Incendiary Lit

Another Argument About the Impossible
by Lawrence Raab

Even if we agree in principle that a poem can be
about anything, you still want to claim
it cannot include space aliens,
since by their very nature (you insist)
they are silly. And even if belief
is a subject that’s stood the test of time,
a poem about a man who believes in space aliens
will be a poem about a man who is either
silly or demented. Belief requires
a world of consequence all around it:
men, women, nature, history, and so on.
Reality, of course, is another matter, but see
what happens (you continue) when these
are put together, as in: “My work
concerns the nature of reality, belief,
and space aliens.” It would be different
if we knew they were there, but we don’t,
and a poem cannot afford to adopt
such a wait-and-see attitude toward the world
which, after all, has provided so many
more compelling subjects. No (you conclude),
not even a poem that argues against them
can survive their presence,
not even if the aliens never appear,
never do or say anything, never threaten us
with their neutron blasters, never steal our women
to populate their planet, not even if their ships
remain hidden, and we are never taken up in them
to be probed and instructed, dazzled and released.

–

from his collection The Probable World, and also collected in Visible Signs; New and Selected Poems. Buy them both for under $2 at amazon. You won’t regret it. They’re great. Very easy to read, and very entertaining.

–

Cool huh? I bet most people have something to say to the speaker about the concept of extra-terrestrial life, or you laughed and thought “yes,” *sniff from the snifter of cognac* “a poem about an alien, how wickedly absurd.” Then the cackle that can only be made with a glinting gold monocle string dangling in front of the left cheek. But, that is covered in the poem. Because although it’s a discussion about discussion about unknowable (and therefore impossible to prove or disprove) things, it leaves a back door by saying “It would be different / if we knew they were there, but we don’t,” because of course, now, the concept of at least some form of alien life in the incalculable depths of space seem all but assured. However, by including that statement, it recalls the time before modern space research when aliens were Metalunans in shiny silver suits and massive foreheads– like the speaker in the poem says “silly.” So a poem that argues for aliens, and against aliens can’t survive the reality of aliens… if they float down one day in their ship with a computerized Rosetta Stone and open the world of earth in on a galactic empire, everything will change. But this poem isn’t arguing for or against aliens. It’s arguing for the argument, and for the concept of a discussion about unknowable things.

The poem is one I’ve come to associate closely with Raab’s style. Very conversational, even including dialog, presents a question in an anecdotal fashion, and ends with a series of images. Not a bad way to lay out a poem if you ask me.

–

Writing exercises:

Write a poem that is your take on aliens. Place it in an anecdotal, or at least loosely narrative setting. Raab’s poem uses poetry to root the discussion in the real, for your poem use current events. Be it high or low culture, root this opinion about aliens in a very specific time, so that even if they do descend, this poem could possibly survive as a ‘pre-alien’ historical document. Or, at least a glimpse into a specific time with an alien tilt.

Write a poem that follows the general pattern of this poem. A narrative poem that digresses a number of times, that presents an argument, or concept that is left somewhat in the air for debate, that is very conversational in tone, and ends with an anaphoric word and series of 3-4 images.

By day nine you should have seven sonnets written, or six sonnets and a couple free-verse ‘base poems’ so it’s time to revise. Any poems that are in sequential order and are already written, go through and look for little things that can tie the poems together, an image set or perhaps even a little phrase that a key figure in the event your heroic crown revolves around says a lot, something short though, and maybe in the different poems have two different perspectives on the phrasing, or the person even. Check the verbs and nouns, make sure there is something concrete in most lines if possible. Having actual objects is so very important to keeping the reader reading. If they get too lost in abstractions without the firm footing of concrete details you’ll never get them back for a whole crown. Readers are impatient (I know I am) and are practically looking for an excuse to stop reading your poem (in the beginning few poems at least) so try to keep everything streamlined, avoiding any double stating, like “He got into bed and lay down.” If you get “into” bed it can be assumed you’re not standing, because into actually implies that you’re laying between the sheets, or at least under a blanket. Saying “lay down” in this example, is redundant wording, and wastes your very limited and therefore valuable space. Go through all your poems and check for any rhymes that feel a little forced and look at alternate paths for that endword. Try to include some surprising descriptions, out of the ordinary. Go through all of your poems today and sharpen them. Streamline the imagery so it has some sort of connection to the other images in the individual poem. And have fun with it too. Try to include a couple dryly ironic descriptions, because readers love a little laugh in a sea of seriousness. Or a lot of laughs and a bit of seriousness. The point is, brief spots of levity helps to ease tension enough for the reader to breathe a moment without breaking the tension, so the reader’s right back where they were after the chuckle.

