Learning the Art and Craft of Poetry (Part Two)

This is the second part of a series on learning the art and craft of poetry when you can't always get to workshops or conferences.

Don't forget that all this month I have giveaways for books and other goodies taking place to celebrate the upcoming publication of my second Skeet Bannion novel, Every Broken Trust, on May 7. And if you're near the Kansas City area, join me and an interesting crowd of friends for the official launch at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 10, at Mysteryscape, 7309 W 80th St., Overland Park, KS.


Learning the Art and Craft of Poetry (Part Two)

You have been doing your due diligence with careful reading as a writer of the work of others. You have gained a number of techniques and craft elements that work with your individual voice and vision. You have learned a number of mistakes to watch for as you reread and revise your work. And you’re going to keep doing this. Now it’s time to add another step.

This is the moment when conferences and workshops can be useful, now that you’ve laid a solid foundation. A good workshop can offer you the feedback and support of a group of aspiring writers. You may even make friends for life with one or more of them. In fact, that’s one of the things workshops and conferences are most useful for—the contacts and connections to the larger literary world you can make at them.

Big Secret: it’s possible to make similar contacts and connections without leaving home—unless you live in a rural area or very small town. (In that case, you definitely want to start saving money to go to one of the many writing conferences around the country.)

Most cities and many medium-sized towns have poetry readings and book signings, if only at local bookstores or libraries or colleges. Often it’s simply a matter of finding out what, where, and when. These are usually not well-publicized to the general public. If you do some detective work, though, you can learn about where they take place and when and who is coming. Usually you will find a mix of locals and poets from elsewhere in the country, some with national reputations. These readings may be free or ask just a nominal admission fee.

Attend these readings and book signings. Buy the book (remember Part One?). Have it signed. Talk to the poet before and after the reading, at the signing. If very few attend—a common phenomenon—stay with the poet chatting. (You will be remembered and loved for this act of charity!) Ask questions of the poet if you’re not holding up a long line, and if there is a long line, talk to the other local poetry lovers and writers in it. For the price of a book of poetry, you will get information and make contacts that will be useful in your life as a poet.

Oh. You couldn’t do that. You’re shy. Well, how will you do it at your expensive conference or workshop then? Look at this as important practice. A life in poetry is not that of an ascetic writing in an attic isolated from the world. No one will seek you out and beg to publish your work, not even if you sew them into little packets—that only worked once for an extraordinary person with a sister dedicated to her posthumous success. You want to have readings of your own, don’t you? And if you do, you want people to come to them, don’t you? Pay your dues now to support a literary community so there will be one when your time comes.

Start with online groups and listservs, if you’re shy. You can even find internet classes and workshops. You can make good friends with similar interests in online communities. You will hear about calls for submissions on many of them. These are chances to publish in special issues of journals or in anthologies that you may well otherwise never know about. Then branch out into the live world. Go to a reading. Force yourself to introduce yourself to one person there. Meet the poet. Buy the book and get it signed. Go home. See! You survived, and now you know two more people in the world of poetry.

And there you have it. Buy poetry, both books and literary journals. Read like a writer with pencil in hand, learning from the poet’s techniques and mistakes. Practice. Practice. Practice. Take part in all kinds of online, local, and national literary communities. Support other writers as you hope one day to be supported. And then start the wheel all over—read, practice, reach out and support; read, practice, reach out and support. It’s a way of life, sometimes frustrating, sometimes exhilarating, but a continuous cycle.

It’s not your business to worry about where you fall on the Majah, Minah, Mediocah hierarchy. Not that any of us can really help caring about things like reputations, of course. We can’t allow it to become important to us, though. Worrying what influential others will think of your work will cramp your writing and your own individual voice, which is really all any of us have to offer the world in the end. Your business is to read, write, find others who can teach or help you and whom you can teach or help—and keep on doing it to the best of your ability. Focus on the work. In the end, it’s always the best of us.

Just leave a comment with your email to be entered for the giveaway. This week, I'm giving away a signed hardcover Every Last Secret (finalist for the International Latino Book Award) and a signed ARC of Every Broken Trust, which publishes May 7. I'll announce the winners Monday.

Have a superb weekend!

Learning the Art and Craft of Poetry (Part One)

Several years ago, I was asked to write a two-part series of essays for Nilki Benitez's blog on how to learn the art and craft of poetry, especially if the reader couldn't afford to attend academic workshops and big writers conferences. I decided I'd repost those essays here for National Poetry Month since I think that information is still valid, and I get questions about this often.

