

Ur Reader? Mr. Kunitz was a good –– a very good –– poet. He also wrote movingly about reading poetry. Kunitz, who made it to the century mark, at age 95 recalled reading the Gerard Stanley Hopkins poem, “God’s Grandeur,” 70 years earlier. “I knew he was speaking directly to me and giving me a hint of the kind of poetry that I would be dedicated to for the rest of my life.”

2. Me: Common Reader

Common Reader? Well, as a poet, I write for what I call the “common reader,” of which I consider myself one. Before I began reading poems (good and bad ones) to learn how write poems, I read poetry on a regular basis for pleasure without benefit of an M.F.A. Dip and dive into Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. No, I am not related to him. Oh, if only I were. In 1855, he opens Leaves of Grass, in the first person: “I celebrate myself and what I assume you shall assume.” Six editions and 37 years later he concludes, “Good-Bye my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love.” He wrote and spoke to me and to you and you and you.

Whitman speaks to Everyone and to Anyone successfully because we do not feel he is shouting to a crowd; he is talking to me and also to you, but to each of us personally. I can see his beckoning hand:

Come closer to me… and take the best I possess…
Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess…

Last year, the editors of Getting Something Read sent me a ball cap with the logo Readers Rule. You rule. And, you can post here your own rules. I dare you. I doube dare you.

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