Notes on Writing (Good Enough) Poetry During Hard Times

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NOTES ON WRITING (GOOD ENOUGH) POETRY DURING HARD TIMES

Wellness meditate https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/mindful-meditations take breaks walk https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/awe-walks-inspire-more-joy-less- distress https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/walking-helps-us-think sleep spend mornings offline

Readiness give myself space give others space read daily (a poem, 2, 3) read Lucille Clifton, Joy Harjo, Emily Dickinson give people poems by all of the above read historical accounts of hard times (or don't) learn about poetic forms and traditions* carry notebook and pen (always) observe daily memorize a poem (maybe) turn off distractions plan writing time steal writing time

Practice turn off distractions write as regularly as possible pilfer drafts try exercises Kim Addonizio's* CA Conrad's: www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/148156/poetry-rituals Bernadette Mayer's: www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html try ekphrasis* try constrained writing blackout: arapahoelibraries.org/blogs/post/how-to-blackout-poetry www.thehistoryofblackoutpoetry.org/austin-kleon

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beautiful in-law: www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-8-beautiful-inlaw-beau-present try "new-to-me" fixed forms (attached "learn about poetic forms and traditions") * try a nonce form* try word banks track and imitate a poem's moves* try a new approach* try a new writing place let subject matter tend to itself attend writing group (accountability) limit audience (supportive only) lower the bar ("good enough") try shorter poems try longer sequences try collage try humor https://poets.org/text/serious-art-thats-funny-humor-poetry stop while I feel good

* attached

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EXERCISES: KIM ADDONIZIO from Ordinary Genius

(33-34) "Allen Ginsberg, inspired by the traditional Japanese haiku—three lines of five, seven, and five syllables—invented the 'American Sentence,' one sentence of seventeen syllables. ... Here are some American sentences written by my students: Marylou walks around her block with a greyhound and a cigarette. —Amy Hoffman This world and all the creatures in it are on fire and some of you know it. —Nion McEvoy My boyfriend's stereo equipment creeps across our living room floor. —Kathleen Boyle Once you pulled a towel over my head and told me all your secrets. —Lauren Peck What's key here is the moment sharply observed, a brief 'aha!' of pleasure or recognition or awareness. Begin with whatever is in your immediate environment, and then expand into memory, into ideas, to see what comes up. After that, change your work space. Get up and look out the window, or take a walk and jot down notes about what you see. Then revise your American sentences so that they sound both specific and musical."

(68) Just five lines like so: A line about the passage of time A line about your childhood Two lines about the ocean Two lines about work Two lines: I always felt like a ——. / I never felt like a ——.

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LEARN ABOUT POETIC FORMS AND TRADITIONS

AFRICAN POETIC FORMS Subcategories + Characteristics: epics (preserves hero stories; narrative mode; prose, if written), panegyric odes (praise of hero, repetition, alliteration, rhyme), lyrical poetry (irony, stress, prelude, interlude, choral/solo/antiphonal) Requirements: performance (nonverbal elements, dance, music, involvement of audience, available accompaniments), sonics Example: https://www.academia.edu/20036524/Form_and_Style_in_African_Oral_Poetry

BYLINA Origin: Russia Requirements: oral/performed, three-part: introduction, narrative, epilogue Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCIk-CDb6XE

CANZONE Origin: Italy, France Requirements: hendecasyllabic, end-rhyme, variable stanza length (7-20 lines), concluding valediction or envoi Example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/canzone

CHANGGA Origin: Korea Requirements: folk song on love, short (1 stanza) and extended form, sonic refrain Example: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/forums/topic/1129-pyolgok-or-changga/

CLERIHEW (light verse) Origin: English Requirements: 1 quatrain, variable line-length, rhymes aabb, names person in the first line Example: https://www.britannica.com/art/clerihew

DAINA Origin: Latvia Requirements: 1 quatrain, trochaic tetrameter, unrhymed Example: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/forums/topic/1075-latvia-daina/

DECIMA Origin: Spain, North Africa Requirements: 10 lines, octosyllabic, rhymes ABBAACCDDC Example: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/decima-poetic-forms

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DOHA Origin: India Requirements: couplets, 24-syllable line, caesura after 13th syllable Example: https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/doha/

DRAPA Origin: Scandinavia Requirements: (praise poem) repeated refrains, meter, rhyme, alliteration Example: http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/literature/text/Skaldic_Poetry.htm

ENDECHA Origin: Spain Requirements: quatrains, seven-syllables for lines 1, 2, 3, and 11 syllables for 4th line; abcb rhyme; caesura after 13th syllable Example: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/endecha-poetic-forms

KHLONG Origin: Thailand Requirements: stanzaic, syllabic, rhyming Examples: (see subcategories) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_poetry

KYRIELLE Origin: France Requirements: octosyllabic, quatrains, fourth line is refrain, rhymes aabB ccbB, abaB cbcB, or (with unrhymed refrain) aaaR bbbR. Examples: https://classicalpoets.org/2018/06/26/how-to-write-a-kyrielle/