Learning the Art and Craft of Poetry (Part One)

As a first step, I’ve compiled a list of poets. This is not an exhaustive list of all the poets I like or turn to for inspiration or education. This is not a ranking of the “best” poets. I’m not much on the Majah, Minah, Mediocah hierarchy game. These are wonderful, gifted poets to whom I do turn for inspiration, education, and pure pleasure and whose names came to me as I was thinking of this list. There are other poets who have been and are important to me who didn’t necessarily rise to the top as I was pondering this list, such as Sappho, Shakespeare, Donne, Whitman, Dickinson, and many fine contemporary poets. And that’s okay. This list is simply a place to start.

This is what I always tell my students when I teach writing poetry. A serious poet should be reading poetry all the time. My husband is a publisher, and I have worked as an editor. We are always surprised by all the poets who want to publish so that others will read their work, but they don’t buy or read anyone else’s work. They will spend a fortune on workshops, conferences, contests, and reading fees, but they buy hardly any books by other poets. If you’re on a tight budget, forget the classes and conferences for a while and buy the work of fine, contemporary poets or those in the generation just past—and the wonderful classic geniuses of the distant past. Buy them so you can reread and mark them up, figuring out how they do the incredible things they do and how they made the mistakes they made that you want to avoid. Do this first of all, before the classes, workshops, conferences, etc.—all of which are good things but not as critical as this. Any kind of serious writer must be a serious reader first.

This little list is a relatively random list of some people whose work speaks to me, in no particular order. When I read their work, I think about some part of it or all of it, “Wow! I wish I could do that! How do they do it?” A good poet doesn’t steal the work of another poet, but we all steal techniques and make them work for our own idiosyncratic voices. None of these poets writes the way I do, but I have learned some craft element or technique from all of them (as well as from many others). If you read these poets carefully, looking at how they achieve their effects, I guarantee you’ll find something that will advance your own poetry. Then you can branch out to the many other fine poets who can serve as models and teachers.

A Few Poets to Read with Care and Serious Attention

Linda Hogan

Lucille Clifton

Luci Tapahonso

Denise Levertov

Diane Glancy

Lucille Clifton

Adrienne Rich

Deborah Miranda

Mary Oliver

Pablo Neruda

Simon Ortiz

William Carlos Williams

Allison Hedge Coke

Gwendolyn Brooks

Elizabeth Bishop

Richard Blanco

Sandra Cisneros

Marjorie Agosín

Sherwin Bitsui

Trish Reeves

Brenda Cárdenas

Lisa Alvarado

Craig Santos Perez

Kristin Naca

H.D.

Alice Friman

Sherman Alexie

Marilyn Kallet

Robert Duncan

So, Step One is to get thee to a bookstore and buy some of these poets’ works as well as others you want to learn from.

Step Two is the act of reading the poems like a writer reads. First, of course, you’ll read them for the pleasure of reading them, but even in this first reading, you’ll pay attention to what gives the most pleasure. Mark it as you read. Just as importantly, mark the places where the poet loses you, where your interest or involvement wanders, where you find yourself confused. These can be as important to your own writing. Your later reading of this poet and book will involve attempts to figure out how this poet does the marvelous stuff—what makes this part so-o-o-o good—and how this poet weakened her/his own work—why this part isn’t as good as the rest.

If you’re like me and a lot of other poets I’ve known, just the act of this first reading with that kind of attention will set you writing. That’s one of the joys of reading for a poet. If you feel you suffer from writer’s block, start reading poetry with deep, close attention to what the poet is doing right and wrong. You will almost always find yourself writing your own poems in response or as a variation or just somehow inspired. This is always good, but it’s not nearly the end.

Go through that poet’s book again, looking for those marked areas and rereading them carefully, trying to figure what exactly this poet did to make it so good—was it his diction, her use of alliteration and assonance, their line breaks/internal rhyme/connecting images?—and why this poet didn’t quite make it at this point—was it his use of abstract language, her lack of attention to the line’s rhythm?—and mark it in the book and write about it in more detail in your journal. This poet is your teacher. Learn everything you can from her or him. Then go practice some of those good techniques in your own poetry. What works with your own voice and vision and what doesn’t? Also, pick up some of your old poetry and look for those mistakes you identified in the poet’s book in your own work. Can you see them where you didn’t notice them before? Can you rewrite and make those points stronger, more vivid?

Follow this regimen with the other books you bought. These first two steps give you a foundation that nothing else can. And the plus side of this course for women (and men) with small children, large families, demanding jobs/spouses, is that you can do it quietly in bits and pieces of time without having to go away to some conference or university program.

In Part Two, we’ll move on from these steps, but most really good poets return to them all the time, no matter how many books and awards they have. These are the poet’s version of the pianist’s scales or the dancer’s daily practice.

 

Don't forget that all this month, I'm giving away books and pieces of art to randomly selected commenters on this blog. So leave a comment with your email if you want to be entered for this week's giveaway.