I am attempting to write a long poem. Some may consider it a failed short story. Fewer will read it. I am doing this out of curiosity, some boredom with short poems, as a test of my will to write and an attempt to understand ( test, measure?) what talent I have to write.
The inspiration comes from Camille T. Dungy’s long poem Prayer for P- in her book Smith Blue. I am also encouraged in the pursuit by an article on poets.org An Anatomy of the Long Poem. I have posted some pieces of the experiment Choppin’ Wood already, rough and unpolished but fair examples of what I’m attempting to do. If you do read some part of the poem please feel free to give an honest opinion…I’m a lousy poet but luckily I have the skin of an armadillo.
Thanks for reading
Poetry on the run 
I have been intrigued/curious/terrified about writing longer poems as well.
For about three years now I have been throwing bits and pieces of verse at what I call “a book-length post-apocalyptic science-fiction epic love poem” although so far it’s just a “not-nearly book-length pile of disjointed crap”. Probably just my way of dealing with the desire to write a novel while being totally over-whelmed by what that all means.
I will take a look at yer Choppin’ Wood pieces. I apologize that I have not gotten to reading them yet although the title did catch my eye as it reminded me of the old Zen story. I’m still getting back into the swing of things here in the blogging world.
Will definitely check out that poets.org link too.
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“Jack Spicer wrote, “generations of different poets in different countries [are] patiently telling the same story, writing the same poem.””
Considering my comment on the Dungy poem, this gave me a chill.
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Yes! That Spicer quote was one of the things running around in my brain when I decided to try this project. If fact I have been rewriting Dungy’s poems lately because I have run out of ideas and experiences that provide the juice for a poem. I have been doing a bit of digging into the long poem genre and man I’m thinking what the hell have I gotten myself into? I have rewritten sections of Choppin’ Wood today to try and get some poetry out the words I put down. I’m struggling. But that’s a good thing – right? I am also reading A.R, Ammons long poem “Garbage.” It’s cool but very far from what I thought I would do with a long poem…I have a lot to learn before I should even try this, but WTF I say, just jump into it and see what happens. So I am going to keep reading long poems and writing one at the same time, I figure there’s no chance this will turn out to be a waste of time…
Also I’m listening to Leonard Cohen who sings his poems like a man with a belief in what he’s doing and if it doesn’t work, well let’s have another cocktail and see if we can fix it.
Thanks for talking about this. My poor wife is just about worn out with this subject.
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“…because I have run out of ideas and experiences that provide the juice for a poem.”
I try to believe (and many great poets prove it so) that the juice for a poem can come from anywhere, including a trip to the grocery store (a la Ginsberg), but I feel you. I remember a Poem Talk podcast discussing Lisa Roberson’s “The Weather” which is based on BBC shipping reports. This is an especially interesting discussion for many reasons but especially here for being a book-length poem/project about something that is by all rights as mundane as a subject can get is some ways yet as profound as one can get in other ways.
http://jacket2.org/podcasts/day-pours-out-space-poemtalk-65
For me the key has always been to not worry quite so much about how “juicy” my writing is and to simply write. For me the Juice comes later, when the writing is squeezed (if you’ll for give me extending that metaphor to its potential breaking point).
While what I have heard/read of “The Weather” leads me to believe that this is neither a piece that I would want to write or emulate or for that matter read all the way through,(yes, “very far from what I thought I would do with a long poem”) I do find it reassuring that poets can and do find their material absolutely anywhere. There are no rules.
“I have a lot to learn before I should even try this”
Trying is how we learn. One of my favorite quotes about is from Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido:
“Failure is the key to success.
Every mistake teaches us something.”
To which I add, “…IF we are paying attention.” …which is what poetry is about, isn’t it? Paying attention. To everything, including the act of paying attention.
If you hadn’t already guessed, I am always happy to talk about this. Sometimes I think I like talking about poetry more than I like writing the stuff.
And my wife, though ever-supportive has little to know interest in the deeper rabbit holes of poetics.
Which brings me to a project that I have been considering for some time. I am currently starting the process of attempting to get some pieces legitimately “published” (do I sound non-committal or what?) and though I don’t know if you have such aspirations I think you might be interested in this project.
As you no doubt know, most journals/reviews/magazined consider anything on a blog to have been “previously published” and therefore will not consider any such pieces for submission. Private blogs are another story so my thought is to start an invite-only, private blog in which we poets can put our pieces for critique and discussion without ruling them out for publication elsewhere.
Now that I have made this decision to submit my poems, I find myself at a loss since putting them on my blog was at least part of the process of how I decided if they were any good or not. At one time, back around 2013, I was invited into just such a group and found if very fruitful and a great way to work through permutations of pieces I was working on.
This would also give us a space to have discussions such as the one we are currently having, without airing them to “the public” as it were.
It will take some time for me to pull together but if you are interested, please let me know. It would give us a good place to discuss pieces before we put them on our own blogs if nothing else.
Again, always happy to talk (as you can see….)
Johnny
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Johnny, sorry it took me a while to answer. I am in the hospital having a new hip installed. The short answer is I am all in on your plan. I”ll respond with a longer note in a few days.
Ron
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No worries Ron. Take your time and heal up.
Hope the new parts fit.
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