“Some poets use forms as guardrails for completion. These days, most of us don’t.”
Robin Myers: "As a college student in Buenos Aires, I took a translation workshop with Ezequiel Zaidenwerg . . . . He turned out to be militant about poetic meter, which was not something I’d learned anything about in the English-language tradition that was ostensibly my major. The mechanics came as an unpleasant shock. For our first creative assignment, he urged us to translate a poem within a set of metrical constraints. I was baffled. Worse, I wasn’t any good at it. And I was vexed, in an entitled sort of way, to feel what I’d come to identify as my only real aptitude being squashed by some neurotic fixation on form. I hacked my way through a long sequence of dismal translations . . . . The click came eventually. I first felt it with a Lorca poem: the rush of affinity I was already familiar with as a reader of poems—this!—plus the satisfaction of fitting a puzzle piece into place. I felt myself slip into something that was already there—something with a shape, a voice, a gait, a history, a wake trailing behind it—and try to move around inside. Ezequiel’s exhortations about meter had something of an old adage: needing to learn the rules before you break them and so on. It strikes me now, though, that even as a bona fide baby poetry nerd, I’d still been conditioned to associate poetic form with punishment, or at least with regiment. It hadn’t occurred to me that such 'rules' were also resources: tools to explore and experiment with, a well to plumb, an invitation to suppleness in perpetual exercise. And in urging me to translate metrically, Ezequiel was mostly just urging me to practice thinking about both parts and wholes, and about how translation must attend to both."
I'm not very good at knowing when a poem is truly finished, which used to be my criteria for stopping. I've learned that I'm happiest to let it go when I can't think of or feel anything more to tinker with, and call it "finished for now." I too am a slow perfecter, and feel stuck if I stay with one poem or project when I feel like starting or working on another poem. I'm also a "never want it to end" writer. I find many (vs. only one or a few) poems in various stages of editing encourage ideas for other revisions. The kinder we are to ourselves, the safer we feel to create, play, experiment, and ultimately share.
thank you for this article. After repeating my mantra of "I'm not done yet" or I'm not ready yet" so often, until it became a darkened hum in the back of my throat, I decided quite on the spur of some unknown moment to STOP!. I had just completed a phenomenal writing workshop and I was liberated, inspired and electrically charged to proceed into action. I just completed organizing a body of poems into 4-5 categories. I did it swiftly, yes, I did throw some out, others I liked, and kept, and surprisingly enough, others, I thought quite brilliant. No sense in being shy. Some might think it boastful to consider one's work brilliant. But I say nope. I can humbly accept that every now and then brilliance shines, so take a bow. I know I did. Now on to creating some chap books. I was in a quandary to self publish or not,. For now, I will stay focused on creating the format, and let the rest fall into place. Any thoughts?
I love what you have said about your poem feeling Alive, when it is done. So true!
Finding that sweet spot - the ending is where I continuously tinker! Returning & eventually it takes a new life. - thanks for posting. ✍️
Good advice especially zoning in on styles of writers and habits of editing. I learned a lot. Thanks.
“Some poets use forms as guardrails for completion. These days, most of us don’t.”
Robin Myers: "As a college student in Buenos Aires, I took a translation workshop with Ezequiel Zaidenwerg . . . . He turned out to be militant about poetic meter, which was not something I’d learned anything about in the English-language tradition that was ostensibly my major. The mechanics came as an unpleasant shock. For our first creative assignment, he urged us to translate a poem within a set of metrical constraints. I was baffled. Worse, I wasn’t any good at it. And I was vexed, in an entitled sort of way, to feel what I’d come to identify as my only real aptitude being squashed by some neurotic fixation on form. I hacked my way through a long sequence of dismal translations . . . . The click came eventually. I first felt it with a Lorca poem: the rush of affinity I was already familiar with as a reader of poems—this!—plus the satisfaction of fitting a puzzle piece into place. I felt myself slip into something that was already there—something with a shape, a voice, a gait, a history, a wake trailing behind it—and try to move around inside. Ezequiel’s exhortations about meter had something of an old adage: needing to learn the rules before you break them and so on. It strikes me now, though, that even as a bona fide baby poetry nerd, I’d still been conditioned to associate poetic form with punishment, or at least with regiment. It hadn’t occurred to me that such 'rules' were also resources: tools to explore and experiment with, a well to plumb, an invitation to suppleness in perpetual exercise. And in urging me to translate metrically, Ezequiel was mostly just urging me to practice thinking about both parts and wholes, and about how translation must attend to both."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/sharing-speech-on-translation-as-conversation/
I'm not very good at knowing when a poem is truly finished, which used to be my criteria for stopping. I've learned that I'm happiest to let it go when I can't think of or feel anything more to tinker with, and call it "finished for now." I too am a slow perfecter, and feel stuck if I stay with one poem or project when I feel like starting or working on another poem. I'm also a "never want it to end" writer. I find many (vs. only one or a few) poems in various stages of editing encourage ideas for other revisions. The kinder we are to ourselves, the safer we feel to create, play, experiment, and ultimately share.
I may have guessed your happy news. Maybe because you've dropped some hints that could be heard in Ciudad Juárez? ; )
"To do anything less would be unkind to myself and a disservice to the new work I've already begun."
Nailed it, Radha. The only thing I would add is it would be an equal disservice to the work you have not yet begun.
thank you for this article. After repeating my mantra of "I'm not done yet" or I'm not ready yet" so often, until it became a darkened hum in the back of my throat, I decided quite on the spur of some unknown moment to STOP!. I had just completed a phenomenal writing workshop and I was liberated, inspired and electrically charged to proceed into action. I just completed organizing a body of poems into 4-5 categories. I did it swiftly, yes, I did throw some out, others I liked, and kept, and surprisingly enough, others, I thought quite brilliant. No sense in being shy. Some might think it boastful to consider one's work brilliant. But I say nope. I can humbly accept that every now and then brilliance shines, so take a bow. I know I did. Now on to creating some chap books. I was in a quandary to self publish or not,. For now, I will stay focused on creating the format, and let the rest fall into place. Any thoughts?