You Can Write Poetry - Jeff Mock [8]
Terra incognita. No petrol stations
To inquire directions. No maps for sale.
No rocks singing out advice. When I come
Upon starfish, they point five ways. Wee snails
Lumber down the beach, inch-by-inching outward.
The ocean rears up and back, gone and going.
Up in the hills, campfires blaze and the stars
Snap on. I hear everywhere some heart thumping.
I wasn't worried about making sense in this poem because the piece of graffiti itself didn't make literal sense. I was trying more to capture the sensation of being lost that I felt when I first read it on the wall and again when I reread it in my journal. It started me thinking. If I hadn't written it down, I'd never have remembered it, nor written the poem.
There are other bonuses, too. By keeping a journal, you dedicate yourself to thinking about poems, about what they are and what yours will be, about the subjects of your poems, about their sights and sounds. You look closer at the world around you and listen with more attention. You gather the seeds of poems. You open yourself to the possible poems all around you. And there are a great many around you, just waiting to be put into words.
PRACTICE SESSION
1. Begin a journal. Return to the ten poems you read for the previous practice session and reread them now. Copy the best lines into your journal. Do you notice anything new in the poems? Do you respond to them differently? Do you understand them in the same way? Do they offer subjects you'll write about?
2. Over five days, write down five memories, one per day, in as much detail as you can. What makes these memories important? Who is involved? What happens? Where? When? How?
3. Take a walk through your neighborhood. Look around. Note twenty things you haven't noticed before. Include sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures. Be specific.
4. Write down twenty uncommon words that you'd like to use in your poems. Write down their definitions, too. Save them for later use.
Sharpening the Pencil
Leo Tolstoy, the nineteenth-century Russian novelist, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, said, "If you ask someone: 'Can you play the violin?' and he says: 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,' you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: 'I don't know, I have not tried,' as though one had only to try and one would become a writer."
Many want to be writers, but they never actually write their stories and poems. They never struggle with their thoughts and emotions. They never put those thoughts and emotions on paper. They never learn the craft. They never practice it. They assume that some day they'll get around to writing, and when they finally do, their stories and poems will pour out perfect the very first time. Because we use the language every day, talking with family, neighbors, friends, co-workers, because we read and write letters, because we're practiced in the language, we tend to think that all we need to do is write a poem or story and, presto, there we are, writers. But it isn't that simple or easy. If it were, there'd be no challenge. Everyone would be writing the Great American Novel or the Great American Poem. Everyone would be poet laureate for a day. That isn't the case.
Poets learn the craft and develop their skills over a period of time. For some it comes easier, for others harder, but everyone starts from scratch. Even Shakespeare served a period of apprenticeship, when he learned how to write poems and plays, how to craft the language, how to evoke its mystery and genius. While he's still, four centuries later, the preeminent writer in English, his early plays show him in the midst of his education. They're good, yes, better than plays by most other writers, but not great. His greatest works—Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, to name just three—came later, after he mastered the craft. He started from scratch, learned and practiced.
Earlier I mentioned that there's much to learn. Poets are forever learning, even poets who've written and published a number of books. They read poems, study and continue