What Poetry Is - Part 2

Slapstick actor from the silent film era: Charlie Chaplin

The two books I mentioned reading in yesterday's post are Stephen Dobyns' Winter Journey and Laura Mullen's Dark Archive. Such different styles these two writers have!

Dobyns takes the reader on a stream-of-consciousness trip. The poems run 4-5 pages in a block with line breaks, but no stanzas. The words are clear and fully understandable. At times, it even feels that maybe this isn't poetry, just someone thinking out loud. He begins the poem in one place (walking the dog, for example), then moves to Germany, then touches on slapstick, then the U.S. administration (Bush, I believe), then returns back to the dog.

In a way, it's like being on a long leash, going out with the tide, wherever the tide goes, and finally (4 pages later) returning to your owner.

Next post - considering the other book
Previous post - beginning to consider what poetry is

What Poetry Is - Part 1

I've spent a fair amount of time studying John Fincher's paintings. He is an artist who beautifully captures beauty. You know his subject; he is not trying to confound the viewer. You can see more of his work at: www.lewallencontemporary.com

I've had my head in a few poetry books this morning, and now (as often), I'm thinking about what poetry is - exactly. My students ask me this now and again. They assume a poem needs to rhyme, or be impossible to understand. I tell them that there are poems in places they wouldn't expect. There are poems in grocery lists and science textbooks, for example.

I tell them that poems can - and do - make sense, and that poems can - and do - confound. I tell them that poems can also hurt. Not all poems are beautiful.

I peruse a lot of poetry, stopping when something catches my attention. I'm conscientious of starting poetry books at the beginning (as I would with a novel), because I believe the author is owed this decency. I want to understand the concept of the book as a whole.

But, I admit, if I am displeased by what I see, I begin skipping around in the book, leapfrogging over poems that don't appeal.

I almost always read the last poem in the book, too.

Tomorrow: going further with what poetry is

Apology to Other Poets

To all the poets I know who are trying so diligently to get your voice and words out there,

to the poets who have planned a beautiful reading,

to the poets who have readings that overlap on Fridays and Sundays and Thursdays (which happens often because I live in a place rich with words),

to the poets I don’t know whose book tours bring you to town,

to the poets whose readings happen when I am working at my day job, or teaching a night class,

to the poets whose events fall on my anniversary or the night of the year’s best jazz concert,

forgive me, please. Poetry matters so much to me that sometimes I have to make a decision to sit and write, to re-fill my own well with those precious moments of free time I can find. Sometimes, when I say no to your event, I need desperately instead to sit at my desk and move my thoughts around in my head and my mind, rather than sitting in the audience and holding my breath for those beautiful words you may utter.

I need both – your words and mine --  but always, I need them in balance.

Keep writing, and I will keep showing up at a handful of your events - and meaning to get to the rest of them. 

A Poem for Eric Dolphy

Here's my poem from Upstairs at Duroc, Issue 12:

RINGS (for Eric Dolphy, 1964)

by Lauren Camp

On a ledge, I align 20 stones,

dark ovals smooth as the inside of my thigh, small orbs

ringed with white.

“Something Sweet, Something Tender,”

circles written when the seas retreated,

the raw song of mourning.

Dolphy’s clarinet turns a slow tide that surges and drifts.

He holds a bag of logic and many colors

fitted into keys, an anthem of sense and anger,

the loud shadow of a burden. His reed pushes, scatters.

Vibes burble on the ocean of tomorrow

as bass strings sink spasms

of plodding sadness in cool air; each returning swell

a sphere collected on a beach the size of sound.

The trumpet comes in sullen; tones drop

like an anchor.

No one realizes, and a soul bleeds.

New language forms.

Everyone collects behind the beat

until the clarinet grabs a line and knots up dusk

with ginger-sharp thought.

Understanding makes me dizzy. My pulse syncopates

in rhythm to the plucked, torn sound,

a noise that wears itself down, the chunked voice

of five men playing a deep confusion layered by time,

the sediment constantly smoothing, forever softening,

until all that remains is dark –

rimmed with a white bracelet from another era.

Alice Notley, Eric Dolphy and Upstairs at Duroc

Saxophonist Eric Dolphy:
the subject of my poem in the latest issue of Upstairs at Duroc

I’ve been reading the latest issue of Upstairs at Duroc. This international journal comes out once a year; this is the 12th issue.

Published in Paris, Upstairs at Duroc is filled with literary works of prose and poetry in English.

I'm about halfway through the issue.

Alice Notley’s work is included, which isn’t so odd, seeing as she lives in Paris.  I knew of Notley from Grave of Light, which collects her writing from 1970-2005. I’ve included some of those poems on my show, “Audio Saucepan.”

The 4-page piece in Upstairs at Duroc begins with the author in conversation with a word. Or no, it begins with a conversation with someone named Marie.

It returns to the idea of the word as person, a thing that can talk, that can ask questions. This is one of the things that I love about poetry, the way it grabs my hand and takes me into the surreal.  Suddenly, I’m in a place where “the word” talks.

That, in itself, is dimensional.  Of course, we all use words to talk, but this word has emotion; it thinks and feels. It talks back.

Alice Notley’s writing makes me certain I’ve walked into a dark tunnel. Even though I don’t know what’s happening, I like it in there. It’s weird, but it feels good. Cool and damp on my skin.

Turns out, this is an excerpt from Notley’s new book, Culture of One, due out next month from Penguin. It’s about the Southwest - my home. I want to read more….

And, by the way, one of my jazz poems is in this issue of Upstairs at Duroc – a piece about jazzman Eric Dolphy.