Poetry Research Study
 

Hi Everyone,

My name is Eric Heald-Webb, and I am currently a student at Old Dominion University’s MFA in Poetry program. I am conducting research into different ways poets draft their poems.

I would like to invite you to take a short survey. This survey asks questions regarding your poetry experience and writing habits, and should take no more than five minutes.

If you would like to continue to participate via a follow-up interview, you will have the opportunity to do so.

Please be assured that this study has been designed to protect your identity and your rights as much as possible. If you would like to view the research proposal, you may see it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12203784/Res...20Approved.pdf

To participate in the survey, click the following link:

https://www.kwiksurveys.com?s=HMHDII_f522edec

Thank you for your participation,

Eric Heald-Webb
Old Dominion University
MFA Student
ewebb002@odu.edu


ps - I know this invite is formal, but it was presented this way to the review board...

anyways, Adam asked whether discussion around this topic would skew my results, and I say no! :)
Please discuss away, it's why I'm doing this.

I will also be posting the results to the board, if you are interested.

I was willing to take the short survey but got this when I clicked on the link so I didn't proceed:

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Jayne, Internet Explorer is ridiculously picky about certain sites. Just choose to proceed in spite of the warning.

For the record, Firefox didn't stop me, I took the survey, it's short, and you can choose or not to go further and be interviewed by e-mail.

Eric,

Good luck with this. An interesting idea.

Ed

Eric,

I took the survey and read your proposal. I was impressed that you went through all the steps for IRB approval, even if merely to obtain exempt status. As a long time member of an IRB, I read your methodology section with interest. I know you can't change your process without going back to the board, but you may have some flexibility on data analysis techniques. Since you've already proposed moving from qualitative to quantitative analysis, you may get more complex results by consulting with some of the experts available to you at the University. If you have any contacts in your departments of Sociology, Social Work, or Psychology, you may find them very helpful with methods of data analysis, and interpretation of results.

Just a suggestion,

Thanks,

Bill

Since Eric has said it's okay to discuss in the open the issues he's studying, and since my brain has been chewing on it this morning, I'll go ahead.

I've been wondering whether people's answers will depend in some measure on whether they distinguish between composing and revising. As I remember them, the survey questions talk about composing, which I do with pen and paper. Once I commit something to the word processor, it's a draft, and changes to it are revisions, and I think of them as a different process, in which my brain operates differently--even though I often scratch handwritten revisions on the printed drafts.

Do others do this?

Maryann,

Thanks for reassuring me it was OK, as I was worried about the security problem, but I've tried again and couldn't access the survey... waited and waited and waited...

... I guess they'll just have to manage without knowing about my writing habits :( (which, btw, are identical to yours, by the sound of it. Can you include me with the same answers as yours???)

Tell us as much as you like about your writing habits, Jayne!
Eric will find your thoughts just as useful for his research if they're here.

Personally I always start on paper, usually a scruffy notebook, and with a pencil.
Then I transfer to the computer. I edit digitally, but I don't do much composing that way - not beyond the occasional discovery of a new line or two.

"Writing" happens in the head. Not on paper. Not on a computer.

Thank you for that, Adam. It was frustrating not being able to do the survey properly.

Like you, I start with paper and pencil. I buy loads of those cheap, lined A4 pads and for each line I write, I leave a line blank above and below it, where I can add alternative words or phrases in brackets.
When the paper is so messy from alterations I write the whole thing out again and repeat the process.
When I'm more-or-less happy with the poem I transfer it to my laptop. Further changes happen days, weeks, months, even years later (because they're never, ever, going to be perfect, to me.)

I wish I knew what the questions on the survey were (sigh).
I have a pad in my handbag at all times, one beside the bed and a dictaphone in the car - for absolute emergency use to record a couple of lines when I'm driving (don't tell the cops!).

I've completed both the survey and the e-mail interview, which has questions that are open ended and that allow for expansive answers. What's remarkable to me is that the questions seem to assume that there will be folks who compose poetry, from the outset, with a word processor.

I write letters and legal prose that way, but not poetry. I can't, and I really don't know what gets in the way of that. My only theory is that the mindset of touch typing somehow interferes for me.

