I remember Mike Blouin, before a reading from his wonderful book of poetry I’m not going to lie to you, telling me that he often constructed poems line by collected line. At the time this made no sense to me. I wrote poems in non-stop spurts. Yes, I would edit them relentlessly, but I always kept within the bounds of the original inspiration.

This became even more true when I started my poem a day at the end of January 2010. When it was time, I would sit, fingers poised, and either let the poem pour out or sometimes push. Hard.

As I’ve said before though, my time with Don Domanski at the Banff Centre’s Wired Writing program was transformative. Don taught me to play with combinations of disparate images as a way to deepen my metaphors, to go beneath the surface of a line. He taught me how to construct a poem.

So when I came home from Banff, I questioned whether I wanted to continue with the poem a day discipline. I loved it. I loved the way it guaranteed that ennui, despair, a bad day or week would never stop my writing.

But it also meant pages of crap in my poetry file. And lots of good poems, but pages of crap. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what I had written. I found it hard to keep up with the editing. I always had to choose what deserved my time. I was pleased that every day I honed some tiny part of my skills, but I didn’t always develop it. Great lines went unnoticed in the midst of dross.

A 10 day severe, untreatable migraine settled the issue for me and I stopped. Though I still miss it, I find myself thinking about poetry and writing it in a different way. I now do more piece work, following Don’s advice to look through the old bad ones and find what was good there, what might speak elsewhere. I now construct at least parts of poems line by line. I find they still come together coherently. And I find I can spend more time on them individually when I’m not being swamped continually with new material.

But I don’t regret my daily poem exercise. I’d recommend it to other beginners. It’s a great way to build up your chops. And who knows, if I get stuck some day, I may go back to it.

So here’s one of my constructed poems. I’ve revealed some of its early evolution in a previous post, Editing by Stages.

Earlier Version:
Round

You can’t draw your knife edge against
the future, argue with a window
that hasn’t shut, carve fault lines
through a saint’s faint heart or stop
walls with a can of paint. Tracing the outline
of Catharina’s tired rim on the moon, you know
colliding with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud, will break
the sea over your knees, swirl clouds of dust
into a stranger’s face, hold the atoms
in your desk still as you lean a pillow’s
stuffing on a bird’s soft back and turn
a swastika into a star with your pen.

Before I sent it off to Don, I worked a lot more on this poem, going through my Wordplay file and looking back over older poems to see what might spark inspiration. I found lines that spoke to the poem’s ending. Here’s what I came up with. The changes start after ‘swirl clouds of dust into a stranger’s face’, the point at which I knew I’d lost it previously. I wanted to talk about the atoms in a desk surface – I will never forget the class in school when we first learned about the permeability of atomic bonds and how I looked down at my desk and poked it, tried pushing my finger into it, knowing finally what it was made of. And then looking up into the air, where more atoms swirled. Seeing the miracle of connectivity, of clustering, of density. All this was powerfully on my mind as I initially wrote this poem and as I worked my way to its proper ending.

Final Version:

Opening the Door

You can’t draw your knife against
the future, argue with a window
that hasn’t shut, carve fault lines
through a saint’s faint heart or stop
walls with a can of paint. Tracing the outline
of Catharina’s tired rim on the moon, you know
colliding with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud will break
the sea over your knees, swirl clouds of dust
into a stranger’s face, bring the brush strokes of black
and grey that change a street into a scroll. If you trust
the atoms in your desk to hold while you turn
a swastika into a star with your pen, the milkiness
of sky will come. Each day
is a joy I can’t control. Each day carries
its own epithet, a stroller sitting on a porch holding
groceries. Only the stars don’t move
in my lifetime. Only the stars.

Don liked this version. It won me “applause from Halifax”.

ps: Do read Mike’s novel Chase & Haven. You will never be able to forget it. I’m happy to say he has a new book coming out soon too.

The more I read of Don Domanski, Don McKay, and Steven Heighton’s poetry and work with Domanski, the faster my poetry is evolving and the more I can’t bear to look at my earlier poems, which include most of the ones on this website. Don D. was the first to teach me how to go deeper into a line. Not to repudiate narrative, but not to stay with its surface either. To constantly find a way to dive below.

Here’s an example from Don’s website:

EPIPHANY UNDER THUNDERCLOUDS

each night I spend whatever
God made during the day
spend it freely
on paper and empty air

I spend because God is only
a resemblance of God
only a conjuring built out
of nebulas and wheat
by a few old men
asleep in their escapes …

Don Domanski

This and so many other of his poems teach me how to narrate what’s in my head as if I were talking about doing the dishes. There’s a profound (extra)ordinariness about Don’s words even while his subjects aren’t. I am learning this technique from him just as fast as I can.

