new & improved

Welcome to my WIP--a combined blog and website!  Please bear with me while I get it all set up, and here's a poem about the process to keep me going...this one pretty faithfully records today's loooooooong
edit >update>preview>edit loop.






from constant change figures | Lyn Hejinian

constant change figures

the time we sense

passing on its effect

surpassing things we've known before

since memory

of many things is called

experience

but what of what

we call nature's picture

surpassing things we call

since memory

we call nature's picture

surpassing things we've known before

constant change figures

experience

passing on its effect

but what of what

constant change figures

since memory

of many things is called

the time we sense

called nature's picture

but what of what

in the time we sense

surpassing things we've known before

passing on its effect

is experience

revision II

I'm just ruminating over my last three poems, where I got going on a set of Spoon, Knife and Fork.  Atypically for me, all three are rhymed, similarly metered, and all share a basic 4-line stanza. I could keep going like this for a while, I guess, picking kitchen items and writing each its little ditty (see all the "Deeper Wisdom" poems featured at Today's Little Ditty, of which "What Does the Knife Know?" is one).

But would that make a readable collection, a saleable collection?  When I started typing this, I was planning for the answer to be "NO; that would be a little boring and samey and in a way unchallenging for both writer and reader," and then I was going to contrast that with any collection of "traditional" haiku, which would be therefore by its very nature boring and samey and unchallenging, and then I was going to wonder why haiku collections don't seem that way.

And then as I entered that second paragraph, I got walloped upside the head by Jack on one side and Shel on the other, and A.A. Milne appeared to wag his clever ghostly finger in my face, reminding me how many, many classic poems and entire volumes of poetry for children are rhymed and metered and kind of about the same things (although not usually kitchen items).

Now I'm wondering what it is that makes me want a new shape, a new rhythm, a new challenge each time I begin a poem. I never cook the same recipe or meal the same way twice, and at school I'm forever devising new greetings, new center activities, new routines (and creating a lot of work for myself).  While I craved novelty as a kid, I understand that for many students, sticking with one thing for longer is what's needed for competent mastery, and that too much "new" can be stressful.

Well, it seems that in the spirit of my OLW for 2015, I'm revising my 2nd-paragraph thinking.  I still think it's important for young writers to learn that poetry is not all rhythm and rhyme, and that for most beginning writers those things are hard to pull off and probably best avoided.  But golly, when 2/3 of a class of kindergarteners need to be TAUGHT to hear rhyme instead of having grown it into their bodies, and in the knowledge that I am not a beginning writer myself and quite enjoy the challenge of hewing to a rhymed and metered form, perhaps Spoon, Knife and Fork are suggesting a less varied--but no less tasty--diet of poetry for now.

Revision (with apologies to A.A. Milne)

Heidi Heidi
Mordhorst Mordhorst:
As teacher and poet she
Took great
Care to seek freedom,
Craving the novelty.
Heidi Heidi
Said to herself,
"Self," she said, said she:
"You must never get stuck at the end of the town
  called Free-Verse Poetry."

HM 2015
all rights reserved

Today's Little Roundup is with Paul at These 4 Corners.  Hope to see you there!

revision

I thought I had picked out One Word for the year.  Standing around the flickering candles of the Yule tree last evening (secretly beaming because the children have memorized all the words of our 12-day Yuletide ritual), my One Word seemed obvious:  LIGHT.  There was my trademark quick decision, done and dusted. (This is how I found myself married the first time.)

LIGHT is a lovely word, especially powerful at this dark time of year, with many meanings in several parts of speech, and it seemed to capture the direction I need to keep going in:  a lighter grip, a lighter touch, a light heart and as much light as possible shining into my pupils (puntended).

By bedtime, though, I'd stepped back into a more practical place and realized that LIGHT was perhaps not as active a word as I need--and it certainly wasn't so pertinent to my writing life, which is where I need to put particular attention.  And I thought about how a lighter grip, how an infusion of light into the work, are what's required for good revision, whether of writing or of hasty decisions.  Other requirements for revision include patience, resting and flexibility--all areas where I could grow generally, and where my writing could benefit from less product and more persistence.  And so--in the very spirit of revision--I changed my One Word to REVISE.

Just to make sure I was on the right track, I Googled the word and found a definition which includes LIGHT--two for the price of one!
          
           re·vise            rəˈvīz/        verb

1.

reconsider and alter (something) in the light of further evidence.

synonyms:

reconsider, review, re-examine, reassess, re-evaluate, reappraise, rethink

I shared this decision with my spouse, who noodled alongside me, wondering about revision, envision and several other word choices, while I listened to myself do what I always do:  "Just stop with the possibilities-- I've made my choice and I'm sticking with it!  No time to consider anything else! Got to get on with it!"  The irony is exquisite... and I reserve the right to change my mind about my One Word should the light of further evidence require it.

*******************
One Word 2015

held and holding tight:
getting a grip
becomes a vice

time and again re-vise:
letting the light
in more than twice

HM 2015
all rights reserved

*******************
The Poetry Friday Round-up is with Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.  Happy New Year--and New Words--to all!

taking your suggestions, please

This summer I'm working on a sweeping revision of last summer's project.  I'm now aiming at a teen audience, and one of its themes is identity.  Many of the poems will be set in the context of trying out different voices, perspectives, and even disguises, and so it seems like a good place to include some of the poems I've written as "copy tributes."  (I may have made up that label.)  Here's one that's working quite well; below you'll see what I'm hoping you can help with...

Stopping by Turtle on a Rainy Morning

Whose shell this is I think I know.

His head is under cover though;

He doesn’t want me stopping here

To watch him, crouching close and low.

I startled him along the path.

He wasn’t stepping very fast

Between the ferns and dripping weeds,

This wettest morning, for a bath.

He freezes, puts on all his brakes

And hopes that there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the blink

Of careful notice that I make.

His shell is lovely, arched and dark,

But I can’t read his orange marks,

Our miles of difference, slight and stark,

Our miles of difference, slight and stark.

            Heidi Mordhorst 2013
                all rights reserved

So far the poems I've copy-tributed are classics by male poets.  I also need to include a couple by women--but which?  I can think of several Emily Dickinson ones that would work well, but what about a more modern classic American poet?  Which Lucille Clifton or Maya Angelou poem would you suggest?  Sylvia Plath? Dorothy Parker? They need to be widely recognizable, I think, for the "joke" to work.  (It's not really a joke at all, but I want literate MS and HS readers to realize that something is going on even before they get to the reference.)

Of course I could sit down and surround myself with all my anthologies for a hunt, but I thought it would be more fun to start by asking you what classic poems by women spoke to you in your teens (or later).  I'm sure you'll remind me of something obvious I've forgotten, or, as so often happens here, introduce me to something that somehow I've missed. 

Thanks, and turtle on over to Write Time for the round-up with Linda Kulp!