Concentric Circles

Part one

Part two  part three  part four  part five

Journal and art
by David Belcher
©

Introduction

For several years I have been a member of the poetry forum PoetryCircle. I kept a journal and recorded in it everything I found exciting. I am grateful to all of the forum’s members and the forum’s founder for sharing their knowledge and their experiences.

Concentric Circles 
Poetry communities are the centre of a poet’s life, poets move in ever expanding circles around them.

 

Reginald the poet

Maggie Flanagan-Wilkie introduced me to a poet called Reginald Shepherd. Regi said ‘I write because I would like to live forever. The fact of my future death offends me.’

He goes on to say,

‘That the things and the people I love will die wounds me as well… I seek to immortalize the world I found and made for myself, even knowing that I won’t be there to witness that immortality… I will never know if my endeavour has been successful. But when has impossibility ever deterred anyone from a cherished goal?’

Reading essays

While exploring I found an essay by a guy called Alberto Rios, he said,

‘I appreciate the long line…  not lines with simply more words… I mean lines that are long in their moment, that make me linger… give me a sense of having encountered something worth stopping for.’

As a reader I want to pause, be in the moment and not be rushed toward a conclusion. While I read I want to be a willing participant, allowed a chance to feel an emotion, to think a thought and I want my imagination to be fed and given space to move.

Rewriting and not getting into a huff

When I first joined PoetryCircle I commented somewhere that I like a challenge and I have been challenged. I post work and readers suggest where I can make improvements. I am not always reasonable. My first response to critique is often panic, despair and a stubborn refusal to accept I might again be wrong.

I now place my ego in a box, I give it water and toys to play with and then I ignore it until I have made improvements to my work.

Listening to your audience

Lance Jencks said, ‘A young woman once said to me after the performance of one of my plays, “I liked the funny parts.” I took that to heart while retaining an outlook which is essentially tragic,’

Honest sentiment

Again and again I am struck by the power of feelings honestly expressed, an instance of true emotion captured in clear lively language.

Can do better

I remember being ten years old and standing at the front of the classroom while the teacher Mr Bennett tutted and shook his head because my school work had again disappointed him. This was my experience of school in general. ‘Could do better’ would be my epitaph.

Except, I discovered poetry. I couldn’t write but I refused to accept I was stupid as mud.

Learning to write poetry has made me a better person. Rewriting a poem this week I remembered how much I’ve learned in the years I’ve been writing, and I’m not only talking about my language skills.

‘Can do better’ is my guiding principle in life.

Is it my work?

I once worked with a would-be poet like myself who refused to alter his work. One day he read me a poem in which he described his cat as trite, her trite nose, her trite ears, trite whiskers… I asked why ‘trite?’ He replied he thought trite meant pretty. We laughed but he refused to change his poem saying if he listened to me it wouldn’t be his poem.

Why am I telling this story?

This week a fellow poet in PoetryCircle asked if we listen to other poet’s suggestions and change our work is it our work? I haven’t always accepted other poet’s ideas but over time I’ve stopped thinking of poems I write as mine: once they’re written they have a life of their own and it’s then up to me to ensure they have all they need to survive.

Most great poets were never alone, they had someone they turned to for another opinion. I’m not a great poet but I do have friends and I accept their advice.

Concentric smiles

‘Truly it is about how our art helps others to save their lives’ said Silent Lotus.

Taking risks

Gregory DiPrinzio said, ‘Taking risks in writing is saying what you really believe, or taking a stand on a controversial issue, exposing  yourself, putting yourself in a vulnerable position…’

Creative feedback

To anyone guilty of ‘creative feedback’ as the founder of PoetryCircle put it, when you get carried away and seem too full of yourself, Michael Ashley said ‘Do you practise being a dickhead, or is it a natural thing?’

Show don’t tell

These nuggets of wisdom are from a comment by Lance Jencks.

‘I am always suspicious of opening and ending stanzas… endings frequently summarize a point already know to the reader… openings show me warming up to my subject, not writing inside it.

I read the original “Cut all your little darlings” essay written about openings and endings. Watch out for weak openings and redundant endings. Avoid glittering generalities. Show don’t tell.

We all have things to say… I wrote a piece yesterday… it will never see the light of day because it’s a lecture without a single concrete example of what the poem talks about.

One member of PoertyCircle talks about leaving things unsaid… things to leave unsaid… the morals of a story, the explanations, the generalities, arguments.’

Staying honest

One of the aspects of PoetryCircle I admire is the honesty of its members and it’s the reason I joined the forum. Honesty is essential.

I don’t want to be agreed with, if you think something I’ve written could be improved I want to hear it and I promise I will do the same for you. I like the feeling that what I write could be rejected, it stops me from being lazy.

Honesty is the fire that strengthens the steel in our words.

I don’t talk like this in real life.