One of the questions I’m dealing with is whether it’s possible to apply this knowledge retroactively to my earlier poems (while writing new ones). I’m finding it difficult. But here’s one attempt that will illustrate a few of the lessons I’m learning.

Version sent in early October 2010 to Magma Poetry:

After the Battle

We walk through water, placid, domestic
under hot sun, wading pants-rolled
by children’s paddles. Then a breeze lifts,
wind’s feet skitter along newborn wavelets,
feeding off a back-stiffening current of air, pier
shaking struts in refracted patterns. We’ve missed
the show, the ocean-deep storm layering
friction, pressing air on water in swirl-pulling
ripples, sinking playful dips until Newton
took over, not an inch above the level
water once knew. Its weight argued wind,
wind argued back, and wind won, waves climbing,
spitting foam before they crashed
beneath their neighbour. We know
the great green glass walls they became,
having seen, if only in movies, the tossing of ships
from stories high. Now we watch storm’s end,
energy pushing crests our way, land’s raising
squeezing them higher until they plunge, curling
their lips on arrival, reaching us in a thunder
of foam, rock-raking as they suck their way home.

I’ve never been truly happy with this poem. I wrote it as a response to an article in the Guardian by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, an excerpt from his book The Wavewatchers’ Companion. I loved the subject matter and some of the images but the poem itself was simply too descriptive: and then this happened, and then this happened.

My newer version below isn’t brilliant. I don’t think it’s going to earn me applause from Halifax. But I’m happier with it because, starting with sand, I began to think of how to convey the usual in a newer way, one that a reader can grasp without sighing. (I hope.) And I remembered to end it, not to leave it truncated. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Latest Version:

After the Battle

We walk through water, placid under hot sun, the sand
a roll of pants away, beaten by the sound
of children’s paddles. Then a breeze lifts, skittering
wind’s feet along newborn wavelets, pier shaking struts
in God’s patterns. We know we’ve missed the show,
the storm ocean deep hiding layers
of friction, where unseen it pressed air on water in swirl
pulling ripples, sinking dips until Newton took over,
not an inch above the level water once knew. Its weight
argued wind, wind argued back, and wind won,
waves climbing Jacob’s ladder before crashing
beneath their neighbours. We never saw
the great green glass walls they became, how
they dreamt of tossing ships. Only distance’s softening,
energy pushing crests our way, land’s raising squeezing
higher until the plunge, lips’ curl a thunder
of foam, rock-raking the trip home. We walk back
to the car, knees wet with fury’s end.

I’ve also been enjoying reading been shed bore by Pearl Pirie. On her blog, she has some very helpful things to say about What Works/Doesn’t in Poetry. Robert Peake, the senior poetry editor at Silk Road Review has some valuable insights into what makes good poetry for him (and for me) at his blog, from the Road.

I’ve been contemplating writing a memoir and wondering what form to do it in, novel, non-fiction, or poetry. Poetry seems a natural choice, given it’s the language I hear in my head so often. But perhaps I’ll do a combination.

I avoided writing for years because I knew the power words have. But whenever I avoid, I am unhappy.

Here’s a poem I wrote in 2007. It’s the second one I had accepted for publication (in The Antigonish Review). I’ve lost my drafts from that time – I didn’t start being obsessive about filing until I realized I was serious about poetry, that I was going to stay the course. So this is the (current) final version. Its title comes from one of my favourite Stevie Smith poems, Not Waving But Drowning.

Waving

I remember falling out of boats twice
when I was little: the rush of dark murky water
brown tangled weeds, panic, no panic
someone, you Dad, jumping in to save me.
You’d think I’d be afraid after, but I wasn’t.
My excuse the second time?
Fascination. The fronds calling me.
Even then I knew it was deliberate:
the water was friendly, kind, closing
over my head. You weren’t.

I recently received a great rejection letter for a couple of poems I’d sent to the British journal Magma Poetry. The editor said she’d received thousands and thousands of submissions for this special theme issue and, if it was any consolation, I was ‘among the two hundred or so people [she] really wanted to publish, but [she] only had space for fifty five poems’. Yes, thank you, that did make me feel better. Not great, but better.

I also received notice I’m getting paid for the poem accepted for the Parliamentary Poet Laureate’s Poem of the Month website (I’ll be up December 2010). Well, that was only if I wanted the money. They did say I could turn it down. Yes, that’s right. Our government thinks poets are so well off, we can say, ‘No, it’s okay, you need the money more than me. Go spend it on a fighter jet.’ Sure. Admittedly, it is the equivalent of selling 50 books of poetry. But sadly, that’s not much.

Today, I thought it might be entertaining for you to see a few of the stages a poem goes through as it edges toward a finished version (not that a poem stays finished around me). Here’s a sample that’s still on its way.

