This month’s post was going to be a few paragraphs to answer the question, “what is poetry for?” This is also the subject of this month’s poem, and after trying several times to write some paragraphs, I decided that my best answer to the question is in the poem itself. So here it is.
My other answer to “what is poetry for?” is more personal. Although I am the published author of historical non-fiction books, short stories and magazine articles, poetry is my first love and focus. It’s how I express. It’s what I turn to, to figure things out. It’s how I respond to my world, both internal and external.
Billie Holiday
Here’s a recent example. As I grind on and on coping with COVID (along with the entire world) I found myself putting my feelings into a new pandemic poem. This one is a bit different than the ones I wrote when the crisis was newly upon us. This one is a blues poem. Yes! There is such a thing as a blues poem. Like the musical genre, this form has its origins in the American Black experience. It has as its structure two repeating lines, then a third line, all with end-rhymes. Sorrow and heartache are staples in terms of content, but so is triumph over adversity and sometimes even humour.
I offer this to you today as part of my answer to “what is poetry for?” If it expresses some of what you are feeling too, or what you’ve experienced too, or what you might want to say to explain what it is like to live in these times… well, then, there’s your answer!
Artistic imitation is something that many creatives have recognized is an important aspect of the creative process. Steve Jobs, for example, was apparently fond of saying,
Good artists copy; great artists steal.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, England’s Poet Laureate 1850-1892 Known for, among other famous words: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all.”
This is a quote he attributed to Picasso. Actually, an English journalist named W.H. Davenport Adams said it much better in an 1892 article in “The Gentleman’s Magazine.” He was talking about the work of Alfred Lord Tennyson when he wrote:
Great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil.
I had the opportunity to practice artistic imitation during National Poetry Month this past April. In a workshop led by poet and writing coach Sage Cohen, participants wrote a poem a day for 30 days. One of the exercises she had us do was to write a poem inspired by another poet, in this case Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day.” The lesson had to do with engaging the reader directly, as Oliver does with a question at the end of her poem. It also had to do with writing description at a fine, even micro-level of detail, something Oliver mastered in her career.
Coincidentally, a dear friend had just sent me a birthday greeting in the form of time lapse photography that showed the opening of different types of flowers. I absolutely love time lapse photography of flowers! Watching the video over and over, I delighted in the life of blossoms as we can never experience it with the naked eye.
So I got the idea to use that time lapse for the workshop exercise: I would describe the opening of a peony, in fine detail. And I would – what? Steal? Imitate? Improve? – Oliver’s question to the reader at the end of the poem, because I absolutely loved that question.
If I could summarize the process, this is how I’d describe creating my poem, “The Peony”:
Something caught my attention, in this case the time-lapse photography of opening blooms. For sheer enjoyment, I spent some time with it, took it in.
Paying closer attention to the images, I paused the video to observe the details of the flowers opening. I started jotting down some descriptive words.
I studied Mary Oliver’s poem for word choices, ideas she introduces, the pace of the poem. This was more a process of absorption rather than a technical analysis. I got a “feel” for her poem, since I’d decided to use it as a launching point for mine.
I drafted my poem (several times!) and found a suitable photo from my garden collection, which helped in the refinement of the words.
This list implies that creating is a linear process, which it is not! It’s more like a spiral, twisting around itself many times.
Once the poem was drafted, one of the members of my writer’s group pointed out to me that my question to the reader is not an exact copy of Oliver’s question. I had not realized that until she mentioned it! So also in the process of creating, it seems that some kind of alchemy re-molded Oliver’s words into my question, formed my way.
Maybe ‘alchemy’ is a better word than ‘imitation’ for what really happens. An artist absorbs what she thinks is fabulous from another artist, then molds something new in her own way.
What do you think about this? Is there really “nothing new under the sun”? Is this “artistic imitation” a legitimate aspect of the creative process, or thinly-disguised thievery? Here again are the two poems; if you like you can compare the two and see how one inspired the other. “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver. My poem, “The Peony.”
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. I hope you found something new to think about, through this latest peek “behind the scenes” into the creative process!
