You Can Write Poetry - Jeff Mock [32]
Surprise is important. Robert Frost, in his essay "The Figure a Poem Makes," says, "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader." If the reader knows what's coming, there's no need to read the poem. Readers read to discover. Writers, then, must write to discover. What you don't yet know is more valuable than what you already know. If something or someone unexpectedly shows up in one of your drafts, welcome it or him or her. Make room. Set a place at the poem's table. Perhaps in the end your peg-legged Cupid won't stay in the poem, but your imagination, through its mysterious workings, has offered you a surprise gift, all wrapped up. Turn it around and turn it over. Look at it closely. Shake it to see if it rattles. Let it mystify you. The less sense the gift makes, the better. Precisely because it doesn't make complete sense is reason enough to find out just what sense it does make. Unwrap it.
Remember that poetry isn't saying what you already know. It's discovering what you need to say. Writing poems is asking what if? And what then? This is an impractical aspect of writing poetry—the sense of wonder and curiosity that can't be taught. You have to develop it. As you write, keep an eye out for the unexpected, the mysterious, the irrational. See what they bring to a draft, but don't explain them away. Each surprise appears for a reason, even if we don't immediately understand that reason.
Poems generate their own ideas and emotions. They take one step, then another, heading into terra incognita. They forge their own paths through the woods, briers and brambles. Follow the path the poem takes, not any preconceived direction you wanted to take. Explore. Look to be surprised. If you follow the poem's path, without knowing where it leads, you'll end up somewhere you've never been before. Your surprise will be the reader's surprise.
In similar fashion, don't stick to facts and truth when they get in the way. Poems are not about the truth. Truth changes, depending on what we know. There's always another side to every story. Truth is further complicated because what we know changes every day. And writing poems changes what we know. Poems aren't about truth. They're about exploration. They're about imagination, which we use to understand the everyday complexities and complications. Albert Einstein, one of our premier scientific explorers, said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." To give your imagination free rein, forget what you know. Forget truth. See where your imagination leads. Here's a superb poem by Mark Drew, a contemporary poet who ignores a truth in order to explore the emotional complexities of losing a father:
MY FATHER AS HOUDINI
1. The Car Wreck Challenge
Pinioned and fluttering,
I breathe gasoline and antifreeze.
I leak blood. My teeth are lost
among the cubes of safety glass
spangling the dash. A crowd gathers.
Where are my assistants? Slender vapor slinks
from the buckled hood, accumulates
about the car and Poof!
I'm gone.
2. The Death Trick
I'm not supposed to die. No one is.
Everyone wants me to come back;
you want me to come back.
I'm not promising anything,
but think of my body full of preservatives,
think of the shelf life of the soul.
With the right audience, anything is possible
if you just know the trick.
Watch me pull these words from your mouth
like the knotted skein of parti-colored hankies
my mother, your mother, and her mother weep into
at my death.
3. Metamorphosis
Larval, straight-jacketed,
my ankles bound and slung from a hook,
I dangle over you like a nightmare and writhe.
Encased in a coffin of water and glass, I squirm,
mouthing secrets so you won't look away.
I'm a ghost shackled in your mouth.
I'm a face hung in a hallway.
I insinuate myself into you.
I've