Now you should have a few sonnets written, if the free-verse ‘base poem’ strategy’s working for your Sonnets, write three more of those, otherwise, today is double sonnet day! Write two of your sonnets today. Try to incorporate a couple small things from previous poems, and if you can, pick one of the lines from Sonnet 15 that has a homonym (if you used the homonym suggestion) and find a way to twist the meaning of that line from what it meant in Sonnet 15, make it darker (or lighter) than how the line read in S15, utilize enjambment to make the slight switch-up in wording flow through without a hitch. Tomorrow we’ll be looking closely at the already written sonnets and working on incorporating a little more of themselves in each other. What? Well, little things like a rocking chair showing up in more than one poem because of its significance to the final poem (though not so that each poem has a flashing neon sign that says “this rocking chair is very important!” but just include the chair in passing) which will really help tie the piece  together more as a whole entity and less as 14 separate sonnets and a compilation of their first lines. Have at it: either 2 sonnets or 3 free-verse ‘base poems’ for the rhyming/syllabic impaired.  Tomorrow is a big revision day.

Day 7 should be a day of smooth cruising. Either you have an idea already plotted out from your wonderful organizational chart, or you have a free verse base poem which you can apply the same rhyming techniques as suggested in Day 6.  If you’re having problems see the last couple day’s suggestions.

If those aren’t working, go outside for half an hour. Breathe through your nose and smell the air. Try to pick apart the different smells. If you’re unsure, pick one and pretend you’re sure. Feel your feet scraping on the ground. The texture, the sound, the feeling of vibration. Look at the sky, the blue, black or grey, the clouds and birds and airplanes. Notice patterns in formation, in wildflowers or patches of crab-grass. Get outside of your head for awhile. Sometimes that helps. Spend half an hour observing as many sensory details as you can. Touch the stucco wall, sniff the dirty microwave. Taste the air of your surroundings and dissect it on your palate. Cleanse your mind for half an hour of anything work/school/sonnet-related and remember the details that you’re trying to explain, remember the experience of living. Then get back to the rhymes and syllabics/metrics or the possible poem perspectives. Consider other writers, their perspective, or famous thinkers, or perhaps better yet, unfamous thinkers. Consider what you haven’t considered, despite their silliness. Keep going.

By now most of you will be ready to coast through your next sonnet. You still have many different opening/final lines to choose from (everyone made a chart with all the sonnet’s opening and closing lines right? Since you have them already in Sonnet 15. I’ll try to make a sample word doc and upload it today, if I can figure out the stupid ftp thingy, which obviously means that it’s not I who is stupid… it’s the ftp thingamajigger). Things are sunny in Heroic Crownville.

There will inevitably be harder times to come, when the odd matchings of first/last lines confuse your subject a little. If you have any odd pairings, start thinking about how they can work together. Because they can, but it may require some non-traditional storytelling… But have faith. Even if you have to write one stinker in this bunch, that’s what the last couple days of the ILHCA are designated to help with. But get thinking on the various subjects, even if you don’t write anything down.

For those having trouble rhyming/with the form- write a free verse ‘base’ poem as described in Day 5. If you have the free verse poem already written, let’s work on shaping it. Look at the words towards the end of the line (or beginning of the next line) that really mean something- ie verbs, nouns, and adjectives for the most part. You can generally reword something to get that word at the end of the line without screwing up the syntax like a bad sonneteer or adding too many nothing words. Either check your internal rhyming dictionary, or RhymeZone and see if any of those rhymes or near rhymes can be worked into the necessary line without stilting it or sounding wrong. If that doesn’t work, look for synonyms for the nearest ’something’ word and check for rhymes for promising leads. If it still isn’t working, set the poem aside, and using the first/last line template re-write the poem without looking at it. Don’t necessarily try to make it exact, just try to write essentially the same poem without looking at it, improving anywhere you see fit. There will very likely be slight rewordings and even total rearrangements that may open doors for reworking the poem into the sonnet form.

Now that we’ve celebrated our fathers, and rested our mental rhyming dictionaries, it’s back to the grind. Write another sonnet. If you’re on track with the organization and ready to go, go for it. If you’re struggling with the form see #1. If you’re struggling with the narrative/structure see #2.

