It was just an assignment...

and the one of three options I resisted the most. In general the class assignment was to continue working with the "constellation of images" that shape our writing.  I chose the option of working with a form---the sestina.  Six six-line stanzas followed by a three-line stanza (envoi) for a total of thirty-nine lines. The six same words end the lines of each stanza in a particular order each time.  For me, at least lately, a long poem is ten lines and 30 words or less.

I chose six words that thread through my work, put them in order, my posterior to chair, pen to paper and began to write.  After three days of concentrated effort I had a first draft ready for eyes and ears other than my own. Since then it has been workshopped, read by three poet friends, and although the third stanza isn't there yet, I actually like the piece, even though there is still work to be done with it.  I'm both exhausted and energized by it---work up at 3:30am this morning thinking about it---and will return to it before the day is over.

In one of the "reflections" introducing his Collected Poems Stanley Kunitz writes: "Our poems can never satisfy us since they are at best a diminished echo of a song that maybe once or twice in a lifetime we've heard and keep trying to recall." I read this after finishing the dreaded sestina's first draft and realized that this effort to "recall" something I've heard only once or twice is the source of both energy and exhaustion at the center of my creative process. And I'm beginning to recognize the same effort in the work of others to call up their unique "song heard once or twice in a lifetime".

Just this morning I opened Alicia Ostriker's No Heaven at random and read "The Faure Requiem". That took me a listen of Faure's music and then full circle to my persistent sestina. This kind of connection is so necessary to my creative process as I get closer and closer to being able to answer questions suggested by Jeffrey Levine in a recent post: Can I describe my work in one sentence, one paragraph, one page?  Can I clearly articulate what I write about, why I write about it and how I write about it?

In was just an assignment and the one of three options I resisted the most.

the clouds continue to fly

Within the last 6 months I've received two rejection notices from the same journal...an online journal whose aesthetic and stated mission I respect, and a place I would love to see my work. Each letter said, we look forward to seeing more of your work. I take that as encouraging.

This time, however, I have not gone scratching through poems to find yet another 3-5 to send their way. Something gave me pause as I read that last letter.  After 3 months of ambivalence, I have decided to spend the next year at least, maybe more, reading and writing and reading and writing some more and not making any submissions. I have 2 that I sent on their way before I came to this decision, and if they are accepted, I will be pleased. But for now, as a friend so gently said to me, it's all about taking time "to experience your work in all its facets and with all the insights you can muster, but also just take time to enjoy and relax, and re-approach your work".  Something like an independent study MFA!

Making this choice freed me to enroll in a poetry seminar at Thomas More College across the river---"Draft to Craft", led by Writer-in-Residence Pauletta Hansel.  Eight Wednesday evenings of intense conversation and writing with 15 other poets. We met for the first time last Wednesday, and among other things, took a field trip to the college's art gallery to draft an ekphrastic poem.

The show is that of a local artist titled Alert in the Cosmos, and in his words attempts to show the spiritual aspects of material things. I read that and immediately flinched at the dualism that seems to imply.  The collection is a series of collages with iconic images of St Francis, various birds, representations of early cosmological thinking , and typed words, phrases and complete sentences and lots of blue, not blues but one particular Virgin Mary's robe blue.

Truth be told, I am not a vigorous fan of ekphrastic poetry; there is some that I like, but not enough to try writing it myself. After pacing the gallery for a while, I finally stood still in front of a piece titled clouds continue to fly.  It has all the elements I mentioned before. I wrote a basic description of the collage, attempting to view it from the perspective of Francis. The next morning it read to me as complete nonsense. So, I decided to take the option of not continuing to work with it through the week and bring another poem for the opening read around on October 1st.

But the collage would have none of that.  Bits of it kept on my heels, even appeared in a dream, and led me to read articles about ekphrastic poetry online and sent me to the library for more and for some poems. And so, here is the revision I will take to class on Wednesday:

                                   the clouds continue to fly: collage by Gary Gaffney

    
                                    Francis the icon
                                    not the man
                                    against dark

                                    matter a raven
                                    at his back
                                    carries the last

                                    drop of blue
                                    Van Gogh scattered
                                    over wheat


As I've completed "the assignment as given", I've come to to a deeper understanding about a poem sequence I've been working on lately and my obsession with certain images threading through it. And now I can return to it with more "mustered insight".

Not a bad week's work...

first draft (revisited)

After several months of neglect, I've decided to revisit blogging.  Something of an intuitive leap, trusting that at least some friends will choose to read it once in a blue moon; and other friends will not have to endure Facebook posts that really are more like blog entries.

I will post about poetry, my own and that of others; about writing and reading and about why all of it matters to me.  And hopefully, those of you who read something that matters to you here will enter the conversation.