LUC-BAT Origin: Vietnam Requirements: alternating 6 and 8 syllables, internal and end rhymes, unlimited length Examples: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/luc-bat-poems-poetic-form

ODE Origin: Greece Subcategories + Requirements: Pindaric (choral; 3-part: strophe, antistrophe, epode), Horatian (regular stanza pattern/quatrain, rhyme), irregular (rhymed) Examples: https://poets.org/glossary/ode

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OVILLEJO Origin: Spain Requirements: three rhyming couplets (1 octosyllabic line, 1 tri- or tetrasyllabic line), lines 1, 3, 5 ask questions, which lines 2, 4, and 6 answer + quatrain/ redondilla (octosyllabic, abba) with a final line consisting of answers in lines 2, 4, 6 Example: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/ovillejo-poetic-form

SHI Origin: China Subcategories: folk song (yuefu), old style (gushi), modern style (jintishi) Requirements: rhyming Examples: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42290/42290-h/42290-h.htm (see Introduction, "Technique")

WELSH POETIC FORMS Requirements + Subcategories: awdl (line and stanza, syllabic, rhymed), cywydd (couplet, syllabic, rhymed), englyn (tercets, syllabic, rhymed) Examples: The Poetry Dictionary (Drury 346)

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TRY EKPHRASIS

A. Select a virtual museum or gallery space to "visit": https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2020/04/02/these-museums-are-offering- free-virtual-tours/

Alternately, you may access art available in public spaces of your community. For example, here we have the New Orleans Museum of Art Sculpture Garden as well as striking graffiti by Hugo Gyrl throughout the city. Set aside time for the "inseeing" Rilke learned from Rodin: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/detail/90278

As you view the work, make notes in the space below. First, identify the artist and title for three pieces in the space below. Next, describe the work: media, composition, size, etc. Finally, reflect on your experience, biological makeup, identity, and aesthetic leanings: what do your selections say about you?

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B. Write an ekphrastic poem on an artwork listed above.

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TRY A NONCE FORM

BOP Inventor: Afaa Michael Weaver Requirements: rhetorical mode, sestet (presents problem) + refrain + octave (develops problem) + refrain + sestet (resolves, complicates, or furthers problem) + refrain = 23 lines Example: https://poets.org/poem/rambling

DUPLEX Inventor: Jericho Brown Requirements: 14 lines/7 couplets, opening couplet, line 3 repeats line 2, line 4 new, line 5 repeats line 4, rinse-repeat Example: https://www.aprweb.org/poems/duplex-i-begin-with-love

GOLDEN SHOVEL Inventor: Terrance Hayes Requirements: line from someone else's poem determines end words (6-word line = 6-line Golden Shovel) Example: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/golden-shovel-poetic-form

PARADELLE (parody form) Inventor: Billy Collins Requirements: 4 stanzas, see link for more info - https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better- poetry/poetic-form-paradelle Example: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/billy_collins_paradelle/

SONNENIZIO Inventor: Kim Addonizio Requirements: 14 lines, first line from another poet's sonnet, same repeating word from lifted line in remaining 13 lines, closing couplet Example: https://poetsonline.blogspot.com/2009/01/playing-with-form-sonnet-addonizio.html

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TRACK AND IMITATE A POEM'S MOVES

Downhearted (pub'd in Guernica) by Ada Limón

Six horses died in a tractor-trailer fire. There. That’s the hard part. I wanted to tell you straight away so we could grieve together. So many sad things, that’s just one on a long recent list that loops and elongates in the chest, in the diaphragm, in the alveoli. What is it they say, heart-sick or downhearted? I picture a heart lying down on the floor of the torso, pulling up the blankets over its head, thinking this pain will go on forever (even though it won’t). The heart is watching Lifetime movies and wishing, and missing all the good parts of her that she has forgotten. The heart is so tired of beating herself up, she wants to stop it still, but also she wants the blood to return, wants to bring in the thrill and wind of the ride, the fast pull of life driving underneath her. What the heart wants? The heart wants her horses back.

Ada Limón's "Downhearted" is the template for your lyric poem. The title must be a simple, figurative expression like Limón's "downhearted." The first line must be a declarative sentence that states some piece of news in concrete language. Do not refer to this "headline" again until the last line. Speak directly to your reader in lines 2-4, as Limon does. Then unpack the poem's conceit or extended metaphor using the title. First bring up the title again (line 8) then create an image using sensory details the reader can perceive: "I picture a heart lying down on the floor / of the torso, pulling up the blankets. ..." (lines 9 -20). Note her repetition of "heart" throughout the poem. Ask a question in the penultimate line. Use some word or subject from the headline in the last line.

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TRY A NEW APPROACH

Oral Poem Prompt

Compose a poem on any subject and in any style by ear. You may not write during any part of the process. You may use a recorder to store versions of the poem to review as you draft and revise. Though not required, repetition and patterning will serve as helpful mnemonic devices for this exercise. If you would like to compose in a fixed form, consider the blues or ballad. Alternately, techniques such as anaphora, refrain, and rhyme can be used in free verse poetry. [length: 1-3 minutes]