Incendiary Lit

But the month is very, very young. But here’s a link if you’re bored. Follow Iamzeb on twitter to read my daily <140 character poems. Message me if you want to try the exercise of writing a poem a day that fits in the twitter format, and I’ll follow you.

That isn’t a real name. It sounds dumb, but if someone heard a rollerblader talking about their Full Truespin Fishbrain, which actually is a trick/spin combination, they’d think someone hit their head, and it may be true. But yeah, If anyone who stumbles on this post and feels like following me on twitter (IamZeb) to read my daily (or more frequently) posted twitter poems, by all means do it. If you too want to join in on the month’s exercise, send a message @iamzeb or whatever you do, so I can follow you and read your poems as well. Get a little network going.

Why a Twitter poem?

Why than you for asking. I personally think Twitter is kind of silly. I, personally, don’t need minute to minute updates on someone across the country petting their cat (then FEEDING it!). However, the Paper Hearts challenge to write a twitter poem struck an ‘exercise’ note for me. I’m not entirely sure why, but I flashed back to a class I took with Steve Kowit at Southwestern (if you’re in San Diego, DO IT! While you can at least, there’ve been rumors that Kowit may be retiring, and that will be a sad, sad day for the San Diego Poetry community) about the American Sentence.

What is an American Sentence?

Why I’m glad you asked that. Look it up. Or just take my word that it’s a poetic form originated by Allen Ginsberg as an adaptation of the Haiku to a more ‘American’ form of consumption: all at once.

What?

A prose-haiku. Listen already. An American Sentence is a 17 syllable prose poem. A (for lack of a better name) twitter poem will have to be 140 characters or less. Similar, eh? Why not. A variation of an American Sentence from syllabics to character length (remember, that includes spaces and punctuation).

What do I do?

Go to Twitter and start an account (quick process) or sign into you account. Send me a tweet *gag* [if you want to take part in the little Incendiary Lit Twitter Poem Month, updating whenever you feel like, but keep your poetics in mind. I really don’t care if you went to the grocery store unless you see Mark Twain poking among the meats in the refrigerator.] or just follow me for a little reading now and then in case you get bored, or to perhaps help spark a poem of your own, regardless of form.

Here is the link to Esquire’s Summer Fiction Contest.

The titles are:

1. “Twenty-Ten”

2. “An Insurrection”

3. “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again”

SO WRITE!!!

It’s simple enough for anyone who’s familiar with the Firestarter Exercises. Titles is a good exercise because of its ambiguity. A while ago NPR issued a challenge to fiction writers to write a story that included the image of a wedding cake in the middle of the road. Richard Bausch’s Tandolfo the Great introduced me to the collection NPR put together. It’s a fun assignment to try to work to your own whims.

So you can again get your fix of a year’s worth of poetry/prose exercises whenever you need to. Right here at the Firestarter Exercise page. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Firestarters are writing exercises to get the literary fires lit beneath your computer chair. Today’s is to write a short poem. Check it out and enjoy.

I, for some reason, thought that the “Page” function of wordpress was a magical place where posts could extend as long as they wanted and didn’t auto-delete the end of the post as you added more. Thus I’ve misplaced over a year’s worth of daily writing exercises on the world-wide-web of yesterday. I know there’re things like webarchive’s “way back machine” (which only applies to sites pre-2006) but have as of yet not been able to figure out how to retrieve those long-deleted exercises. Ho-hum. Add another tally to the “I’m retarded” list.

Bright news, however, is that I’m working on a book of Firestarters. I can’t say anything like “Its being published by ____” because at the moment, the publisher is likely to be Incendiary Lit Press with its first perfect bound book. That doesn’t mean that once it’s together I won’t spend $100 in postage and paper sending out queries, but it’s in the works, and if it’s not done yet, anyone who emails me (in order to avoid too much more spam, it’s simply the site name at gmail.com) in May will get a free ILP version of the Firestarter Book when its finally finished. I’m really hopeful though. Making good progress.

As a senior project three students (Chrystal Hartberg, Jessica Tyson and Zebulon Huset) at California State University- Long Beach produced the following collection of poems and essays.

Though originally meant to be an alternative to the Best American Series, it changed slightly as the process of reading over a hundred literary magazines polished the shrine of subjectivity that is reading poetry. Instead the collection took on the theme of excellent entertainment and was printed for adviser William Mohr.

Digital images of the project are now online here, under the title Better than the Movies 2008.

