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Interesting to think about whether 'rules' of writing mean anything. I always find I read these rules in the same way that I check out who makes the best/worst dressed list in the glossies i.e. its interesting to see how other people see things, but not necessarily representative of my own point of view.
In any its nice to like about these things with regard to your own stuff.
I usually stick to the simple old favourite: Be interesting, if you like the story others might too.
Stephen King suggested that you write like Balzac and edit like, well, him (or James Elroy or some other terse/exact/non-prolix writer).
Here's a little thing i wrote for blowback mag last year on writing poetry:
Points on your poetic license.
Seems like everyone these days has a guilty secret. What diarising was to last year’s creative yearnings, poetry has replaced this winter. What has led many seemingly sane individuals to express themselves in the short form? Why have scriptwriters, musicians, and other apparent creatives been drawn to poetry’s accessibility, familiarity, and relative ease along with the rest of us? While there isn’t a general answer as to why, there seems to be a general style to the poetry being written.
Lets face it many people see poetry as the slut of the arts, the eyeful of starlit grease pouring from the blank face of many a suburbanite (did I mention it’s also addictive?), and within the mythology of unrequited and unlaboured talent why shouldn’t your hastily scribbled tear soaked napkin be a masterpiece? Because according to the poetry experts, exemplified by America’s Joseph Salemi and UK’s own Don Paterson, there is a 99.9% chance that its meritous weight is simply drivel soaked in two ply and what’s more Poetry’s dying. But should we really see this recent upsurge in poetic activity as the last gasp of an art form calling in its close relatives to divide the estate and if so what makes you worthy of the incontinent cat let alone the nice china?
Salemi argues that basically modern poetry is doomed because of the dominance of particular style of poetry; the confessional lyric styled in portentous hush. What’s that? Portentous Hush is an atmosphere that poses before the reader as Something Of Great Importance, with capital letters. It doesn’t matter what the poem is about, the real subject of a poem is the celebration of its own heightened but myopic sensitivity. Worse still, the oracular tone of the ‘poet priest prevailing’ makes the subject ridiculous even when describing something as truly mystic as the number 12 Bus to Tremorfa.
These criticisms of contemporary poetry while valid can be recognised as outpourings from the establishment. The paradox is that while both these experts rail against this efflorescence of meaningless poetry and see themselves as keepers of the flame, they are arguing against a popular revolution and in the end surely more writers of poetry means more readers of poetry. The variety that both Salemi and Paterson argue is lacking from contemporary poetry is their strongest claim and who wouldn’t agree with their assertion that poetry from the unimaginative ‘I’ perspective is a bad thing especially that which drones on with semi-ecclesiastical anaemia? Putting aside the grandstanding (which they both playfully recognise is their right, virtue, and preference) if you’re thinking writing poetry for pleasure or gain (ha) consider this.
There are many guidelines for writing poetry, TS Eliot that great figure of English literature who is at least in part to blame for the ‘sensitive’ emotive excretia beleaguering poetry at present, once said that poetry should be observation, whether of human character or of natural trait, the mind of the poet should channel but not garnish the immediate nature of life. The Beats, and Kerouac in particular took this further arguing that, the first unconstructed thought should never be changed. Just as the human mind unreflexively understands the basis, practice, and structure of grammar, often far better than the individual can verbalise it, so too can it read and perceive the nature of the world far better, unconsciously, than when someone sits for hours contemplating the right rhyme for awake. Salemi points to eight basic rules that he thinks may elevate your poetry (Paterson being the economical Scot that he is simply says – don’t and if you must don’t tell anyone):
1. Don’t use ‘I’
2. Speak clearly using words you know
3. Don’t write directly about emotion, be imaginative.
4. No therapy poems
5. No poems about the ‘wonder’ of nature or your grandchildren
6. No pulpit tones
7. Write as much satirical, erotic and comic verse, and make sure that it is highly offensive to somebody.
8. Remember your primary audience is yourself. Would you honestly like to read your own work?
Paterson with impassioned dourness asks that when writing poetry that you consider this point that writing is the one dependable form of telepathy, poems are devices for ideas to be remembered. If, as William S Burroughs wrote, language is a virus, then poetry should be both the carrier and the symptom. The structure of the poem dictates the manner of understanding. Rhyme, metre, and all other poetic conventions are merely tools of remembrance and to be memorable is the only obeisance that should be made to poetry. In the end it’s your voice that should be heard, but remember it’s crowded out there.
Kailas Elmer. Copyright. 2004
Bib:
‘The Dark Art of Poetry’ by Don Paterson , T.S. Eliot Lecture 2004
http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/news/poetryscene/?id=20
‘Why Poetry is Dying’ by Joseph S. Salemi
http://www.n2hos.com/acm/cult122001.html
Copyright Kailas Elmer 2005. Published Blowback 2005. Used in Bristol Uni. Post Grad Masters Course |
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