Monthly Archives: April 2021

April 10, 2021: Spotlight on TRAVELLING IN AMHERST and THE TROUBLE WITH FRANCIS; and Context for the Poem “Turbulence”

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Today, when I am longing to travel, and thinking of a pilgrimage place I have not yet been–Amherst, Massachusetts–I decided to highlight two prose works from one of Amherst’s radiant poets, Robert Francis. Though less lime-lit than Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, Francis wrote luminous plainsong prose drawn from the intense convictions and quiet rhythms of his daily life in a house he himself built and named “Fort Juniper” (because it was juniper is low to the ground and therefore resistant to damage in stormy weather. You perceive the metaphor: fame won’t blow this impoverished, vegetarian-music teacher poet off course because he is dug in.)

His poetry is, likewise, peerless.

Here is one of my favorite poems of his, and of all time. I love it so much that I have it memorized, and will, if asked, recite it at the drop of a hat–and sometimes all unasked! It is called “Sheep.” Some day I plan to write an essay about its perfections. For now, I will just say be sure to keep your eye and ear on that last sublime line.

There is so much lyrical beauty in the work of Francis, and he is also mordantly funny, a master of mock self-deprecation like Emily Dickinson. (Perhaps something in the water near Amherst?) For instance, his titles. Can a resident “travel” in the tiny orbit Francis occupied in the woods outside a small town in western Massachusetts? Yes, but not in the obvious, board-the-tour-bus ways.) And he draws the title of The Trouble with Francis (University of Massachusetts Press, 1971) from a less than favorable review of his work by the Chicago Review, to whit:

“The trouble with Francis is not that he is too happy as that his happiness seems to lack weight.” (Dyspeptic reviewer’s name unknown to me.)

Wait. What? A reviewer is weighing in on the gravitas of someone’s happiness? Preposterous and presumptuous! Hrumph, I say.

Francis had a much better response. I love how this proud and prodigiously talented Quaker-minded poet claim this critique as his own by doing the typographical equivalent of tattooing it on his forehead.

Someday, I will procure a copy of his third prose collection, The Satirical Rogue on Poetry. Absolutely worth waiting for.

Regarding the Poem for April 10, 2021, “Turbulence”

After a bout of morning writer’s block, this memory of a teen-age school trip to Tasmania came floating back to inspire a short poem of travel of the geographic and biographic sort.

Until tomorrow,

LESLIE

Orchard on Mississippi River Bluff (April 2020)

April 9, 2021: Spotlight on THE ODE LESS TRAVELLED: UNLOCKING THE POET WITHIN by Stephen Fry; and Context for the Poem “Unicursal”

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Stephen Fry is a man of many talents, that much is clear. Four years ago, during NaPoWriMo on April 21, 2017, I included a video clip of him as Jeeves, instructing his employer, Bertie Wooster, in how to accentuate the syllables of Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” to add context to that day’s poem, “A Question of Style.

I often reach for Stephen Fry’s  peerless book on prosody, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Gotham Books, 2005). Like his perfectly realized Jeeves, Fry is a master of rhythm and rhyme. Fry’s book is filled with lucid and succinct summaries of elements of poetic form presented with Fry’s devastating wit, with each poetic form illustrated by custom-made examples by Fry that edify as they amuse. (The occasional screamingly funny but x-rated quips make it unsuitable for the under-sixteen set, in my opinion, except in excerpted form.) If you are of voting age and curious about the ins and outs of iambs, or want to distinguish meter from rhythm, or crave an algorithm describing the sestina–this is the go-to book.

This book is not only a treasure trove of prosodical pearls, it is page-turning prose. No one has mastered the concept of “voice” on the page in quite like Fry. In sum, this gem is never dry, often wry, always totally “Fry.”

Regarding the Poem for April 9, “Unicursal”

Me, in the center of the now-vanished labyrinth at 114 Winona Street

Given today’s unlooked for poem, perhaps labyrinths are done with me yet!

Wishing you a lovely day,

LESLIE

April 8, 2021: Spotlight on LOVE UNKNOWN: THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELIZABETH BISHOP by Thomas Travisano; Context for the Poem “Vapid”

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Elizabeth Bishop has been an important poet for me for a long time, yet she was famous reticent about her personal life. In this beautifully written and authoritative literary biography, critic Thomas Travisano helped me to understand the intersections between her personality and life and the work these gave rise it. Understanding the person Elizabeth Bishop was has deepened my love for the work. Love Unknown (Viking, 2019) was a book I treated myself to last spring, when I knew that the pandemic would curtail many activities and open up more time for reading. (Little did I think reading it, and Bishop’s own work, would inspire me to write an homage poem to her “In the Waiting Room” while actually in my own dentist’s waiting room! But that is another story.) If you are interested in understanding Bishop’s life and work, this is the biography for you!

In future posts, I plan to share more volumes from my library on Bishop and by Travisano, just when the mood strikes. For now, on this rainy Thursday, it is time for a bracing cup of tea and some housework that requires coordination, determination, and an apron!

Regarding the Poem for April 8, “Vapid“:

Over the past twenty years, I have enjoyed many “reality” television shows. Favorites have included “The Old House” and “A Chef’s Life,” “What Not to Wear” (British and American versions), and “Project Runway.” This past week, however, I hit the wall. “Love Island”? Well, let’s just say I am not the right demographic. Time to tune in to the semi-final episode of the latest season of “The Great British Baking Show”–after, of course, brewing a cup of tea. Be still, my heart!

Until tomorrow!