A Crate of Oranges
by Tana Jean Welch

sat next to the artist every afternoon

as he sipped tea on the cafe patio.
The people of Neulengbach assumed he traveled with citrus

because bright things must be a painter’s constant companion.
Even when the war came and everyone succumbed

to wearing black
with a now-and-then splash of gun metal blue,

and the sound of the rock sparrow was replaced
by the wail of the young soldier’s widow

as she watched the King’s Guard, their posture spoiled
under the weight of oak and brass, load the coffin into the white carriage–

even then, the painter kept taking tea
with his box of happy, bulbous oranges,

so was credited with having a solid spirit.
But these people lived before the time art transformed a urinal,

before the time one could fly in a passenger jet, cruise the cloud-line
to see the earth for what it really is:

a patchwork of velvet: a brown, green, tourmaline grandmother’s quilt,
soft and innocuous, smooth

except where the cities are.
By the end of the funeral, the widow’s garter belt had slipped

causing her fishnet stocking to bunch at the right knee
of her long leg, reminding the painter of the cracked opal

in his mother’s pendant.

By the end of the war
they had pulled the painter from his house,

burnt his blue sketches and paintings of naked girls, naked boys,
arrested him for using oranges as bait–

even though the village children swore the oranges were juicier and sweeter
than the ones placed in their stockings at Christmas

when the evergreen firs are hauled in from the cold
and snow blinds all with a titanium white.

—

I couldn’t find out a whole lot about Tana Jean Welch without, you know, making an actual effort, but here are a couple more poems at La Fovea. This poem won 2nd place in Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, and was published in their Spring 2008 issue. This poem reminds me of Corrine Hales’ “Sunday Morning” in that for the majority of the poem you’re not sure what is going to happen, let’s call it the cuspiness. The poem seems to be tipping back and forth between the nostalgic turn and the ominous. The young soldier’s death/funeral and the whole backdrop seem very ominous, yet there are those “happy, bulbous oranges.” Another key word to note in the tone is “credited.” The painter is “credited” with having a solid spirit. A great word choice that indicates that though credited, there is an ulterior motive, and perhaps its only a symptom of today’s culture of suspicion, but ulterior motives make me think sinister. However, those are happy oranges and there was little more than atmosphere to convict the painter of anything underhanded… the quality of the writing keeps you glued to the page actually because nothing has happened, but stakes are piling up around the title: the happy oranges in the black and gun metal blue world.

I’m a big fan of the abrupt shift in a poem, in narrative poems especially; the jarring turn of events, the dramatic dissected because poetry, let’s face it, is somewhat mystic, it’s about leaving slight ambiguities, about connecting without dictating, the unsaid as much as the said and the said only the root of the experience. The blue sketches are an abrupt shift in the poem, like the mother’s call for silence in “Sunday Morning” and though never specifically indicated, they’re almost expected. The tenseness to the jump-moment of the poem. Where your facial expression changes, even if you’re reading the poem in public. That moment can only really be achieved when the tension in the poem is expertly crafted. It is easy to go over-the-top with dreary images, to get heavy-handed with metaphors, or to forget that there should be a reason for the shift, duality, humanity, something other than just a ‘ah, that’s messed up’ moment to them then nothing else.

Writing exercise: Try writing a poem that sets a pleasant image amidst a very dreary or dreadful background. Give the reader little of the pleasant image, (as in the crate of happy oranges) but that image will be the twisting point for the poem. Whether it’s something good like a type of muffin being sold in a bakery being used as secret code to help persecuted escape, or the more ominous negative side of the happy image, as so many seemingly positive things are being used for a much darker purpose it appears. Make sure that the cuspiness is woven into the atmosphere of the poem, the scenery, the mundane as unstated metaphors… Have at it!

Robert Brewer runs Writer’s Digest’s blog Poetic Asides. He’s running a little “Poem a Day” month again right now (November). This time the idea is to try to write a chapbook, so to write all of your poems along a certain theme. There are also individual writing exercises each day, and a lot of people saying what they think a chapbook is, or what makes a chapbook good.  There’s some talk of trying to organize a little contest with chapbooks written for the PaD thing, but nothing concrete.

This started at the beginning of the month, but you can catch up! It’s gonna be tough with NaNoWriMo at the same time. I’m going to try to catch up in the next couple days though. Happy writing.