Flash card poems

I’ve read a few poems recently in PoertyCircle that Michael Ashley has christened Flash card poems. I’d like to offer a definition of these poems: A minimalist poem made up of a series of impressions, experiences, things thought and felt, each impression separated by additional spacing to highlight each impression.

Drama requires change

Lance Jencks wrote, ‘Drama requires change… a reversal…  a change of circumstances, of attitude… of spiritual essence… occurring to the narrator… poetry is the most compact form of storytelling… we must be prepared to abandon daily reality for the heightened truth we call fiction…’

Working with other poets

I found this quote by the writer Helen Dunmore.

‘I have learned so much from working with other poets, travelling and reading with them, spending days discussing poems in progress. There is the sense that we are all, as writers, part of something which is more powerful than any one of us.’

Does this apply to me?

I do have artistic aspirations or I wouldn’t be here. I admit I want what I create to earn me cold hard cash, I want my parents to be proud of me and I want you to think I’m damn fine, too. But the more involved I get in the world of ART the more I wonder, do I belong here? I read serious discussions exploring the concerns of artists and ask, does this apply to me?

I’m a conventional guy. I have a prosaic job, I pay my bills. I do not have an artistic background but I do believe I have something to say. I don’t have to be mad and I don’t have to talk about Kafka or to have lived in the dark green depths of some forsaken jungle to have something worth saying. I don’t have to be particularly intelligent, luckily. I only need to be creative. I can do that.

Poetry is ready for something new

I read this essay by a guy called John Barr. You can find and read it for yourself but these are the parts that inspire me.

‘A new poetry becomes necessary… things have changed…  the art form is no longer equal to the reality around it.

A general, interested public is poetry’s foremost need.

I think a dead end is the fate that awaits any poetry that is not a record of the human spirit responding.

I believe the next era in poetry will come not from further innovations in form, but from an evolution of the sensibility based on lived experience.

The one valid impulse to write a poem is not to impress but to share…

Live broadly, write boldly…with a few important exceptions,  no major poet has come from the academic world…

That’s not to say that one has to be chased around Pamplona by bulls to gain experience…  It could be something as slight as the difference between the poem one might get from a poet strolling past a construction site versus the poem one might get from the poet who is pouring concrete.

When poets come to pay as much attention to how they live as to what they write, that may mark one new beginning in poetry.

The human mind is a marketplace, especially when it comes to selecting one’s entertainment…  a strong majority of readers think well of poetry… poetry must meet a standard of pleasure as well as profundity.

This is not to say that we want to “dumb down” poetry…

Whitman said, “To have great poets there must be great audiences too,” and then he wrote for them.

Ground breaking new art comes when artists make a changed assumption about their relationship to their audience, talk to their readers in a new way, and assume they will understand.’

The poetic line

Maggie Flanagan-Wilkie posted an article in PoertyCircle by a guy called Dana Gioia . These are the parts I found most interesting.

Lines establish patterns, rhythms that heighten a reader’s attention.

Introduce variety in line length to create interest but then return to your established pattern or establish a new pattern.

‘Passive details weaken the overall force of a poem.’  Each line must add something, further the narrative in an imaginative way.

‘Poetic lines turn on the final word in each line.’ The end word is a focal point that can heighten feeling, create tension and energy. End words create expectation and momentum.

‘Since the line break is so prominent, it must be used for expressive effect. If it doesn’t work for the poem, it will work against it.’

The purpose of poetry is…

Jonathan Bracker introduced me to this by the writer Leo Rosten.

‘I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honourable and to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.’

Jonathan pointed out that life need not be one thing or another. ‘There are days when I live like a house cat, when I don’t want anything any way. But most days I’m a bloke who has definite ideas how things should be.’

 I thought what Leo had to say about life can be applied to poetry.

The way things seem

Every Sunday morning I read about a published poet, their life and their work and get a sense of what they think, how they feel about the world and about writing. I make notes and then I write.

This morning I focused on a guy called Kevin Hart. I thought you might be interested in what Kevin has to say about writing.

Science and technology don’t define our world entirely. The same can be said of religion and politics.

‘we are in danger of losing the contemplative dimension of life, serene attention, and replacing it with its negative counterpart, fascination.

Some poetry can help us contemplate the natural world better.

I don’t think of poetry as representing events… events often prompt a poem to be written.

What is written in itself is an experience, an exposure to the unknown… I am often surprised by what a poem tells me…

Each poem draws on a deep fund of feeling and thought… some feelings from years ago get dredged up by a metaphor and become attached to other currents that are more recent.

Poetry enables us to see what otherwise would be invisible, unfelt and unthought. Take care of it.’

It isn’t enough to say how things are. If you want to be completely objective then be a scientist, that way of thinking is useful but it can’t tell us everything about an experience, or how it is to be human.

Write about how things seem, trust what your instincts are telling you; follow what thoughts and emotions rise up in you when you contemplate an experience and put that down in words.