LESLIE

April 7, 2021: Spotlight on POEMCRAZY: FREEING YOUR LIFE WITH WORDS by Susan G. Wooldridge and Context for Poem “Windblown”

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This book, Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge, (Three Rivers Press, 1996) turned the key for me. Back in 2003, as the mother of a pre-schooler and a professional fundraising and writing consultant to local and national non-profits and fledgling yoga teacher with a new yoga studio and a new publisher of materials on labyrinths, I was busy with wonderful things, but I began to feel too distant from my core identity as a poet. (One I realized when I was eight years old.) I can’t recall whether I found this book of essays and exercises or it found me. Suffice to say, that although it took three years (from 2003, when I bought my copy, to 2006 when I let it sink all the way in,) this slender volume exploded a lie I had been telling myself: that I couldn’t write a poem unless I was “inspired.”

You might have thought that participating in an MFA program in poetry would already have weeded out that lie, but it was tenacious. The remedy? Reading Wooldridge’s encouraging and funny and poignant prose, and then really giving her “Poem Tickets” exercise a chance (found in Chapter Four, “The Answer Squash.”)

I don’t want to pretend it was easy, because it wasn’t. I tried on my own, but it wasn’t until I asked for help, and my wise artist-friend, Julia Uleberg Swanson, helped me get the words and phrases I had clipped and saved taped onto actual tickets. We had a blast doing that in her studio. Afterwards, I took tickets home and housed them in a silver Revere Ware bowl and kept them on my desk next to my computer. Each day, I would pull one or two or three and then write a poem-ish thing. The only rule was that it had to use each of the phrases I had pulled.

To my surprise, I found that I could do this, day in and day out, until the tickets were gone. I also found that no matter how seemingly random the prompts, each poem spoke in some direct way to my inner or outer experience. I ended up with more than 30 “poem-ish things.” Many remained in that larval state, like this one.

A surprising number of others, buffed lightly with revisions, found their place in the world. Here are a few examples.

“Evidence” was the first poem of mine to be accepted in 2010 for the annual Poet-Artist Collaboration at The Crossings Gallery in Zumbrota, Minnesota.
“Orpheus” was first published in Swamp Lily Review in 2013. I included it in my first book-length collection, Still Life with Poppies: Elegies (Kelsay Books, 2016.)
I included this sonnet-esque poem, “En Plein Air Ultramarine,” in my second book-length collection, Cloud Song, in 2017.
“Clue” was my first poem accepted by Blue Unicorn, in 2018, and I included it in my third book-length collection, Concertina, in 2019

Not only have I had more easy and enjoyment in composing poems since working with the poem tickets, I have been more willing to risk rejection and steadily send work out. Coincidence? Somehow, I think not. Funny, but though I have long loved the cover of Poemcrazy, for its exuberance and its homage to photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, I only today see the outline of the ticket surrounding the title!

I actually make a strong connection between the poem tickets exercise and the NaPoWriMo experience. Without the poem ticket experience ten years before, I am not sure that I would have had the courage to take on the poem-a-day challenge in 2016. How glad I am that I did! Perhaps this summer would be a good time for me to take a new look at Poemcrazy to see it there is another form of practice that will speak to where I am now?

Regarding Today’s Poem: “Windblown”

I don’t have much to say about today’s poem, other than that it was wholly unanticipated. The photographs below illustrate the weird and lovely unfolding in our early spring garden.

What?
Hmmmm…Time for spring cleaning on the back porch as well as the garden…
What comes first? Flamingo or its egg?

Until tomorrow, let’s all keep our eyes open, see what the day brings!

LESLIE

Like this! That just blew into my mailbox all unasked for, and opportunity to clothe myself in (beautiful but expensive) poetry. As a metaphor, okay, I will buy it! But my wallet stays shut. I do love the easy look and the way the cover model’s hair echoes the shape of a heart.

April 6, 2021: Spotlight on THE CRAFTY POET by Diane Lockwood and Context for Poem “X = ?”

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This book, The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop by Diane Lockward (Wind Publications, 2013) is a handy resource for when I want a fresh approach to writing a poem. Lockward, poet laureate of West Caldwell, NJ since 2009, offers a free monthly poetry newsletter and helms a small publishing arm called Terrapin Press. The Crafty Poet (which now also has a sister-sequel volume) is a composite work dreamed up and coordinated by Lockward but containing craft tips and sample poems from a host of interesting contemporary poets (see contributors’ names below) thoughtfully arranged by topic–from “Generating Material/Using Time” to “Writer’s Block/Recycling” and many gems in between. Material was generated from and originally shared on her Poetry Newsletter.

Regarding Today’s Poem: “X = ?”:

As you know, I have been traveling through the alphabet backward this year. Backwards or forwards, it doesn’t matter: the letter “X” is a daunting prospect. Today, it was Lockward’s book, above, that helped me see the challenge from a fresh vantage point. From the chapter on “Voice,” which suggests locating one’s own voice by internalizing other voices through deep study and frequent reading of a poem (or poems) you love, I used the prompt by Jeanne Marie Beaumont that uses her own poem, “After” as an illustration. Her poem is inspired by Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking,” using the first word of his title for her title, then weaving two stanzas out of an acrostic use of the second word in Frost’s title. I am drawn to memorize and recite the poems of other poets anyway, so for me the springboard into my own poem was the idea of creating an acrostic, playing with the ideas of “X” as the unknown quantity and of mysteries encountered at crossroads.

If you would like to know more about this acrostic form, there is a wealth of information online. It is an old form, beloved of children (they enjoy making up poems based on their own names!) and poets of all ages. The trick, I think, is to balance the body of the poem carefully against the seed letter at the beginning of each line. Best of all is when the reader encounters the poem first without realizing it is an acrostic (as happened with me as I read “After.”)

Thanks for reading this! Hope you enjoy today’s construction project!

LESLIE