#1— @%*in’ Sonnets! Right? Rhymes and syllabics (or stupid iambs) are terribly limiting and frustrating. However, what is poetry, really, except limiting prose to the absolute essentials? So it’s further focusing the rhythms and sounds of the poem so that to the ear it is driven as much as to the eye. When you can, a good poem should always also be read aloud, even if it’s under your breath on a red eye when you have the only reading light still illuminating the plane’s cabin, which is because when we read in our heads we hear the words only in a limited fashion, abbreviated mostly to their meaning and words that you subconsciously link to that word (and their physical representation) so it’s a big jumble of meaning and brain stimuli and the sound is muffled. When you hear it, though, you are much more detached from the meaning, as you’re focusing more on hearing the sound first, then interpreting the signals into meaning, so the whole line of impression is altered and sound is on the forefront of your subconscious. The rhymes and rhythms of the sonnet play to that. They organize the sounds which form the skeletal structure of the poem, and ultimately the sequence. That’s why you’re not just writing this long poem in free verse. It’s to focus on sound and rhythm so much more than you normally would (or at least, in a different way) in free verse. However, if the rhyming’s presenting a problem, one option I’ll try to keep helping with is writing the base of the poem in free verse. Keep the first line and the last line as they must be, again, typing the first line then 12 blank lines, and the last line (both of which, of course are pulled from Sonnet 15). Fill in the middle lines with normal free verse, but keep the lines syllabics between 8 and 10, preferably with a free syllable. You’ll be reworking the lines to fit the rhyme scheme, which is sometimes much easier than writing it originally in the rhyme, and allows you to keep the content a little purer. Seriously, I know it feels a little like cheating, but if you have trouble with rhymes, or even particular line’s rhyme, you don’t initially cater the content of the poem to the rhyme. That would be more of letting the rhyme drive the poem, which is definitely not what you want to do. If you are writing free verse base poems, write at least two, because you’ll be going back and reworking the rhymes, which can take a long time to do, so keep your schedule a little more open.

#2— What Next? How do you continue, what are the individual sonnets about? Well, that depends on your original sonnet (S15). If it’s a narrative poem, or a poem about a specific significant event as I’d suggested, consider witnesses. There’s physical witnesses, people at the scene, or who saw the person/thing or accident as it happened. Consider inanimate objects like Paintings, doorknobs, plants, or even consider animals. A bird watching indifferently, a family dog terribly upset. This might be cool to get the reader out of your head and shake things up a little bit. Also consider historical figures who might have an insight into the narrative at hand, or pop culture figures. Consider acquaintances who could have similar stories in their past, or consider what could happen across town that would starkly contrast with the event of Sonnet 15. Or even across the world, the universe. Consider astronomy and ancient societies. People love to learn something in a poem, and if you can find a metaphoric parallel with an interesting, not-too-widely-known fact, be it scientific or historical, people will be into it. Extended metaphors aren’t terribly uncommon. Go for it.

And we are on Day 4! Today pick one of the first lines you want to adapt to its own sonnet beginning. You should have a good idea of at least a couple narrative lines. Write one sonnet, whichever number it is. You need to break the ice somehow. Remember the end line has to the same as the first line of the following poem, so what I’d suggest is type (or write) the first line, then skip 12 lines and write the ending line. This gives you the necessary framework to remind you where exactly the poem has to get to. As you’re writing think very specifically of the verbs and of concrete nouns as you’re writing. Make them interesting. After day ten there will be a little break from sonneting, and we’ll breathe a little less iambic for a few days before we set in on leg two of the ILHCA. Whee!

So by now you have a slightly more polished finale sonnet. Don’t start with the first sonnet. Obviously you’ll be re-writing all of these sonnets at one point or another, but at this moment you’re not entirely sure of where the crown’s going, admit it. If you do, and can manage to get through the entire sequence doing exactly what you set out to do, all the power to you. In fact, I’ll stand up on my chair and bow to you, if the sequence is even half decent. Amazing. I know that I almost never end up with what I set out to write, but usually the pieces fall together in an even more intriguing way, so I’ve just learned to go with it. Plan, and divert from the plan when my fingers and brain decide to (but not abandon the plan altogether).

Today there’s an exercise, but it is directly related to the sequence. Take each ‘first line’, or each line from Sonnet 15, and write two alternate next lines. Keep it either in iambic pent or at least with 10 syllables. And it has to rhyme. If you have any specific ideas for the individual poems try to experiment with two entirely different beginnings for the same idea, even if you think you know where you’re going, try a different way for this exercise. That’s 28 lines total. Whee!

