Writing the Life Poetic

Minding Words: Four Things to Attend to, and Four Things to Avoid

By Dale Favier

What to Attend to

1. Read old poetry. We write within a tradition, whether we know it or not. Know it. If you're going to echo Shakespeare -- and you are -- then echo Shakespeare himself, not a second-, third-, or fourth-rate imitation of him.  

2. Memorize poetry. I say this all the time. I'm saying it again. Memorized poetry lives with you, gets under your skin, in a way that read-and-half-forgotten poetry just never does. And don't give me that stuff about not being able to memorize things. Memorization is a skill that anyone can learn.   It's absurd that in a culture that's downright hagridden by qualifying exams we don't teach memorization in school, but we ordinarily don't, so you have to learn it by yourself. Fortunately it's not that hard to learn, and it's an immensely useful skill in many endeavors.  

3. Learn a language, or two, or three. You don't have to be fluent. You don't even have to be any good at it. Take classes for a year or two in a language -- preferably, one you just take a shine to and which will be perfectly useless to you forever -- and get to the point where you can understand its basic grammar, read its nursery rhymes, and have a glimpse of what the Germans call its Sprachgefühl, its "speechfeel."   Languages have characteristic cadences and habits of sound and meaning. Liberate yourself from the delusion that your native language is "just the way it is." It isn't. It's far more wonderful than "just the way it is": it's a magnificent piece of collaborative art. But you can't see it as such without being able to stand outside it.  

4. Play. Be silly, maudlin, obscene, vicious, petty, overwrought, oversimple. If it's bad you can throw it away later. But write it first, and decide how good it is later. Most of it will be bad. So what?  

What to avoid  

1. Advice. Like this.  

2. Words that aren't natural to you. There's a temptation to reach for impressive, rarely-used words, even though you're not really at home with them. The words you use should be supple and well-worn, comfortable in your mind and heart. I'm all for learning new words. But don't use them in poetry right away. That's like marrying someone you met just last night. You'll regret it. Trust me.  

3. Violent, garish imagery, unless it really does precisely what you want it to. Vivid is good, but only if it's also accurate. Don't carpet-bomb the reader with gripping images because one of the incidental effects of one of the images is one that you want. Most readers don't like random assault. They want to know that if you're seizing their attention, it's for a good reason. 

4. Silent writing. Say it. Aloud. "Poetry must always sing," said Yeats. If you can't make it sing with your voice, readers won't be able to make it sing in their heads. It's easy to fool yourself into thinking that it sounds fine if you only read it silently. Read it aloud.

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Dale Favier has taught poetry, chopped vegetables, and written software for a living. Currently he works half-time as a massage therapist and half-time running a database for a non-profit in Portland, Oregon. He is a Buddhist, in the Tibetan tradition. He writes about meditation and poetry, and whatever ever else he may be interested in at the moment, at Mole. He has an M.Phil. in English Literature from Yale, but he never wrote much poetry until he began blogging, a few years ago, and fell in with bad companions. With them he eventually brought out an anthology, Brilliant Coroners. His poems have also appeared in Qarrtsiluni and The Ouroborus Review. His first chapbook, Opening the World, will be coming out next year from Pindrop Press.

Minding Words: The More Resistance, the Less Force

By Dale Favier

"If you encounter resistance, use less force," said our teacher. We all looked up, surprised, from the naked backs we were working on. Our teacher reiterated: "Your instinct is to use more, I know. But if you're meeting resistance, back off. The more resistance, the less force."

We were working with the layer of connective tissue under the skin. Not all massage has to do with muscles. The body, its organs, and its muscles are all shrink-wrapped in connective tissue; the skin rides on top of an extensive layer of the stuff. It can get stiff, tight, distorted. When properly warmed and worked it becomes soft and flexible. But you can't force it. It's like silly putty: when cold and motionless it's hard, but as it warms and moves it becomes more fluid.

My teacher's advice was exactly right. It takes patience to do that work. You have to listen with your hands, slow down, and wait for the skin under your hands to respond. And when it's not responding, it's usually because you're trying too hard, going too fast. It will open up in its own sweet time.

The same thing happens with writing. I encounter resistance of one sort or another -- say an utterly recalcitrant line that just won't come right -- and my first impulse is to apply more force, bull my way on through, force my way forward. It's usually the wrong thing to do. And it's wrong for the same reason that it's wrong to try to force connective tissue: because I'm skipping ahead, trying to get to the solution without exploring the problem.

When you get stuck, first of all, ease off. And listen. Maybe I'm not quite at the right angle. Maybe it's not warm enough yet. Or maybe it's just not going to move today. That has to be all right. "Failure is not an option" may be a fine motto for NASA, but it's not a motto for massage therapists, or for poets. Failure is always an option. Often it's the most interesting option, if you pay attention to it. Because it means that something is not as you expected it to be. It means, in fact, that there is something to be learned. It means that there's an opportunity to make it new, which is precisely, Ezra Pound said, the poet's job. So don't just push harder. Don't do more of the same. Back off, let go, and listen.