1st:
You can’t draw your knife edge against
the future, argue with a window
that hasn’t shut. Carve fault lines
through a saint, turn a swastika
into a star with a few quick
marks you can smell in the air.
You can paint your walls
the colour of your canoe or a suburb
the desert’s dawn shades. If you collide
with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud, waves
will happen, washing rocks
at your feet.

3rd:
You can’t draw your knife edge against
the future, argue with a window
that hasn’t shut, carve fault lines
through a saint, or stop a swastika
with a few quick marks you can smell
in the air. You can paint your walls
the colour of your canoe or a suburb
the desert’s dawn shades. If you collide
with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud, the sea
will break over your feet, washing
the rocks you sit on.

4th:
Round

You can’t draw your knife edge against
the future, argue with a window
that hasn’t shut, carve fault lines
through a saint’s faint heart or stop
a swastika with a magic marker.
You can paint your walls the colour
of your canoe, trace the outline of Catharina’s
tired rim on your skin, but you know if you collide
with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud, the sea will break
over your knees, swirling its clouds of dust.
If you can’t say hi to a stranger, trust the atoms
in your desk to hold still, then lean
a pillow’s stuffing a bird’s soft back
and turn a swastika to a star with your pen.

Editing this poem through its various stages (and there were many more than I’m showing here) required me to continually decide which images worked and which didn’t. It meant some tough choices as I have a bad habit of growing fond of the sound of my words. But a poem’s integrity is more important to me, so I let go of the canoe (just didn’t fit) and suburbs the colour of the desert (despite knowing it can be true: see Calgary). Other images were collapsed (it was urgent I get rid of that desperately bad ‘say hi to a stranger’; later drafts aren’t always better) or changed (I wanted to keep the walls and the colour). I play with images in draft after draft until they finally speak true. That’s my job.

Latest Version:

Round

You can’t draw your knife edge against
the future, argue with a window
that hasn’t shut, carve fault lines
through a saint’s faint heart or stop
walls with a can of paint. Tracing the outline
of Catharina’s tired rim on the moon, you know
colliding with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud, will break
the sea over your knees, swirl clouds of dust
into a stranger’s face, hold the atoms
in your desk still as you lean a pillow’s
stuffing on a bird’s soft back and turn
a swastika into a star with your pen.

I’ll be sending this poem off to Don Domanski after some more work. Watch this space.

P. S. Check out Eco-Libris for reviews by bloggers of ‘green books’ printed on recycled paper, an earth-friendly choice. I didn’t participate this year but hope to do so in 2011.

Bad Head is an appropriate poem to revisit, given what weather systems have been doing inside my brain for days now. It’s one I took to Don while I was at the Banff Centre and while he liked almost all of it, he wondered where the ending was. Ah. Ditch the last line, he said, and get back to work.

Previous Version:

Bad Head

Carla stayed the night, so did
thunderstorms hovering over
nearby towns. It’s too far
to see the jagged edges slice
my face open but their weight
presses skull-down. Voices
are thunder enough, all touch
the spike of rain pounding
pavement. I am skin-sensitive,
nerves the tiny fuses lightning
sparks from, a system strung
on power cords I don’t control.

I have a penchant for the short punchy ending. Don doesn’t. That doesn’t automatically mean he’s right—he’s told me to ignore his advice when I feel a poem’s integrity demands it.

But I’m always going to take what he says seriously. So far, I’ve only kept one word that he questioned. Every other time, his comments have led me much deeper into the structure and meaning of the poem we’ve been discussing.

So I started my revision of this one by wondering what was missing. Why wasn’t Don content if he liked it so much? I realized I’d started the poem’s arc but hadn’t finished it. If this was purely a descriptive poem about a migraine, I might get away with ending it there. But it’s not. It’s got a time frame that needs completing. If the thunderstorm and the migraine start, then they should end. And Carla* shouldn’t make a one-off appearance.

Finishing the arc made me revisit and revise the beginning too. I have a feeling I’m not done with this poem yet.

Current Version:

Bad Head

Carla came to visit, so did
a thunderstorm hovering over
the city’s streets. She can’t see
the jagged edges slice my face
open, the weight pressing
skull down. Her voice
is thunder enough, all touch
the spike of rain pounding
pavement. I am skin sensitive,
nerves the tiny fuses lightning
sparks from, a system strung
on power cords plugging sky
into earth, flashing down sight’s
erratic lines.

Clocks count
the seconds between crashes
as drugs slip into cells’ grim
spaces, pushing veins apart
so blood can breathe. The wind
curls leaves around its fingers, sweeping
the road dry, letting starlight shine
in a few small puddles. This
is the way earth calms itself, singing
to worms as they inch their way
home, fearing the morning’s
beak. I rest, sofa-bound, each nerve
a crumpled piece of tissue,
as Carla pours tea.

*You should try to see Carla too. She’s got a magnificent voice and is a superb actress. Check her website to see if she’s coming soon to a city near you.