While you’re going over each line trying to rhyme it, turn a keen eye on the adjectives, especially colors. Make any ordinary words extraordinary by changing them. Check the thesaurus and your brain and make every word count.

All the following posts will be much less intense, for all those that the first day (and pre-write) didn’t scare away.

Today’s plan is to work on Sonnet 15 some more. You should have a rough draft of the poem already, and if not, welcome to my world. Sorry, I work and am working on a new project also that I’m very excited about. I’ll get one done and revise tonight, I promise.

The verbs will be the first place to scrutinize. In Sonnet 15 moreso than any other sonnet each word needs to carry its own weight, as the lines are both first and last lines of separate poems. Look for common, simple words like do, did, have, was, had. They’re called auxiliary verbs. They are ‘helping verbs’ which means they help other words instead of standing on their own. A good verb is probably the strongest type of word, you shouldn’t waste a word that could really set the line apart from the familiar to ‘help’ an adjective. Adjectives are like pawns. They’re very important to the poem’s infrastructure, but nouns and verbs run the show. Even if there aren’t any auxiliary verbs, there’s always stronger and weaker verbs by comparison. Weigh your verbs against each other. Even if they’re still fairly strong, just consider other options. Look through a thesaurus. It’s not a literary crime. It doesn’t make you a thesaurus-poet. You’re not stilting your writing, you’re enhancing it. Obviously you’ll only make changes that both sound, and are more appropriate for their context. So, if anyone had hesitations about using a thesaurus, as I know many young poets are, relax. It’s like alcohol, great in moderation (and perhaps even slight excess on occasion).

Before you go through, though, there’s a little exercise. Here’s how I’d do it, for efficiency. Click here, and then open a new window. change the size of the new window so it’s less than half of the screen size. Load http://dictionary.reference.com there. Go over the list of verbs I posted (or if anyone can find a better list, please let me know) and if a particular word strikes you, look through your poem and see if there’s a place for that word in Sonnet 15. If not, write it in a file where you’ve got your other ILHCA exercises. If you don’t have an ILHCA file or folder, make one. Haha, that’s very important. Easier access means you may actually utilize these words.

And before you take off your poetic cap, look over that list of perspectives, or poem ideas for the surrounding sonnets. If you don’t have a list of ideas for your heroic crown’s individual sonnets, well shame on you. Make one now. Consider the line repetition when thinking of the sequence’s, well, sequence. Sonnet 1 begins with Line 1 of Sonnet 15. That’s the first line of your whole sequence that the reader will see. Make sure you hook them with something. Leave something interesting unanswered. Or mention something very quirky in the poem that will potentially perk the reader’s attention so they wonder if the thing (be it a porch swing with one chain broken that no one had the heart to fix, Jerome’s missing fingers, whatever) will come back. Hoping that it will. That’s what you really want to accomplish with the first sonnet. You want the reader speculating about what’s coming next, because they’ve got a long ways to go.

Try to narrow down each line of Sonnet 15 to three possible perspectives/aspects (ie poem’s contribution to the whole of the sequence). If you have definite ideas that work with particular lines from Sonnet 15, power to you. That’s what you want. The pieces to fall together. If they haven’t fallen together yet, fear not. We’ve just begun. The puzzle will begin to take shape by the end of next week, I promise.

This is no pre-write. Though the pre-write exercises will be very helpful to the forming of your heroic crown. To review the rules of a sonnet go to the pre-write day here. The heroic crown is this: A sequence of fourteen sonnets and a fifteenth sonnet composed of the first line of each of the other sonnets. To further gum up the works there’s a repetition that links together the sonnets like a brass brad. It’s the same in all of the poems. The first line of the poem is identical to the last line of the previous poem. So Sonnet 2’s first line is the same as the last line of Sonnet 1. Sonnet 3’s first line is the same as Sonnet 2’s last line. And so on. The only other caveat is that Sonnet 1’s opening line is repeated as the last line of Sonnet 14. That brings the sequence full circle, and Sonnet 15 sort of the overview or consensus.

So how do you write this? Where do you begin? The ‘artist’ opinion would be, if it’s in you just write. But that’s not necessarily applying here. So, like any overly daunting maze, we’ll take the easy route and begin at the end. Sonnet 15. It will be much easier to rework single lines into a poem than to work 14 unrelated lines into a thematic culmination that the final poem in such a long sequence needs to be. So we need to begin with the end. Easy enough.

