I don't want to be ruthless at all. I don't want to kill my darlings. I put them aside or let them go, but I don't think I'm a stronger poet when using harsh terms to process my work. Under those circumstances, I'm just a more anxious poet.
The last time I saw/heard Elaine Myles read in person was June of 2018. As she finished each in her sheaf of poems, she gently tossed it aside, into the air, onto the stage, off-handedly. Still seems brilliant to me.
For me, it's letting the poems be who they are, and giving myself time to discover if they need to be nurtured or let go.
Hmmmmm, harsh but wise indeed. Always the constant struggle, no? Hearing our own work somewhat objectively. But where is the line of being overly critical? I have to wonder how many amazing poems get tossed into Szymborska’s trash?
I love this, and her advice is a nice bracing slap in the face. This part -- “Authors are not required to provide nature descriptions. If you don’t have anything new to add, just leave out the moonlight glistening on the water” -- well, golly, I disagree. I once interviewed the amazing novelist (A SUDDEN COUNTRY) Karen Fisher, and she said she discarded 99 percent of what she wrote. But everything she kept was pure gold.
Verse, I can't yet pretend to poetry, is something I touch only when all other attempts to put the same sentiment down in prose fail. I like the economy of words but it's a beast to tame. I feel in awe of anyone who makes it their sole expression.
This is a great topic, I'm subscribing. I'm also interested in the community coming from the comments, because everyone seems to be having the same reaction I'm having. So I had a question.
When you sit down to revise a poem, do you rewrite it completely, or only particular lines? Answering my own question, I'm an advocate for complete revision. I print out the first draft, "spend long hours over a piece of paper", then I erase everything on the computer page, and type it out again. I got this technique from Richard Hugo's "The Triggering Town".
If you consider the first draft and revisions, then I'd say I throw out plenty (I definitely toss in the recycling all those printed drafts).
I have the deepest respect for the work of Szymborksa, but totally disagree with her advice on writing. I discard nothing. I write. I let my readers read and decide. Some like this, others that and in a couple of cases nobody likes a letter I wrote. That is all okay. I'm a poet. I create poetry. Let the readers do their job and decide what is good or not. For them. Each individually. Nobody can dictate what somebody likes.
Besides, the game is now different than it was then. Sure, there are still editors that work this way, but the big misconception in this all, is that they are the ones who get to decide whether a poem is good or not. The only thing they decide, is whether a poem is a good fit with the audience of their publication. They are the gatekeepers to media channels. And so are we. Or at least, I am and you can be. I pick which poem is a good fit for my substack newsletter, which one has a better life on Twitter or Instagram (or both) and which one goes on my personal blog. Then I get to pick the ones I send to external channels. But that is all it is: gatekeeping channels. The reader decides the quality of the work.
Yeah, but, it's a little different in our hard drive days, right? I mean, I never trash anything, it just goes forgotten. "What's that 'Unititled Document' from April 2017?" And then I say, oh yeah, that sucked.
In any case, Arjan, you're talking about publishing poems as content. I think there's a difference between the digital and the physical in this case. In a way, the content we're creating through Substack has a different shelf life than when a poet decides to put a book of poems together (in which case I agree with Radha, plenty is getting left out).
I grow more ruthless by the day. My early poems, I guarded every word, later I retreated to preserving lines, next stanzas, now poems. When I can start tossing those, I may be considered a poet.
Someday I will probably read that little book of Szymborska advice, but the excerpts you present sound like the ones I've sampled standing in the library -- harsh and dismissive. She is often funny, so I suspect there's some humor in there too.
The ways I read other people's poems and my own are not that different. I rewrite other people's poems, too (at least in my head). Often the poems by others that I love the most are poems I would change -- a little -- and the tension between the best way to say it and the poem -- as it works toward that and holds back -- provides energy that improves the experience of the poem.
I never send out poems I don't like, that I don't consider good poems. Looked at one way a poem can be a wave, another way a particle. Bad ... good ... different kinds of interesting ...
ouch, ouch. Her words feel like stilettos--tiny punctures that make deep wounds. I conclude I have no talent, since I do not "spend long hours over a piece of paper." Perhaps she's just funny if one has the confidence to be able to dismiss such opinions. It is interesting that she treats her work no better than she treats others'.
I don't want to be ruthless at all. I don't want to kill my darlings. I put them aside or let them go, but I don't think I'm a stronger poet when using harsh terms to process my work. Under those circumstances, I'm just a more anxious poet.
The last time I saw/heard Elaine Myles read in person was June of 2018. As she finished each in her sheaf of poems, she gently tossed it aside, into the air, onto the stage, off-handedly. Still seems brilliant to me.