It’s like the place where everybody knows your name, every book benefits from having at least one good one. A theme isn’t usually on the forefront of the text, but there are generally trends in books– certain repetition and (un)said comparisons are almost always drawn in a well crafted book. National Novel Writing Month isn’t about a terribly well crafted book, but about a production of 50,000 words. Today consider themes. Start with the broad themes of fabulous cliches like “love conquers all” “blood is thicker than water” or whatever pops into your head. Come up with 5 broad cliches. Then think of a color theme you can try to work into the novel a little bit. Come up with 5 colors that you feel can be very representative of events, emotions, whatever. But colors as metaphors. That’s the plan. Have fun.

Every book has a setting (or many, many settings) and there is a fine line between over-the-top absurd and really-quirky, between universal and boring. There are real places, everytowns, faraway planets, and all can be altered by setting the story in a particular time, be it the past or the future.

Today make a list of 10 cities that you have some sort of an interest in, a list of 5 different types of buildings (a restaurant, a motel, a bank…) a list of 5 time periods that interest you (whether it will ever come up in your story, it doesn’t matter…), and a list of 5 natural places (a cave, a hollowed out redwood, a beach…)

Keep all your brainstorming lists together for quick access when you’re plotting the basics of yor novel. Wheeeeeeeee!

Today look at names, make a list of at least 15. Some outlandish, some more commonplace. Use a Baby Name search engine or look through books, read the credits of your favorite movies (Eastman, he came out of the east to do battle with the amazing Rando!) or just rummage around in that brain of yours. But use a search engine of some sort for at least 3 names. A character’s name is one of the initial things the reader learns about them, so make it say something about their, well their character.

I’ve never tried NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before, though I have talked to people who have (Hi Karen) and seemed to enjoy the process very much. So, this being the first October in five or so years in which I don’t have 15+ units, I decided to try it. The idea is to write a 50,000 word+ novel in one month, regardless of actual quality. A first draft, or even a trash draft. It is essentially an exercise in quantity, so I’m all about it.

Check out the vast array of NaNoWriMo stuffs online like the official website,  Light Fantastic (who has tons of links to forums, webrings, mailing lists),  San Diego Writers, or this website that helps you find meet-up groups if you care to share your stories, woes, seek advice/solace/sanctuary.

In preparation for this upcoming month, let’s spend a week brainstorming different possibilities for fiction. We’ll make a daily list, focusing on one aspect of a novel each day: Locales (and why something would be cool there), quirky character traits, plotlines, names, and  themes/messages.

Today, brainstorm a list of at least fifteen quirky character traits that could come up in a book (be it blinking twice when someone’s lying, never opening a door with their left hand, wearing a side-pony tail, whatever) . Remember, NaNoWriMo is more about quantity and conclusion than spectacular quality. Essentially, it’s speed crapping a first draft of a novel under arbitrary time constraints. But why think of it like that when it can be an open challenge to the realm? (Damn you Lich King.)

This is you. You’re just just another word in the paragraph.That’s right, this exercise is to personify a word. To do that, you must first envision the world of words on a personal level. What do they do when they get off work? When the book is shelved and no one will be reading it for awhile and the paragraphs organize a mixer for the shyer words, how would they fit in together? Do the adjectives stand around and gossip? Do prepositions have to sit at the kiddie table? Do the words have any concept of the greater piece, the world beyond their paragraph? Into other chapters, other books?

Pick a book, pick a paragraph, look at the individual words, their other meanings, their root-words, suffixes, connotations. Write a poem in which, for some reason the words are interacting with the other words in the paragraph. Pick one word to narrate, whether its a cool verb or an envious article, and take us from the beginning of the interaction to the end with that particular word’s rose-colored glasses.

Or, at least mostly daily. They’re at the Firestarter Exercise page, also linked on the right of your screen. There are hundreds of back exercises to browse through and choose from if you’re ever needing a little spark to start your writing day off. Also, for exercises before 2008 (of which there are also hundreds) or that are attached to specific pieces of literature, browse through the category Exercises, again, on the right side of the screen. They’re fun, and a good way to get the (e)ink flowing. Today’s Firestarter was a little somber for the occasion:

9/11/08- A moment of Zen.

Yes, that number has rolled around again. So for today the writing exercise is to describe an odd scene in a poetic vignette. Something that is oddly peaceful. A sparrow twittering about a nest, then sitting still on a tree branch beside it. Sitting in a parking lot late at night that is playing a mellow John Williams-esque soundtrack. Whatever feels calming to you, but try to make it visual, and unique.

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.