I’ve been thinking a lot about poetry’s health lately. Too often I feel it’s the wallflower in book review sections, never mind in people’s lives. Who really cares about the art we’re so passionate about? We know it can change lives, but does anyone else?

I feel better after reading this wonderful piece by Charles Simic, the former US poet laureate. He’s right – there’s poetry happening everywhere: on the web, in universities, and even in bars. In my home town, Ottawa, Canada, we have the Tree Reading Series, one of Canada’s oldest, plus a host of others, all surprisingly well-attended. See ByWords’ Calendar of Literary Events.

What gives me real heart is an In/Words reading I attended recently. In/Words (on Facebook) is traditionally aimed at the university crowd, and even though it was a rainy summer night the place was full of young people. Despite all predictions of the death of poetry, poetry is still hot.

But it’s growing and changing too. There’s wonderful visual poetry: see derek beaulieu and Amanda Earl’s new work (which I love).

And there’s also a new stream marrying word and image interactively online. Take a look at J. R. Carpenter’s webpage, Lucky Soap, especially Entre Ville (click on the windows). She’s one of my heroes. After seeing her present her work last March at Carleton University, I went home and wrote the following:

Illuminated

for J. R. Carpenter

The ancient monks did it, dipping
quills into colours that still glow
around the edges of their words
angels hovering above
townspeople in their markets
a baby here, a donkey carrying
bread on the next golden
page. Even the first letter
of a poem could be a serpent
unto itself, coiled with the gleam
of mis-spent life, a warning
to readers of what lies
ahead. Ah, but these pictures
were for the ignorant
a friend says, images to carry
where words can’t. No
matter. The two together
are lovelier
than this page.

As you can see by looking ahead to the final version below, this poem didn’t require a huge edit. It’s one of those rare ‘gift’ poems, where many images came out fully formed. Other images, however, did require more visualization. I didn’t want the angels to just hover over the townspeople but there wasn’t space in this poem for too much detail. So, after several attempts, I settled on a single, tight phrase, one that allows readers to supply their own wings. A couple of drafts laid cucumbers and cabbages on the market stalls but they were obtrusive and got cut in favour of the simplicity of the patron who was always pictured being generous.

These changes were made on posting day; an older version of this poem can be seen on the Tree Reading Series website, as I gave it as a sample of my work for my reading as part of the Hot Ottawa Voices. But in my poems, change is a constant. I love editing poetry.

One last note: I deliberately left the word ‘No’ as a line ending. I wanted to refute the reason my friend gave for illuminated manuscripts, even though I know she’s technically correct (I still like to think the monks were having fun). By leaving ‘No’ hanging there, readers hear it before they continue on to my real use. I learned this trick from an online critique (sadly before I knew to save links). There is so much to learn from reading what others see in great poetry – check out Arc Poetry Magazine’s How Poems Work.

Here’s the (current) final version.

Illuminated

for J. R. Carpenter

The ancient monks did it, dipping
quills into colours that still
glow around the edges
of their words, angels hovering
wing-spread above townspeople
in their markets, a king’s
purpled horse prancing
by a wailing child, coin flashing
while a donkey carries
bread on the next golden
page. Even the first letter
of a poem could be a serpent
unto itself, coiled with the gleam
of mis-spent life, a warning
to readers of what lies
ahead. Ah, but those pictures
were for the ignorant,
a friend says, images to carry
what words couldn’t. No
matter. The two together
are lovelier than this page.

Bodies are like cars: some are lemons. Mine’s not a lemon on a grand scale, like a Toyota with the accelerator stuck to the floor. More a worn-out Chevy with a polished exterior which fools those who don’t look under the hood.

Periodically I write poems to my body, like throwing a biscuit to a snarly dog. Earlier attempts were dismal flops. After all, pain is not a popular party guest.

But I’ve kept trying, figuring the more I learn about language, the better my skills for conveying that four letter word. Talk about a poetry walk – this one’s internal.

At last, I think I’m getting there, though the first draft wasn’t promising:

Sleepless

It’s not a matter of sleeping
on clouds, no lift of air
holds without
a touch. It’s not the warm
slosh of water giving way
beneath a hip’s pressing
weight. It’s not the sharpness
of spring coiled beneath
the chemical of foam
layers. It’s latex, natural
outpouring from an injured
tree that lies spread
beneath my aching joints.

It doesn’t help. I try again,
learn to lie straight-legged
in bed, to leave womb’s curl
behind, try to ease the cramp my mind
knows by heart. But this highway
has traffic that does not stop,
nerves flash code even
scientists can’t decode.
I roll again.

Sleepless has been through so many revisions, it’s kept me up at night. But it needed it. Since I wrote it at 2 am, I wasn’t paying the kind of attention to detail I’ve been working on. For example, I never stopped to ask whether the title conveyed the meaning of the poem. Or what the opening ‘It’s’ referred to, the one repeated in the next three sentences. In both cases, I was committing one of my usual sins: assuming too much. I may know what the poem’s about, but if my readers don’t, the poem fails.