I'm curious to hear from people who start out at the screen.

I used to draft poems on paper at all times, and I still do so if I am traveling or would find the computer inconvenient to use (when I am drying my hair, for instance). But as I have become more used to writing on the computer for other things, I have started to draft poems there, too. It is simpler to move sections of the poem around on the computer and easier to change words and whole lines multiple times. I always revise as I write, never just sitting down and writing a whole poem in draft form before I change anything. Of course, when one uses complex rhyming forms, as I often do, it would be hard to write the whole thing in one go with no changes.

Susan

Hi, all--

What a fascinating thread. I hope many more will contribute.

Like Susan, I do lots of "writing" directly to the screen--it's just faster (I can type faster than I can write), and easier to revise as I write.

But I also second Philip's comment: nearly every time, I've composed a heck of a lot in my head (silently repeating phrases over and over) before anything appears on the screen or paper.

And like Jayne (and most of you, I'd bet), I keep a notebook by my bed, one in the car, one next to my favorite reading chair, etc. I think I need to start carrying one during my morning walks--I'm not as good at remembering a whole sonnet (for three miles) as I used to be!

BTW, I took the survey, declined the e-mail interview.

--Jean

Jean, what you need for those 3-mile walks is a dictaphone like I keep in the car.
They fit into the palm of your hand and you can talk to yourself for a long time, then just record over it next morning. Put one on your wish list for Christmas ;)

What on earth does this mean?

I'm having trouble accessing the survey. But I can tell you something about my habits here. I never sit down in order to write a poem, and when an idea comes along I scribble it down at once - which is one of several reasons why I always have a pen and paper in my pocket. This is most likely to happen when I'm driving along a motorway or something like that. Sod et al (1993) have a law about that. I used to carry around - or mean to carry around - an A5 hrdback notebook, but never used it because it was always in a bag or something, so these days I use little pocket notebooks that look a bit like passports. These notebooks contain more doodles and phone numbers and 'interesting thoughts' than poem drafts, but there you go. I normally have just a line or so in my head at first, and an idea, and then I graft away at it a couple of times in a notebook before transferring it to the computer. By this point, it normally needs tinkering wqith quite a bit, normally over the period of a few weeks. Most of my notebook/chit of paper jottings come to nothing and are pitiful. If something isn't working I tend to abandon it as a matter of course.

I start (and finish) nearly all of my poems at the screen. The only time I write stuff down is when I am in bed. I never have poetic thoughts when I am out walking - too busy puffing and blowing, though I do compose when swimming. Then I just remember it until I get home. Since all my poems rhyme and scan they are pretty easy to remember.

I've had trouble completing the survey. The thing just sort of disappears. I don't know why.

Who was it wrote his poems on the cardbaord inserts of fag packets? You'd need the old ones which haven't beeen around for thirty years at least.

Auden? MacNeice? Auden was an Olympic smoker.

There are quite a few of us reporting trouble accessing the survey. I hope Eric is reading these replies, because it might be important for him to take these problems into account in evaluating his results. It seems as though particular browsers and ISPs are excluding a lot of his participants. So far, everybody who has reported trouble has been in the UK.

I haven't tried it yet. I will at the weekend.
I've PMd Eric.

Yikes! Looks like I'm the odd duck here. I have habits. Used to have other habits, and thought *they* were the way to do things... ;)

So: I only write at the machine. Used to have two monitors, now I just use one big monitor. I wish it were bigger: I've got half a dozen windows open when I'm writing a poem. Dictionaries, thesauri, rhyming dictionaries, points of research, it's an entire datastream. Need music playing, the music can't have words. Has to be done on a private, hidden blog: the actual inscribing of the text has to be as far away as possible from me. The blog is hosted in California.

I never have ideas. There's nothing to jot down for later. My mind is nearly always completely blank. Like those old jokes about a polar bear eating marshmallows in a snowstorm. There's nothing in there: it's just a fogbank. So I sit down to write, but only because I've been told: "No soup for you until you write a poem!" I can't take more than 30 minutes. I just don't have the attention span. And once I click 'save', it's not mine anymore. I can look at it the next day, and say "wow, who wrote that?"