For me, it's letting the poems be who they are, and giving myself time to discover if they need to be nurtured or let go.
Eileen Myles?
Yes, thanks so much.
Hmmmmm, harsh but wise indeed. Always the constant struggle, no? Hearing our own work somewhat objectively. But where is the line of being overly critical? I have to wonder how many amazing poems get tossed into Szymborska’s trash?
Especially as we're often kind of dense as to which are our best.
I love this, and her advice is a nice bracing slap in the face. This part -- “Authors are not required to provide nature descriptions. If you don’t have anything new to add, just leave out the moonlight glistening on the water” -- well, golly, I disagree. I once interviewed the amazing novelist (A SUDDEN COUNTRY) Karen Fisher, and she said she discarded 99 percent of what she wrote. But everything she kept was pure gold.
Verse, I can't yet pretend to poetry, is something I touch only when all other attempts to put the same sentiment down in prose fail. I like the economy of words but it's a beast to tame. I feel in awe of anyone who makes it their sole expression.
This is a great topic, I'm subscribing. I'm also interested in the community coming from the comments, because everyone seems to be having the same reaction I'm having. So I had a question.
When you sit down to revise a poem, do you rewrite it completely, or only particular lines? Answering my own question, I'm an advocate for complete revision. I print out the first draft, "spend long hours over a piece of paper", then I erase everything on the computer page, and type it out again. I got this technique from Richard Hugo's "The Triggering Town".
If you consider the first draft and revisions, then I'd say I throw out plenty (I definitely toss in the recycling all those printed drafts).
Counting drafts and revisions ... yes, SO MUCH thrown out!
I have the deepest respect for the work of Szymborksa, but totally disagree with her advice on writing. I discard nothing. I write. I let my readers read and decide. Some like this, others that and in a couple of cases nobody likes a letter I wrote. That is all okay. I'm a poet. I create poetry. Let the readers do their job and decide what is good or not. For them. Each individually. Nobody can dictate what somebody likes.
Besides, the game is now different than it was then. Sure, there are still editors that work this way, but the big misconception in this all, is that they are the ones who get to decide whether a poem is good or not. The only thing they decide, is whether a poem is a good fit with the audience of their publication. They are the gatekeepers to media channels. And so are we. Or at least, I am and you can be. I pick which poem is a good fit for my substack newsletter, which one has a better life on Twitter or Instagram (or both) and which one goes on my personal blog. Then I get to pick the ones I send to external channels. But that is all it is: gatekeeping channels. The reader decides the quality of the work.
Yeah, but, it's a little different in our hard drive days, right? I mean, I never trash anything, it just goes forgotten. "What's that 'Unititled Document' from April 2017?" And then I say, oh yeah, that sucked.
In any case, Arjan, you're talking about publishing poems as content. I think there's a difference between the digital and the physical in this case. In a way, the content we're creating through Substack has a different shelf life than when a poet decides to put a book of poems together (in which case I agree with Radha, plenty is getting left out).
I grow more ruthless by the day. My early poems, I guarded every word, later I retreated to preserving lines, next stanzas, now poems. When I can start tossing those, I may be considered a poet.
Someday I will probably read that little book of Szymborska advice, but the excerpts you present sound like the ones I've sampled standing in the library -- harsh and dismissive. She is often funny, so I suspect there's some humor in there too.
The ways I read other people's poems and my own are not that different. I rewrite other people's poems, too (at least in my head). Often the poems by others that I love the most are poems I would change -- a little -- and the tension between the best way to say it and the poem -- as it works toward that and holds back -- provides energy that improves the experience of the poem.
I never send out poems I don't like, that I don't consider good poems. Looked at one way a poem can be a wave, another way a particle. Bad ... good ... different kinds of interesting ...
ouch, ouch. Her words feel like stilettos--tiny punctures that make deep wounds. I conclude I have no talent, since I do not "spend long hours over a piece of paper." Perhaps she's just funny if one has the confidence to be able to dismiss such opinions. It is interesting that she treats her work no better than she treats others'.
Oh dear! Please do not think I agree with her approach. IMO process matters. Incisive inner/outer critics do not.
That might be a useful test for deciding whether you have enough for a collection: Discard 90% of what you’ve written and see what’s left.
Unclear if that’s poems or lines. Is a couple baker’s dozen free verse lines equal to two sonnets? Etc.
Had to smile at “Passion for the human foot won’t make a decent cobbler of you” with its image of a poem as a shoe.
Fascinating.