Having fixed those issues, I next had to deal with mixed metaphors. Slipping traffic in at 2 am is excusable. Allowing it to stay is not. Yes, doctors now speak of pain highways in the body. Someday, I’ll work on a poem with space for naming that road. But this one had too many images already. So cut. On to the next draft and the search for images I could slide in, ones that didn’t make my research too obtrusive. The last thing I want is to give the impression of a lecture hall.

So this meant the word ‘mitochondria’ couldn’t be used. But the metaphor ‘tiny power plants’ could. And thanks to my overriding nature theme, it was easy to incorporate the fact that trees have mitochondria too. (I think that is so cool.)

Finally, I needed an ending. Oh endings. I’ve not been brilliant at them in the past. For example, I forgot to write one for the first sermon I gave, so I simply stopped and said, ‘Bye bye.’ Yes. I really did that. In front of a whole church-full of people. Stellar.

I’m getting better at them now, thanks to a wonderful essay by Ottawa poet Barbara Myers in Arc Poetry Magazine’s Winter 2010 issue (see an excerpt here). Now I sit and gaze into space while I ask myself that crucial question: ‘what am I trying to say?’ Once I’ve figured the answer out, not only does the ending usually come, but the whole poem often gets tighter. Someday, I will learn to ask this question earlier in the process. I hope.

Here’s the current draft of this poem – it will be revisited:

Living With Fibro
Myalgia Aches

I’d like to sleep on clouds, the lift of air
holding without a touch. Or on
the warm slosh of water contained
in rubber, to heat my hip’s
pressing bone. At least I gave up
the sharpness of spring coiled
beneath the chemical of foam layers.
Bought latex, nature’s gift
from an injured tree, to conform
to my tender joints, shape-shifter
learning my body’s subtle arch,
passing weight around.

It doesn’t help. I try new tricks, learn
to lie straight legged, leave womb’s curl
behind to ease the cramps my mind
knows by heart. But nerves flash distress
with messages scientists can’t decode.
They point to cells’ hidden contents,
the tiny power plants we share
with trees, the ones that sometimes
go wrong. I turn again, cast my mind
further, away from body’s reach to where
sleep waits, a fog longing to roll in.
Tomorrow will be rough.

I’ve spent the last week going to concerts at Music and Beyond, the new chamber music festival in town. Never mind the stinking heat, I’ve been out there lining up around the block with the other fanatics, and then inside, squirming on bare pews.

To my surprise, it’s been a useful exercise for my poetry. Especially two of the concerts. The first, The Gallery Project, featured new Canadian music composed to art mostly painted by dead white guys. The second was for piano and featured music written by … dead white guys. Okay, so I’ve also been thinking about the need for diversity in the classical music scene, but that’s not my main point today (though it is bugging me. The performers were mostly live white guys. White is getting boring. Read here for a local success story. And then, if you want to be proactive, email here.)

I’d previously read a post by the Newfoundland poet Stephen Rowe in which he discusses what makes poetry great. I don’t want to repeat it here – it’s worth reading. But it had started me reflecting on how I recognize excellence in other’s work when I read or hear it.

I carried that question into concerts, where it’s easier for me to hear greatness because of my early training (my undergraduate degree is in performance on the french horn – one of those popular party instruments, the kind people were always begging me to pull out and play).

I know the techniques to listen for in music. So when I heard Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata the other night, there was no question it was superb. And I could say that even though I didn’t like Tigran Alikhanov’s interpretation of it. The music shone! Next on the program was Schumann’s Carnaval. Not so good. Yes, Alikhanov banged his way through it, but still, as my husband said afterwards, ‘needs editing’. (I think he might hang out with me too much.) The Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition after intermission was straight back to genius.

The contemporary composers were also mixed. Two of them, Scott Macmillan and Jocelyn Morlock, had written tight, crisp pieces. They never sagged. But another one’s work was movie music. Cut. And someone else’s piece had some lovely sections interspersed with ‘oh dear’. I felt I needed scissors in order to be able to enjoy it.

All this made me think of my own poems. I want them to become like Beethoven’s or Morlock’s work. Or, as Rowe points out, like Calvin & Hobbes. Also great. I don’t want the saggy bits where my readers’ attention droops (have I lost you yet?). This means continually honing my ear by reading others’ poetry and by paying attention to what works – and doesn’t.

I also want to know when what I have written is fine but slight, like another of the new Canadian compositions. Hearing it helped me to realize that while the poem I wrote waiting in line for that concert is quite nice, it’s lightweight. Yes, I worked on it a lot (I was in line for an hour) so I got it to a reasonable first stage. But it will never be more than a learner poem, where I manipulate language and play with edge and shadow. It’s still important practise. When the good stuff comes, it helps me to be more ready for it. But from now on, my learner poems stay buried.