Finding the time

Finding the time to write is a struggle, work and chores, life’s mundane demands take up time but this week I read a quote by the poet Miroslav Holub who said, if he had all the time in the world to write he would write nothing.

Another way of saying that would be, where there’s no life there’s no poetry.

Surprising myself

I’ve been reading about a poet called Stephen Dunn and I want to pass on a few of his thoughts.

‘Resist the available language of a subject.

I’m not in my poem until the moment I surprise myself.

If something I’ve written doesn’t seem to be working I write a poem against it, take a different point of view.

I’ve had it with all the stingy-hearted bitches.  A heart is to be spent.’

Maybe not today

A good reader will see ways you can improve your work. Sometimes, readers disagree with one another, each one pulling you a separate way while your own judgement is telling you something different.

Ignore nothing, not advice and especially not your own doubts. If every question is not answered to your satisfaction then remember what Maggie Flanagan-Wilkie said to me, ‘maybe not today, or next month or even six months from now but one day you will pick this up again and write a better ending.’

Inside out and how things are

Lance Jencks wrote this and I thought you’d like it too. ‘We will write in character at times, pretending to be someone else.’

Lance was once asked what is the most important trait for a writer to have and he replied, ‘Compassion. My response was founded on the ancient idea that “Nothing human is alien to me.” the author must have a profound and complete compassion for the characters they pen, or they will not come alive. If the writer has no compassion for their character they will fail… their character will be a cartoon… This is the essence of writing from the inside-out: compassion for and identification with all life.

Too often I see writing which is censorious, mean-spirited, judgemental, this is not poetry, it’s preaching.

Preaching tells us what to do, poetry tells us how things are.

I wondered if a light shone on me

Trish Saunders wrote, ‘I have to credit the World War two veterans, I used transcripts from interviews, their suffering and fear as they parachuted onto beaches… I’ve been reading war archives for several months…’

 Trish wrote a poem about a war hero. Reading Trish’s comment I was reminded of the importance of research. Other people have much they can teach us. If someone should choose to share their life experiences with us shouldn’t a poet pass on those experiences the best way they can?

Dee-dum dee-dum dee-dum

I struggle with metre, what words or parts of words are stressed or unstressed in a line. My response has always been, I’ll learn that stuff later or I don’t get it so I won’t do it. I read articles on the subject and hope one day it will sink in, one day.

Clear views are too simple

In response to a poem Lance Jencks said, ‘Should we always attempt to be rational? Or is there another way to experience life?’

Last night I watched a documentary about the poet Dylan Thomas.

Much of Thomas’s poetry is suggestive, it does not take a clear and simple view. Like many readers I find such poems difficult, they can be interpreted many ways, but that’s what makes them interesting.

Thomas once said he looked for the unexpected word. The word that first came was often replaced.

Clear views are not only simple, they are boring.

The importance of being human

Jonathan Bracker wrote, ‘…how can a finely described heron illuminate our Friday night if we are dateless?

And

As a child in Sunday school reportedly said “God is all right but I want someone with skin.”

And

It is done hand in hand with a human being…’

Simply describing the world isn’t enough. A poem should have skin, and if I should ever describe a heron I hope also to describema human experience.

Real life

I live beside the sea and it’s a bright summer day.

Life can’t all be poetry. Sometimes poetry must be put aside, forgotten. When I’ve done a little living I can return to poetry feeling fresh and filled with enthusiasm.

Wet poetry

In his poem ‘Mugg’s game’ Rick Stansberger said, ‘the insides of a thing are dry by the time you get them on the page.’

Getting things written while they are still wet is something every poet wants.

Conceits and transcriptions

Lance Jencks wrote, ‘…during my time here I have noted that poems based on metaphors and conceits (he wakes to discover he’s been asleep for 100 years) get more play than those that do not.’

 I am far less interested in manufacturing conceits than I am in directly transcribing life as it happens. I still do conceits when they hit me, they are fun.

I transcribe the present moment because I find it inspirational.

I was trained to play the present moment as a young actor…it’s where you want to be when performing a role: fully immersed in the present…’ 

A poem on the mantel

Lance Jencks wrote, ‘…make your self-expression… a finely crafted vase that people will want to place above the mantel for viewing and discussion when friends come to visit.’ 

The voice of the spirit

The poet Ted Hughes said, ‘Poetry is the voice of spirit and imagination.’

While on a train yesterday, fumbling my way toward another poem, it came to me that poetry and religion discover truth in the same fashion, through revelation— things are revealed: the spirit speaks.

I trust logic and real life experience. If you tell me a thing is true I will ask for evidence, but writing poetry is more like religion than science. A poem does not need to be logical, it does not need to present evidence, it only has to feel true and that is its power.

Like a prophet, a poet asks you to trust their truth: the spirit spoke and this is what the spirit said; do you trust the human spirit?

I imagine you do because like me you read poetry.

 

Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed reading this you might want to read Concentric Circles part two