Pancakes II: The Fiction and Poetry Thread

[mamun01]

I'm ALWAYS seeking out books on writing, by writers, that inspire me and remind me that all the blood sweat and copious tears shed are worth it. Can I suggest Annie Dillard to my fellow frustrated scribblers? She's an absolutely amazing writer and some of her reflections are worth a look. Can I plug Annie's THE WRITING LIFE and LIVING BY FICTION? I'm no big fan of Margaret Atwood's but I know she commends Lewis Hyde's THE GIFT to young writers. There's also Rainer Maria Rilke's LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET, Eudora Welty's ONE WRITER'S BEGINNINGS and, I'm a big Auster fan, so what about Paul Auster's THE ART OF HUNGER. Any other suggestions?

[dog$]

stfu noob

[Tracer]

The rain comes like fingers of God
drumming

If God is a finger-drummer then God is a dickhead.

Also, nothing personal, but this poem was terrible. It read like is should belong on a Junior High Trapper Keeper.

[Fe 26]

to be fair, most modern poetry does

[Cowutopia]

Thanks Tracer!

God is a dickhead imo. That one is certainly not great though, I mean it's not really a cohesive thought, there's some filler in it that is pretty terrible, but there are a few images worth saving I think to put somewhere useful.

And that last bit about rain and god may be one of them. I don't know how religious you are but if God exists he's certainly not a benevolent God, more of a mischievous tinkerer.

The best thing I've ever written is still
"I have returned to center,
Like a swing forgotten
After the child has jumped away."

but I don't like the rest of that poem and I really wish I had somewhere good to put it, but attempting to build a poem around that isn't easy.

In poetry these days I'm trying very hard not to use the first person.

[jyoung]

to be fair, most modern poetry does

Too much abstraction is the downfall for most beginning poets.

How does the old maxim go? "No ideas but in things." That's really the best advice to give for getting better at poems: more things, less words.

[jyoung]

Is it a bagel

or an asshole?
All I know is both
go best with jelly
and cream cheese
spread inside.

[Brisco Bold]

Christmas gift for everyone: A short story!

"Portrait of Tomorrow, Colours of Today."

[station82o]

why is this thread called pancakes anyway? always makes me think of breakfast... good going guys.

Anyway, in response to the discussions of how poetry should be or how it can be too abstract, here is my favorite poem by Louise Gluck, she was the US poet laureate awhile back and I even got to see her do a reading once. Its a pretty good example of how you can have concrete imagery and ideas and still be abstract in a really effective way.

Louise Gluck - The Pond

Night covers the pond with its wing.
Under the ringed moon I can make out
your face swimming among minnows and the small
echoing stars. In the night air
the surface of the pond is metal.

Within, your eyes are open. They contain
a memory I recognize, as though
we had been children together. Our ponies
grazed on the hill, they were gray
with white markings. Now they graze
with the dead who wait
like children under their granite breastplates,
lucid and helpless:

The hills are far away. They rise up
blacker than childhood.
What do you think of, lying so quietly
by the water? When you look that way I want
to touch you, but do not, seeing
as in another life we were of the same blood.

[station82o]

For anyone interested in beginning to write or just start reading poetry, I can't recommend enough the short NPR program and website by Garrison Keillor called The Writer's Almanac. The radio program segments are narrated by Keillor and they're archived on the site as well, and feature selections from writers, and mainly, poets that you may not be exposed to otherwise just b/c they're not big names. To add another example to the one I listed above of poetry with concrete ideas and things that work in an abstract way, I find that this poem by Norah Pollard fits the bill:

She Dreamed of Cows by Norah Pollard


I knew a woman who washed her hair and bathed
her body and put on the nightgown she'd worn
as a bride and lay down with a .38 in her right hand.
Before she did the thing, she went over her life.
She started at the beginning and recalled everything—
all the shame, sorrow, regret and loss.
This took her a long time into the night
and a long time crying out in rage and grief and disbelief—
until sleep captured her and bore her down.

She dreamed of a green pasture and a green oak tree.
She dreamed of cows. She dreamed she stood
under the tree and the brown and white cows
came slowly up from the pond and stood near her.
Some butted her gently and they licked her bare arms
with their great coarse drooling tongues. Their eyes, wet as
shining water, regarded her. They came closer and began to
press their warm flanks against her, and as they pressed
an almost unendurable joy came over her and
lifted her like a warm wind and she could fly.
She flew over the tree and she flew over the field and
she flew with the cows.

When the woman woke, she rose and went to the mirror.
She looked a long time at her living self.
Then she went down to the kitchen which the sun had made all
yellow, and she made tea. She drank it at the table, slowly,
all the while touching her arms where the cows had licked.