Fortunately, the Voice granted me a second poem that day, since the first one left me hungry. I’m happier with this one, though I have to confess, I wrote it during the concert and made a prune-lipped old lady mad. She thought I was texting. It’s quite hard to explain poetry sotto voce.

So for today’s editing example, here’s poem #1:

The Glint of Water

.

.

.

Yup, it’s gone. There are times to be brutal in editing and this is one of them.

Here is the replacement offering:

Listening to Music

Listening to you play,
chords crashing on a flood-lit
stage, clarinet colluding
with string’s waver, I remember
my horn’s own soar, lips tight
against cold metal, breath’s
quiver driving a line on.
Do I miss it? My mind
travels back to rooms tiny
with years’ hot sweat, watch
propped on stand keeping time
with scales running through
boredom’s stubborn face. Yes,
there was joy in playing together,
my part united in Brahms’
grand whole, but always the need
for piecework dragged me
down. Back my mind goes,
back, to cycling home for
lunch-time rounds, trucks breathing
hot on my thin neck. It wasn’t
worth it, was only a mother’s
lost dream. I listen now
with words. Content.

One of poetry’s gifts is that it can hold up a mirror for us, one that allows us to freshly see ourselves and our lives, to feel how others have lived our experiences.

That’s what the best poets do. I’m still working at it, but happily learning from a master, Barry Dempster, one of my favourite poets. He doesn’t do private tuition, but that hasn’t stopped me from conducting a private Barry Dempster tutorial program. Reading his work – and listening to him whenever I can – has taught me much about how to use imagery to transform the ordinary. For an example of how he does it, take a look at The Conversation.

At a recent reading, Barry told us he takes his students on ‘poetry walks’ where he gets them to examine every bush and leaf, every crack and berry up close, so that detail can inform their work. Good idea, I thought. But living as I do with migraines and fibromyalgia, I don’t always make it outside. Fortunately, I have years of remembered observation to draw on.

So when it comes time to write my poem a day, I simply go somewhere. I relive an experience, working to recapture its essential details.

Here’s an example, first draft:

The higher we go, the more we hear

We sleep high, your guest bed floating
among Toronto’s clouds, the down-slide
of windows the blankest of mirrors reflecting
the preening weather, bluest sky to grey’s layered
weight. Up here, I’d thought height contained
only multitudes of bird song on wind, gravity holding
a city’s discord to the ground. I was wrong.
Each intersection squawks us awake, the horns of hurry
blaring as engines rev in lighted anticipation.
The weighty whine of air-brakes lift us from
our warm blanketed cocoons and into the bright glare
of the truck’s cab, radio crooning the long-haul,
a dog’s nuzzle cold on the hand gripping gears.
But we travel just a few miles down the Gardiner,
Lake Ontario sparkling our eyes awake, before
your furnace comes on, a low humming of warmth
covering our ears. We roll into it, skin-to-skin
with work’s release, and sleep until coffee enters.

Remember, the single rule of my writing a poem a day is to write the first words that come into my head. They’re usually the title. There is no rule that says I have to keep those words, so they’re quite often edited out. The rule is simply there so I don’t get in my own way, dithering over the blank page. I find my subconscious almost always has a plan for the poem. My job is to listen. And then to fix the results.

The first thing I did in this poem was to change the perspective from ‘We’ to ‘I’. It’s pretty hard to convince a reader that both members of a couple are imagining being in a truck’s cab at the same time. It’s much stronger to use a single, clear voice.

Then I had to get rid of repetition: ‘high’ in the title and the first line meant one had to go. So I changed the title. And I had ‘awake’ twice. And ‘until’. Bad. But then I chose to deliberately repeat ‘I’d thought’ to emphasize my narrator’s preconceptions. And I still begin and end with ‘sleep’. While revising the poem over the last few weeks, I’ve carefully considered each word and its role.

That led me to pare images at the beginning and the end, where I don’t want the distraction. I shortened line lengths. And finally, I took out the coffee. I don’t like coffee. Even the scent of it in a poem disturbs me.

Here’s the current final version:

Heard Visiting You

I sleep high, your guest bed floating
among Toronto’s clouds, up a slide
of windows, blank mirrors reflecting
weather’s changing face. I’d thought
height contained nothing more
than wings, the streaks of bird
and plane singing songs
only sky can hear. I’d thought
gravity held a city’s discord
to the ground. I was wrong.
Each intersection squawks me
awake, the horns of hurry blaring
as engines rev in lighted anticipation.
I’m lifted from warm blankets
by the weighty whine of air-brakes
into the bright glare of a truck’s cab,
radio crooning the long-haul,
a dog’s nuzzle cold on the hand
gripping gears. I travel a few miles
down the Gardiner, Lake Ontario sparkling
at my eyes until your furnace
comes on, a low humming of warmth
covering my ears. I pull it closer
as sleep slides me away

This poem was published on the Parliament of Canada’s Poem of the Month website, December 2010.