What’s in a Poem?
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”
Sometimes a poem starts with a word, a feeling, or a memory.
Sometimes it’s been written before I realize how it began.
Most of the time, it takes so much writing and rewriting that I’ve fully memorized it by the time it’s done.
But the best ones always lift a sort of weight off my shoulders. Good poetry, I think, is the most magical translator there is. Like a form of concise yet elegant transference of our mental burdens.
I have this annoying poetic bent, something that can be lovely but also over the top and embarrassing. It takes some reining in to be effective, so I do my best to cover it up in the light of day.
A teaching assistant at UCLA once wrote in the margins of my undergrad essay, “There’s a touch of the poet in you.” I wanted to take that as a compliment but knew he was politely asking me to be less flowery in my literary analysis. Though his comment has stuck with me, so has my mother’s driving advice of “Yield! Yield! Yield!”
Sometimes we shouldn’t have to yield though. And that’s where the best poetry comes in.
Throw all those pesky adverbs at the page, I say. Barrage us with descriptions. Flash your poetic license like a freshly minted 21-year-old American ready to “sup” at an old-fashioned.
Do whatever the hell you want. Maybe don’t publish the crap, but please do pull it out at night when you’re feeling sad and need to smile at your own audacity.
Personally, I now use poetry as chapter epigraphs, a way to give insight and tease themes as they arise. A brilliant editor and poet suggested rearranging the first such poem in my upcoming novel. She loves enjambement and so do I, so she took my limerick (1) and suggested something different (2):
(1)
Night falls here like a demon on dragonback,
Never quite ready to consider a different tack,
Ignoring the gloaming
To race toward morning
With the ephemeral haste of some infernal insomniac.
(2)
Night falls here like a demon
On dragonback, never quite ready
To consider a different tack,
Ignoring the gloaming
To race toward morning
With the ephemeral haste
Of some infernal insomniac.
But while the second form is a better representation of how I read the poem aloud as well as more contemporary in style, it strays from the point of its existence. I meant to start off my novel with something that felt fun, fantastical, and lighthearted. Even childish. Because the first chapter is a mischievous little ride, and a silly limerick for an epigraph represents that well.
I really had to laugh when that same editor commented about my novel, “There are also a few areas where the prose leans… not quite purple, but something of a soft violet colour.”
You see it’s a lifelong struggle, everyone. An addiction to the florid. An obsession with the verbal high. I’m like a word-drunk vampire who doesn’t know when enough’s enough.
If only more people understood.