I admire people who can hold ideas in their head. I just can't do it. And I admire people who can think, and ponder, and consider. I can't do that either. But mostly, I admire people who can revise, reframe, work on something for more than half an hour. I'm hopeless at that.

Oh, and the reason people are getting bounced out of the survey isn't nefarious. It's because of the free survey hosting site Eric used. There are much better hosts out there, but they cost actual money, and I don't think the project's funded.

Thanks,

Bill

Jayne, thanks for the tip. Great idea!

--Jean

Bill, wasn't going to post anything - then read your contribution. Thx. Odd ducks are herd animals - most don't know that.

I have 'almost always only ever' (like that string?) allowed myself to compose anything... *on a paper towel*. Yes, the kind you wipe up spills with. I was wondering what form of Pavlovian conditioning made for your uniqueness ("No soup for you until you write a poem!") and then realized I have no answer for my own oddness. Something to do with the ability to pretend it's not important to me, and the ease of disposal... sheesh. :confused: Maybe I don't wanna know!

Eric, will try to take the survey in the next few days - have Firefox, located in the US, we'll see how it goes.

All, it has been very, very fun for me to get a tiny peek into how you write. In this semi-blindfolded environment I make huge guesses and assumptions about some of you, get to read the blogs or peruse the art galleries of others, and closely watch the interactions of the rest - but your personal revelations are the most delightful, as your pictures fill in with greater detail and depth. Enjoying myself.

Tamara

This is just to say that the survey was doable from Sweden--a place where I am often refused movies and UTube because of illegal file streaming.

But while I am on the line I will tell you how my creative process has varied over the years. I used to think I couldn't be creative without puffing on a life-shortening cigarette. That was incorrect. I learned it was possible to write and not smoke when I fell in love with a man who kindly asked if I had to smoke in bed. This led to me kicking the habit, the man is gone, but the habit stayed gone too and for that I am forever grateful to him. The purpose of this anecdote (apart from practice for participation on a reality show that might give cash input) is to say that all these fetishes without which writers think they can't write, they can. Yes, you can.

My old fixed method of capturing the elusive muse by banging away at a manual, then electric, typewriter with a cigarette in the corner of my mouth, correction fluid at the ready, and hungry children crying because supper was burning on the stove, is a thing of the past.

I was employed for nearly two decades to translate and write about technical and corporate things, freelanced on the side, while mothering three strong-willed children and attending university classes at night. Yet I wrote--most of it pretty stinking, I'll grant you, but everybody has been there and done that.

During this lengthy period, I went through stages: turning over the poem in my head while walking to work was one, another was scribbling in a pad while waiting for or riding the bus, yet another was ushered in by the life-changing personal computer and a life without whitener, carbon copies and small notepads that entered the washing machine full of brilliant notes and exited as empty metal spirals.

Then one fine day, the children were fledged and flown and since no one would then starve but me, I set up my own business with the idea of having more time to “write” my own brilliant stuff. That ideal situation did not happen. However being my own boss (whatever that means) meant I could jiggle my time and squeeze out poems and the occasional story while pursuing a client deadline.

Now it is time to cut to the chase and confess the methodology of how I work today (being officially, though perhaps temporarily, retired since about a year ago).

With few exceptions, I start my day with paper, pencil and eraser (with or without an idea, just like commercial copywriting) while drinking my first cup of java. Often I jumpstart by reading something, anything, poetry, the newspaper or what I turned out the day before. The paperwork part might involve setting up a rhyme scheme, then finding a first line, and when it gets hot and I can’t keep up the flow, I move to my PC. I compose both poetry and prose there. I am still talking about the draft stage.

After the text starts to solidify—now we are no longer in the drafting stage but in the consolidation stage—I alternate between printout & pencil and the text in the computer. I save my printouts of the various versions until I think I am done. Sometimes there is afterwork a month or years later, but that is another story that will wait for another survey.