Before we just start writing, though, realize that these rhymes are very important. Since there’s the line repetition of the last line of the previous poem and the first lines, which means that for each repeated line, there must be a rhyme from the previous poem’s final couplet, and from that poem’s opening ABAB. So each ‘first line’ needs 2 rhyming words, not just the regular pair (unless you feel, like MC Robust, who once wrote “I’m so dope I can rhyme first place with first place”. Then, since Sonnet 15 is completely first lines, and has its own rhyme scheme. So each rhyming word in Sonnet 15 will need a total of 6 rhymes (which doesn’t include the duplicate lines which will obviously be the same word). Don’t be afraid, just remember that for Sonnet 15 you want to look especially for common end sounds. Sounds like /ite/o/ed/ay/el/ etc. Go to RhymeZone and buzz around for words that are linked if you get stuck. Just keep this prolific rhyming in the back of your mind while you figure out what you’re writing about.

So you know what the heroic crown is, and are frightened, let’s get to the fun part: what’s it going to be about? Well, the heroic crown is traditionally centered around one thing, like a person. We’re going to base our heroic crowns around an event. Sonnet 15 will be a narrative (at least roughly) of an especially significant (or traumatic) event. It could be a car accident, the demolition of a family home, a drug deal shootout, winning the lottery, getting fired, suicide, or you could get all sappy and have it be about noticing the smell your significant other (perfume, nail polish, cologne, shampoo, sweat, whatever) . Each sonnet will be aiming to add a different perspective on the final poem in the sequence, Sonnet 15. Whether it’s another narrative regarding related incidents, or something from a witness’s pasts that parallel this experience, or whatever.

Before we go any further, pick an event. Decide what this whole heroic crown is going to revolve around. The great thing is that each sonnet doesn’t have to be narratively related to the poem as long as they’re thematically connected, and can be placed at the scene in anyway, via physical presence, hearing or seeing the incident after the fact, perhaps a prescient narrative before the actual incident- ie an odd coincidence. So the event doesn’t have to be some big sweeping thing, it just has to be resonant.

Now that you have the topic, before you write Sonnet 15 you have to come up with perspectives for the other sonnets. You don’t necessarily need to know all of them, but knowing at least a few will help you cater lines to that perspective, as it’ll be used as a first line (and last line) in separate poems as well as in this final sonnet. Those who did the pre-write look at your list of perspectives, evaluate them thinking of your chosen topic. Once you have those perspectives, think of a word or phrase that might be kind of unique to that person/thing’s vernacular, but not so entirely unique that it’d be ridiculously out of place.

And finally, when you’re writing this first sonnet remember that each line will be the final, and also the opening line of a poem. That means that there should be solid imagery, and whenever possible an opening for enjambment. Ending lines on actions or images is a good way to keep that enjambment open so when the line begins the poem it can continue without being endstopped. This adds variation within the repetition and makes it even less noticeable. Also, ending on an image or an action adds some extra drama or resonance to a last line like “white in the wind the scarf slipped, and then dropped.” as the final line of a poem, then the next poem begins “White in the wind the scarf slipped and then dropped / from the girl’s pale fingers…”

So:

1) Use common sounds for the rhymes in this first (last) sonnet, Sonnet 15.

2) Try to end lines as openly as you can to aid later enjambment.

3) Pick an event that is especially resonant. There will be 210 lines of rhymed poetry in this sequence (including the 28 repeated lines) which revolves in one way or another around this event. That’s a lot to ask of your reader. Keep it interesting.

We’ll work on Sonnet 15’s rough draft tomorrow, and plan out the sequence. Each day there will be suggested themes for individual sonnets, such as color themes, certain perspectives, rhymes, and research assignments to help you in the course of the sequence. Good luck!

OK, Day 1 is all about being prepared for this intricate sequence, so to prepare for that, let’s remember the fun of rhyming, rhythm and repetition. Let’s assume you’re writing Shakespearean Sonnets, with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG, though there are other forms, here’s a few options with some info about the forms. But I’m going to be leading you through the English Sonnet Crown, or Shakespearean or whatever you want to call it. Let’s start out with standard sonnet rules:

1) Iambic pentameter. “The cow will jump again, the next mid-day.” It’s like a heartbeat- ba-Duh, ba-Duh, ba-Duh, ba-Duh, ba-Duh. Five poetic feet (metric units) of two syllables, the first un-stressed, the second stressed. As in: when in doubt, sound it out. Say the words aloud and find out where the stresses are. Many recent sonneteers have included lots of alternate metric plans, or a lack of plan, substituted for a syllabic line organization. What that means, if you don’t follow, is that instead of worrying about what syllable is stressed, they stress about making sure the line has ten total syllables, stresses be damned.

2) Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG- that simple. (A) rhymes with (A) , each letter represents a line’s ending word.

3) Turn: This isn’t an absolute necessity, but many sonnets have a turn around lines 8-9… just past what would be the first octave in the Italian sonnet. What is a turn? It’s when the poem takes what it’d done in the beginning of the poem and changes its direction slightly, it turns the poem so that it isn’t completely predictable. It’s the turning over of the leaf, the brilliant orange is brown underneath. If you want your sonnets to have a non-traditional approach to the turn, though, go for it!

Now, a Heroic Crown of sonnets is 15 related sonnets, usually dealing with slightly different aspects of the same subject. For the sake of this experiment, we’ll base our crown around an event. First, though, we have to consider the amount of rhyming we’ll need to do. Each poem’s ending line must have two other rhyming words within the surrounding poems (the final couplet’s pair, and the opening ABAB of the next poem) as well as having to rhyme in poem 15, which means that there needs to be 2 sets of that rhyme, with 3 separate combinations for that rhyme. We’ll do the actual crunching of numbers tomorrow.

As the rules of the crown say that there’s a repetition of last/first lines that links the poems to each other. This means that the last line of poem one is the same as the first line of poem two. then the last line of poem two is the first line of poem three and so on, poem 14 begins with the last line of poem 13, then ends with the first line from page 1. Poem 15 is a combination of all first lines. So it only makes sense to work backwards. To facilitate this repetition without seeming, well, repetitive, there is a lot of forethought required. Today’s task is research. Find 20 of the following: Homonyms (search Alan Cooper’s Homonym list free online here) Groups of 3 interesting rhyming words (my favorite rhyming dictionary is RhymeZone) which, if at all possible, have some sort of link between them besides rhyming; and also come up with 25 different possible perspectives for one event. Think the opinion of animals and inanimate objects as well as people, and don’t feel stifled by time or space or living or dead or anything. You’ll only need at most 15 of these for the final product, but having a surplus is nice when you’re narrowing down the larger implications and suggestions of the piece. You’ll find patterns in the rhymes, perspectives and homonyms that will hopefully drive a few of those earlier poems to their home. Work on that for now. We’ll begin working on forming Poem 15 tomorrow.

OK, here’s what a heroic crown is: 15 sonnets, ordered with a repetition. Sonnet 1 begins with line A, and ends with line B. Sonnet 2 begins with line B and ends with line C. Sonnet 3 begins with line C and ends with line D and so on, until Sonnet 14 which begins with the last line of Sonnet 13, and ends with the first line of Sonnet 1. Then the kicker is Sonnet 15 which consists of all the first lines, though if you want them in order it’s up to you. I believe a classic Heroic Crown has the first lines in order, which is another rhyme scheme to keep in mind. We’ll begin on Wednesday, I’ll work on a heroic sonnet as you do, I’ll post helpful tidbits (I hope) that will help you keep on track for this highly organized series of poems. But it’s also a sequence that you can be proud of. How many people have had the discipline to organize a Heroic Crown, or any sequence of sonnets at all? Even if the results fluctuate poem by poem, why not give it a shot, it’ll be very similar to using an firestarter exercise or any other writing exercise, but instead, for a week you’ll focus on sonnets, and a repetition of certain lines. As I said, I’ll be posting various excercises to help maintain focus and organization for the long haul. As you probably noticed, 15 poems and 20 days means a few non poem days. These will be organization days and brainstorming days, because in order to interweave your poems even more, it’s nice to have an idea of what you’ll be writing about later, and perhaps mingle some imagery in the process… Wednesday will begin the Incendiary Lit Heroic Crown Affair.

That’s right, still updating the Firestarter exercises… check it out here to see today’s and past exercises, or here it is as well:

5/14/08- Frame Tale madness!

Write a piece of short fiction which is like a babushka . A story about telling a story which involves telling a story. Whether you want to use formatting devices to separate the tales (italics, indentations, right justified, center justified, parenthesis, brackets, whatever) it’s up to you, but have at least 4 little anecdotes attempted… a fun idea might be to start a story and get interrupted. Enjoy!

Yes, I’ve come up with a new method of posting the exercises, so hopefully it works, but yes. Here’s the Firestarter exercise for today, and yeah, not sure why I posted two prose/flash fic exercises today… guess it’s just one of those moods. If you haven’t yet, check out Capp Steet Incident for inspiration for the exercises, and check out this week, and the last 5 months worth of Firestarter exercises to browse for one that really strikes you: here.

