Part of the fun of working on a novel is trying to enter the mind and experience of someone Not-You. Someone else. In the novel that Tim and I are making, we have set the story in 1979, in a small town in Northern California. Two of the characters are poets. One of the poets is a college student, born in 1960. The other was born in 1927 and serves as a host and mentor for the younger poet.
One way that I have tried to get into the minds of these two characters is to write poems for them. What would interest them, catch their attention? How would they convey this in a poem? So far, for each character, I have written five or six poems. Only two or three might appear in the novel itself, but…what can I say? It is fun to fashion new poems.
Recently, I became curious about other novels that have protagonists who are fictional poets. I could not recall very many. There are many delightful novels that depict actual poets and one, Baron Wormser’s The Poetry Life, depicts the effects of poetry (by actual poets) on the lives of fictional characters.
But when it comes to main characters who are poets, with no lives outside of fiction, I could only think of Swann, by Carol Shields, and the trio of young adult books featuring Emily Starr of New Moon Farm by L. M. Montgomery. (If you know of any others, please let me know!)
In the couple of years since I served as a poetic scribe for our two characters, I have wondered if their voices would be clearly discernable to anyone else. Or, perhaps, do all the poems simply sound like me? It is an interesting thought exercise, but not one I can wrestle to the ground on my own, so I thought I would ask you.
What do you think? Below are six poems. In a future post, I will reveal which poem was written by/for each character, and also (should you like to weigh in) how many correct guesses each poem received. You can weigh in (“Older Poet” or “Younger Poet”) for any or all titles either in the Comments Section below or by emailing me at winonapoet@gmail.com. Thanks, in advance, for your thoughts!
LESLIE
Study of Cloud Rapture from the Shore
for Miles
Horizon line silver grey
tumbling, shot with plum
aquamarine, emerald
A moment imperiled
imploding and dumb
yet yearning to say
We are all rolling waves
our power about to break
on the rock-hard shore
We are all mountains of cloud
majestic with sunset ache
determined to soar
Jenny Stubtoe
Curled against leather cushions
under warm lamplight,
compact as an ammonite,
you open one eye, peer
greenly into the twilight,
twitch a single whisker,
then sink back into nine
oceans of sleep, each one
deep as a well-lived life.
Candlelight at Point Reyes
This narrow track is supposed to lead up
but I can barely see the ground beneath
my feet. Fog beads these yellowing grasses.
Fog abrades my eyes with stinging salt sprays
and muffles my ears. I came to Point Reyes
like a wounded tule elk, filled with guesses
about direction, survival, what I might bequeath
a world hidden from my sight. Now the trap
of caring is fully sprung. All I find
on this dark headland is how I am lost.
I want to lie down here. I want to be
done with striving, cease this yearning to see
ahead. This cold candle? Better to cast
it from my chilled hand, my dark mind.
My First Shasta Soda
He stands in shadows.
“Here,” he says,
“Drink this,”
hands me a dark,
foaming brew.
Like Alice, I just do.
Who am I now?
Do I grow
or shrink
into this sensation?
So maybe this is love?
Sticky and sweet,
leaving me giddy,
messy, refreshed, and
all shook up?
The Geode
There is just no telling until
one is opened.
All days appear rough,
dusty, grey, and vague
in heft and circularity,
that weight in your hand.
You have to take that
chance, have to lay down
your stone heart
daily on an altar of stone,
lift up a hammer, and allow
its swing to cleave open
your glinting center, let
this sun’s light dance
over you, permit someone
else to see your spiky radiance.
White Egret, Green Field
Balancing on one stilt,
slender, pure as salt,
you stab into rice stalks.
Minnows, golden,
glinting, circle your leg
with their swimming.
Giving a cry—
Grief? Exhilaration?—
you achieve the sky.
Water bird, white
as bone, you soar
over these green fields,
visionary,
yet alone. Always
alone.