Like many people, I am fascinated by a how a piece of art is created. But it’s not often we get a chance to learn much about the creative process behind the development of a book, or painting, or photograph we enjoy.
How about you? Ever wonder what drew a painter or photographer to a specific scene? Or how a poet managed to say so much in so few words? Or where a novelist found out how daily life was lived a century ago?
Lucky me: I get to “go behind the scenes” when I write a feature article for the Historical Novel Society. These features are not book reviews, but rather, a chance to interview the author. So I learn about their writing processes as well as the inspiration and challenges they faced while writing their books.
For example, last year, I got to interview author Eugenia Lovett West, who at age 96 was releasing two new novels! Terry Gamble – whose ancestors founded the Proctor and Gamble Company – shared with me some of the overlaps between her own family history and that of the fictional family in her book. And I got to ask novelist Jennifer Chiaverini about the challenges of researching little-known or forgotten historical figures, so they can be brought to the forefront of her story.
The insights these authors provided to me about the process of creating their books greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the books themselves. And so…
Announcing a New Feature!
After thinking some more about this, and also about the great feedback I received when I shared my own process in writing a poem, I’ve decided to launch a new feature here:
The Creative Process Unmasked
(Well, most of us are masked these days, so why not play with that in the series title?)
This will be a regular feature. I hope to demystify the creative process a bit. I’ll push back the curtain and share with you insights about how I created a new poem. And I’ll invite some guest artists to do the same.
I’m launching the series today with the three novelists who unmasked their creative processes for me in my recent Historical Novel Society articles.
Please let me know what you think! In particular, was there anything that surprised you about how these writers went about creating their books? I’d love to know!
In June 2020, much of the world still lives with social distancing or isolation as the new realities.
What is the situation in your neighbourhood? Here in Ontario, Canada, most regions have been allowed to open up to “Stage 2.” This provides more freedoms but more need for individual decisions, like:
To mask or not to mask?
Who should be in my “bubble”?
Should I hug my son, who works in an essential service and interacts with the public every work day?
For a while I resisted writing about COVID-19. I already felt inundated with the pandemic, everyone was writing about it, talking about it, posting about it… What was one more voice?
Well, what are artists for, if not to hold up a mirror to the world and reflect it back to itself? A piece of art can help express, clarify and illuminate what’s going on.
Signs of spring and hope during early days of pandemic
So after all, I decided to write about aspects of the pandemic from my point of view. Events continue to unfold, but these five poems reflect what struck me – and possibly you too – during the month of April. The photographs that accompany the words show the view from inside my house looking out, which is where most of us found ourselves that month.
I offer these five pieces of my “Poetry Art” to you, because I hope that you’ll find within them a familiar feeling, or maybe words you have wanted to express but didn’t quite know how.
May you and yours stay healthy in the upcoming months!
This week, I have another example for you of looking at an “old” thing in a new way. This example seems quite timely, as we remain hunkered down in isolation and try to keep ourselves productive, or at least amused.
As an artist, it’s natural for me, and SO MUCH FUN to look at something and wonder:
What does this make me think of?
What else does this look like/feel like/taste like/sound like? And probably the most important question:
What’s really going on here?
Looking at “old” things in new ways is a skill that all artists work to hone. Doing this can be a jumping off point for a poem, a new interpretative painting, or an invitation for a reader/viewer to STOP in their tracks and have a re-think.
During April (National Poetry Month), I took a course with poet and author Sage Cohen, during which we wrote a poem a day for 30 days. For me, was an adventure in reading lots of poems and experimenting with different styles of poetry. But mostly I worked on honing the one skill that is key to any artist: different ways of looking.
It’s what artists do: examine an object, a person, an experience and ask questions like:
What does this make me think of?
What else does this look like/feel like/taste like/sound like? And probably the most important question:
What’s really going on here?
By looking at something in more than one way, a poet can open up a reader’s imagination, or offer a fresh interpretation. She can make connections the reader may not have thought of, or can probe more deeply into a specific aspect of life.