5/13/08 - Flash Fiction Fun!

Your character’s name is your middle name. Place that character in a situation you’ve been in recently where something could have gone horribly wrong, and have the horribly wrong situation pan out. As the story closes (at under 1000 words) have the character imagine what it would’ve been like if the horrible (traumatic, whatever) thing didn’t happen. Think of something mundane you did soon after that near miss, and have your character imagine, longingly for that mundane thing. Have fun throwing your character to the sharks.

Write a short piece of fiction about trying to decide what card to buy someone (that you have some store up resentment for) for some occasion. Write 3 little greeting card-esque poems that you include in your piece. With each greeting card, think (in your piece) of a backhanded, passive-aggressive remark you could write in there. End the piece with you going up to the register with your card, explain what it says, and why you chose that. Be sure to include little flashbacks during your backhanded potential card remarks to add depth to the piece. Even just two lined flashbacks. Be sure to include at least three lines of dialog.

People write them as writing exercises, as little trials of their poetic ability before they return to their free verse (with, or without jigging lines and tumors of whitespace) and write their poems. I’ve been reading around in a couple dozen literary journals (scratch that, few dozen) and have seen more formal poetry than I expected. A good number of sonnets (here’s a refresher on the sonnet’s rules). I know some of you out there make a habit of writing formal poetry, in fact I’ve been turning to it fairly frequently lately in a chase after content matching form. I’ve got a paradelle on the backburner about two brothers in different stages of “Why are you hitting yourself?” amidst some fairly dire circumstances… which is all about the repetition having not only a purpose, but a need. Some poems almost need a specific form. Why? Well, in the rough blob of a first draft (despite how polished you feel your first drafts are, revision is important too.), sometimes there will be an echo of a form. Perhaps a curious repetition or the poem will be 14 lines with an accidental slant rhyme in three places already. You might see the vague form of a sestina, villanelle, sonnet, rondeau… and then there is an aesthetic goal. And to reach that goal you have to weight every line, every foot, syllable, for its importance (looking that close at any poem is a good idea) in order to meet that self-set goal, to reorder a scene, rephrase, to stretch your mind for the best result. And, you know, sometimes the poem just doesn’t fit a form. But sometimes it does, and the only thing that will come from attempting to adapt a free verse piece into a formal poem is that you will know your poem inside and out, and will have a very good head start on the next draft of your poem. So try it yourself:

The Cremation of Shelley
by Lawrence Raab

August 15, 1822

All around was scenery–
the ocean and its islands, watchtowers
along the coast, mountains
glittering like marble. Trelawny imagined
the spirit of his friend soaring above him.

And he thought, We’re no better
than a pack of dogs
dragging him back into the light.
Three white wands
marked the place where he’d been buried,

lime thrown over him, the yellow sand
shovelled in. And now
they had to dig him out. Who could speak?
Even Byron was silent.
When they heard the hollow sound

of iron on bone, Byron asked
if Trelawny would save the skull for him,
but remembering that he had formerly
used one as a drinking-cup, I was determined
Shelley’s should not be so profaned.

After the fire was lit they poured
wine over the body, causing the flames
to glisten and quiver. Then the corpse
fell open, and the heart
was laid bare. Byron turned away,

walked back to the beach,
swam out to his boat. Leigh Hunt
stayed inside his carriage. Everything
turned to ash, but what surprised us all
was that the heart remained entire.

The poet’s heart! Of course
it should resist the tire.
But why? As fitting that it burn,
if brighter than the rest.
Trelawny reached in and snatched it out.

No one saw him do it,
though his hand was badly hurt.
Every detail, he would write,
of the life of a man of genius
is interesting. But no more

about the heart–how much
he wanted it. I collected
the human ashes and placed them in a box.
Buried in Rome
with the appropriate ceremonies.

–
I really liked this poem from his awesome book The Probable World (under $1 used at amazon), and kept trying to remember where I knew the story from, years after first reading it. Then I kept mixing it up with Galway Kinnell’s wonderful poem “Shelley” which deals with Shelley’s life detached a bit from his work.

Writing exercise: Find a good biography of a favorite writer. Or check wikipedia. There’s a ton of authors with interesting biographical information available. Write a poem about that interesting fact. Poems that teach the reader something interesting that they didn’t already know are always more resonant.