So I can't get that line right. What if there's a good reason for that? What if I'm trying to force the wrong solution? Does there actually need to be another line at all? Try doing without it. Who says this stanza has to look like the other ones? Who says this problematic line shouldn't actually be two, or six? Who says it has to rhyme, or has not to? Who says I can't repeat a word I like? Who says the image can't be conventional, even hackneyed? Try going with the stale image: I can twist it or spike it or erase it later. 

And, maybe the most important of all -- know when to quit. Poetry is more like human flesh than any other constructed thing I know. Sometimes you miss your moment, and then you just have to let it be, let it recover. Work on something else.

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Dale Favier has taught poetry, chopped vegetables, and written software for a living. Currently he works half-time as a massage therapist and half-time running a database for a non-profit in Portland, Oregon. He is a Buddhist, in the Tibetan tradition. He writes about meditation and poetry, and whatever ever else he may be interested in at the moment, at Mole. He has an M.Phil. in English Literature from Yale, but he never wrote much poetry until he began blogging, a few years ago, and fell in with bad companions. With them he eventually brought out an anthology, Brilliant Coroners. His poems have also appeared in Qarrtsiluni and The Ouroborus Review. His first chapbook, Opening the World, will be coming out next year from Pindrop Press.

Minding Words: Give Up Being a Poet

By Dale Favier

 Kalu Rinpoche, a Buddhist meditation master, was once asked, "will I have to give up being a Christian in order to achieve enlightenment?"

He was famous for his inclusive, ecumenical bent.  So it surprised and dismayed his Western audience when he firmly said: "Yes."

After a pause, he added, "Of course, you will also have to give up being a Buddhist."

I would urge you, in the same vein, to give up being a poet. Ambitions to write are ordinarily marbled with all kinds of fantasies about what sort of person you'll be when you succeed at it. You'll be wise, attractive, free of convention. You'll be interesting. You'll get respect, maybe not from the general public, but from a secret coterie of people who live passionately and authentically.

Nothing, nothing will kill your writing faster than these fantasies. Don't hope for your poetry to make you a different person (one that's worthwhile, this time.) Writing poetry doesn't do that. It doesn't change you from an ordinary person into a special one. Don't look for it to change your circumstances. It doesn't do that either. Don't let it get tangled up in all that.

Resolve at once: poetry is going to live in a different place. It's going to have a different cupboard in your mind. It's not going to get jumbled in with the stuff in the career anxiety drawer, along with ideas of going for a master's in electrical engineering or getting certified in Thai massage. It's not going into broom closet of defunct tools for finding the love of your life, along with speed dating and subscribing to match.com. It's not going to join the exercise bicycle and the yoga mat down in the basement of self-improvement equipment.

Poetry is going to be perfectly useless. It's going to be nothing but fun. It's going into the cupboard of forbidden delights, along with the chocolate. You're not going to "be a poet." You're going to indulge in poetry. Poetry is going to be your secret vice. You're going to grow sleek and fat on poetry. You're going to have online dalliances with other poets. You're going to put their words in your mouth, without fretting for a moment about where else they might have been, and you're going to pop your own words in their mouths, wantonly and unexpectedly.

And resolve: you are not going to be good poet. You're not going to be a dignified poet. You're not going to be a disciplined poet. You're not going to win the National Book Award.

Pick a person to write to. No, no, not your high school English teacher. Not someone you want to impress. Someone who's impressed by you.  Someone who hangs on your every word. Someone who wants to know what you mean, no matter how long it takes, who wants to whisper your words over and over and get all of the juice out of them.  Someone who always gets it and who never wants you to be anything but you. 

(Well, all right, sure, we're talking about an imaginary friend here.  Didn't I say this was going to be an indulgence?)

And now, if you've really done that -- have you really done that? -- write a poem. Write a bad poem. Make it maudlin, ridiculous, ornate, politically incorrect. Make it incomprehensible. Make it obvious. Take all the cheap shots. 

It's going to be a fabulous poem. Or not. Who cares?

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Dale Favier has taught poetry, chopped vegetables, and written software for a living. Currently he works half-time as a massage therapist and half-time running a database for a non-profit in Portland, Oregon. He is a Buddhist, in the Tibetan tradition. He writes about meditation and poetry, and whatever ever else he may be interested in at the moment, at Mole.

He has an M.Phil. in English Literature from Yale, but he never wrote much poetry until he began blogging, a few years ago, and fell in with bad companions. With them he eventually brought out an anthology, Brilliant Coroners. His poems have also appeared in Qarrtsiluni and The Ouroborus Review. His first chapbook, Opening the World, will be coming out next year from Pindrop Press.