What's the mystery? I start at the screen and stay there. Even before word processing became common, I always felt more comfortable writing with a typewriter instead of a pen. It removes all physical exertion, since I can type quickly, effortlessly, and with none of the stiffness and blisters and ink stains of the quill, and it's also easier than using a hammer and chisel to carve letters on cave walls.

For me the visual element of how a poem looks on a page is important, and I've never been good at picturing how handwriting will translate into typeface, so the instant gratification of seeing the typeface on my screen is invaluable as well.

The only exception to writing at the word processor for me happens on those rare occasions when I write something in my head and have no alternative. This usually involves an unexpected idea that comes to me unbidden, but sometimes I will work from memory on improving a line or two in something I've already written but have been having trouble nailing down.

These are my own methods. I wouldn't presume, however, to advise anyone that they ought to do the same, nor can I understand why anyone should be mystified that we all do not go about writing in the identical manner.

I'm not mystified either, Roger. I simply find it worth remarking--worth noticing and considering. I'm curious about the different mental structures/organizations that allow many people to "think in poetry" at the keyboard, but keep me from doing so. Now I know there are quite a few of those people, and my limitations may be unusual. That makes me even more curious about them.

Well, I think I mentioned a couple of factors, such as by-passing the need to visualize the way the poem will look on a printed page and avoidance of the physical effort of pushing a pen across paper. I'd add to that the speed factor. I can type much, much faster than I can write with a pen, and if I think of a line to write down, having to use a pen to write it out on a piece of paper interrupts the inspiration and the rhythm I am developing and causes me to have to take what amounts to a time-out from creation in order to tend to the chore of pushing my pen across the page. It's almost like having to stop after every line to take out the garbage or do the dishes. For me, the physical act of writing with a pen is pure drudgery. But typing on a keyboard is second nature, effortless and automatic, and leaves me with a perfect and instantaneous vision of my words as they would appear on the page. I am not interrupted from the mental processes of writing by the physical chore of recording what my mental processes come up with.

Frankly, I find that most writers I know compose on the screen. I am the oddball composing multiple drafts by hand. Often other writers seem surprised to hear that I do it that way.

David R.

P.S. -- I took the survey, but haven't received any email interview of any kind.

puter.
love the ability to colorcode, love ctrl-x/ctrl-v, and putting bits in 2-3-4 columns side by side, to compare; almost never print out but very careful about saving version numbers & dates.
At 16, I learned speedwriting. It still comes in handy - a lot of words can get written on the back of a hand or inner wrist while on the move, with speedwriting.
Janice - there's a poem in all that story o yours somewhere.... and you're right: freelancing doesnt mean more time to write, necessarily; it just means the boss wont yell at you when you stop midsentence to write something else, and there's no need to quickly minimize your poem screen so you can pretend you're working.

Survey Closing... and Thanks
 

All,

This discussion has been interesting and insightful. I have been trying to stay out of the way to hopefully keep both you and I from being influenced as far as the study goes, and I hope you understand.

I want to apologize for those of you who have had issues accessing the survey. It seems that these problems have centered around Great Britain/England. If you do want to participate still, I can email the survey questions to you... Otherwise, I appreciate your interest, and will use one of the more accessible survey-engines next time. :)

If any of you have volunteered for the followup interview and have not received it, please email me at ewebb002(at)odu(dot)edu. I have sent one round of emails out, and will be sending another this afternoon for those who have taken the survey recently. If you still haven't received an email by 7pm tonight, please check your spam folder/filter.

For those of you who volunteered to submit a writing sample(s), thank you. Unfortunately, because of time constraints, I'll be removing that portion from the current study. However, I am still interested in continuing this past the deadline, so I may be contacting you next week in regards to this. If I do try to publish this, I want to include these writing samples as part of the study.

At any rate, this is just to let everyone know that if you haven't taken the survey yet, and still want to, that I'll be closing the survey tonight, December 4th, at midnight EST. I've gotten plenty of responses for this portion of the study, so don't feel guilty if you haven't had time.


Thanks again,

Eric Heald-Webb
ewebb002 (at) odu (dot) edu

Thanks, Eric, for prompting such an interesting exploration of writing methods. Best wishes for the rest of your research!

Yeah. email it to me at jwhitworthpoet@talktalk.net