I know a lot of people had gotten used to the Firestarter challenges being posted everyday in the main posts, but they are still being updated every day over there in the column on the right (and also right here). Everything from formal exercises, word lists, scenarios, exercises inspired by poems. There’s over 200 exercises right there for you in that one page. So check it out. Try them out. Hopefully we’ll be able to renew the Firestarter Challenge, if we can get anyone interested in a one month contest maybe…

Capp Street Incident
by Jon Boilard
(Caution, adult subject matter)

She stands under the 101 overpass on Capp Street. When I pull up she sticks her head through the window, parting my legs with her hand. I ask her how much. She tells me and then gets in. We pull around the corner to a spot she likes. She looks vaguely familiar but I don’t say anything. She puts the condom on me with her mouth. After a few minutes she says, Baby, you got to hurry; I got to get back out there on the stroll. I tell her not to worry about finishing me. She is relieved. She cleans her mess and puts everything–the money, the limp rubber, the soiled tissues–in her little black purse. Then I remember. Her name is Del and I recognize her from high school. We had Spanish together. She had a crush on me and I never gave her the time of day. When I mention this she laughs and says, Boy the tables are turned now. I laugh, too, and then she gets out. She says, Baby you shouldn’t drive in that condition. I smile and ease away from the curb. I smell her from ten blocks away. Cigarettes and sweat and dirty feet. Then I get sick some more in the Office Depot parking lot. With an old newspaper I clean what ends up on me. I try to picture the girl she used to be and I cannot. It is difficult enough to remember what I was like back then.

—

“Capp Street Incident” was originally published in the Summer-Fall 2006 issue of Fugue, literary magazine from the University of Idaho. The prose poem/flash fiction is very resonant. Everyone imagines what people they once knew are doing now, at least once in awhile. And the juxtaposition of the girl having a crush on him, and him paying her for sex is terribly ironic. Also, it’s about sex,in a way at least, but it never gets gross or very graphic, which is nice. I’ve read my share of bad, bad poetry sex while working on different literary journals, and this was a nice, understated example. And the end feels so right for the situation… so human.

Now try a ‘reminiscent’ poem of your own with a dramatic twist. Like in “Capp Street Incident” see someone that seems familiar, realize where you know them from (at least eight years before) and remember a little anecdote between the narrator and character. Have the anecdote be ironic considering the present, somewhat drastic situation (be it during a robbery, a traffic accident, jail, whatever).

Accident
by Todd Davis

They tell the son, who tells his friends
at school, that the father’s death was
an accident, that the rifle went off
while he was cleaning it. I’m not sure
why he couldn’t wait. We understand
the ones who decide to leave us in February,
even as late as March. Snows swell.
Sun disappears. Hunting season ends.
With two deer in the freezer and family
can survive. I know sometimes
it feels like you’ve come to the end
of something. Sometimes you just want
to sit down beneath a hemlock and never go
back. But this late in the year, when plum
trees have opened their blossoms?
Yesterday it was so warm we slept
with the windows open. Smell of forsythia
right there in the room. I swear
you could hear the last few flowers open,
silk petals come undone, a soft sound
like a pad sliding through a gun’s battle,
white cloth soaked in bore cleaner,
removing the leas, the copper, the carbon
that fouls everything. My son knows
you don’t die cleaning your rifle:
the chamber’s always open.
I told him to nod his head anyway
when his friend tells the story,
to say yes as many times as it takes,
to never forget the smell of smoke
and concrete, the little bit of light
one bulb gives off in a basement
with no windows.

This originally appeared in the Indiana Review Vol. 29 No. 1. I thoroughly enjoyed this poem, perhaps partly due to the fact I was raised in a deer hunting home in a deer hunting region, where occasionally a hunter had a ‘cleaning accident’ which could be possible if said hunter was a complete drunk, but… the imagery is great, and I especially loved the listing of suicide reasons, “Snows swell. / Sun disappears. / Hunting season ends” the plainspoken, staccato sentences really work well. The last image is a haunting one that I can just imagine the son’s poor friend stumbling upon after the ‘accident’ and it makes me muy triste.

Use this poem as a springboard for a poem of your own, now. Think of a lie that people just ‘nod along’ with. This is especially true when dealing with children (Santa, dog ran away etc) but also guys brag about things they’ve never done, people lie about their jobs when they run into people from high school ten years later, there’re plenty of major, and not so major lies that happen all the time. Pick one, and come up with a short narrative about it. Why you (or your character) just go along with something they/you know isn’t true. And end your poem with an image.