[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I have a personal question for Annie: Why could it possibly matter to you how many poems other poets work on at a time? Did you imagine that there's a "right" answer, that all good poets do in one particular way, and that you will write better poems yourself if you conform to the consensus?

But Roger, people *do* actually think this way. There's an odd dichotomy, almost Aristotelian. Openly, they will assert that everyone's different, there's no one path to true art, but in actual practice, they're secret Sartreans, believing that in choosing their path they choose for everyone, and that since they've made a considered choice and found it good, we should all choose that way. If you doubt this, see a couple of the comments on my latest offering in the deep end. I think this is true in all the arts: a soprano believes other sopranos should sing the way she does. After all, it took years of difficult work to develop her technique, and during that time, she's discovered what works, not just for her, but (at least in her mind) for all.

My favorite quotation in this area comes from Alice: "Ever since I fell down the rabbit hole, people have been telling me what I must do and who I must be." For as long as I can remember, people ... good friends who sincerely wish me well ... have been telling me the *one* thing that I could change that would make me a good poet. The most memorable of these was a woman in California who adjudged I was aesthetically undisciplined, and decided I should join the U.S. Navy if I ever wanted to be a good poet! She thought learning to follow orders would be good for me.

That's an extreme example, but it's oddly representative. What strikes me is the gap between what people actually say, if asked, and what they actually do if observed. And as I said, these are all good people, charitable people who sincerely believe they're offering helpful, constructive guidance, who take the time to think deeply about problems and offer solutions. And since the phenomenon exists in most aesthetic fields, perhaps there's something deeply human about it?

Best,

Bill

[R. Nemo Hill]

I think the comparison to the critiques in your Deep End thread are misplaced here, Bill. Those were based on the result of said habits, not on the habits themselves. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Nemo

[annie nance]

"I just meant to say that we all have heard enough about the work habits of various poets"

Maybe not ALL of us, Roger. I want to know how you do it. Because I am curious. Meow.



And by the way, Richard Epstein, what is that in your pocket, anyway?

[Jayne Osborn]

As an aside, what about the days - of which there have been far too many recently, for me, (though unavoidable) - when you're not working on ANY poems at all?

At the moment I wish I could say I was working on ONE poem, never mind three or four! Tempus fugit too damn fast.

Jayne

[Mike Lane]

annie,

I sometimes work on 5 at a time. Usually a combination of old and very new ones--as I am doing right now. Touching some up, to send out and working on some brand new ones. The new ones I'll send to some friends before I workshop them.

Mike

[Susan McLean]

I usually work on just one poem at a time, but if an idea for another comes to me while the poem is still in progress, I jot down some notes on it so that I don't lose the idea entirely. I used to find that my most urgent ideas for poems would come to me right when I had a huge stack of papers or exams to grade. Now I am getting better at deferring the poem until later, but it does mean I write less when I am teaching. I procrastinate less and write less. When I save poems for later, they often don't catch fire in quite the same way they do when the heat of inspiration is fresh. But some poems are always going to peter out midway or turn out to be duds, no matter when I write them.

Susan

[Charlotte Innes]

David, about the rest of the Hugo quote and your comment:

The real point of this passage in the Hugo book is a pitch to practice craft and write regularly so that, indeed, the mind will come to its own mind.

YES! And yes, again. This idea about process is what gets me through months of crap...

And now I think about it, this is what I tell students when they think they're terrible writers... To keep going... Well, now I can also use this quote. So thank you!

Susan, about your comment: ....I procrastinate less.... I agree, one shouldn't wait. But what I find increasingly is that poems don't just come on the whole. They arise out of all the bits and pieces I jot down in my notebook. For me, it's crucial to write down any pinging thought that comes into my head--I mean thoughts that seem to have a little buzz about them. Often I don't know what they mean, but they go down on the page. And some of them come together later in a poem--and some don't.

It's all practice and process....

Charlotte

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

As an aside, what about the days - of which there have been far too many recently, for me, (though unavoidable) - when you're not working on ANY poems at all?

Yes. Those days. Sigh.

I don't much care for the word "inspiration," so I'll just say I haven't been bothered to write a poem in a good long while. It's not for lack of ideas, but just for a general ennui when thinking about sitting down for a couple of hours to just write a poem. I've written a lot of essays and non-fiction material in the interim...it's just that for some strange reason, I have an aversion to writing poetry lately.

By the way, I'm not sure what the aversion is to a thread that asks a question. There may be nothing worth learning from the responses, but those responses may still be interesting and entertaining regardless. Personally, I find little personal details fascinating. I've always been amazed to read about poets who go on about what a struggle it is to write -- how much work and emotional turmoil it requires to coax out a poem. It's so foreign to me, and won't change the way I write, but I find it interesting. On an even more trivial level, I'd love to know what brand of tea Percy Shelley used to drink, for no other reason than learning a bit of trivia.

[Charlotte Innes]

Shaun said:
"By the way, I'm not sure what the aversion is to a thread that asks a question. There may be nothing worth learning from the responses, but those responses may still be interesting and entertaining regardless. Personally, I find little personal details fascinating. I've always been amazed to read about poets who go on about what a struggle it is to write -- how much work and emotional turmoil it requires to coax out a poem."

Yes! Why not have a bit of fun conversation from time to time--especially about poetry?! Thanks, Annie. Love the "meow!" (Bob, sending more meows your way....)

I've just been reading (finally) that book everyone keeps mentioning, Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis (great book), huge portions of which involve Thomas' struggles to write--so far, prose--as well as the amount of time it took him (most of his short life) to become an amazing poet. All of which I relate to...

I "became" a poet in my late 40s. At first, I wrote several a week. Now I'm lucky if I write one a week. I tend to go one at a time. But I'm learning--as others have pointed out--that sometimes you just have to let go for a while, and then come back to something that's not quite working. Sometimes just a night's sleep can do it, sometimes a couple of weeks. Occasionally, I come back to poems from, say, a year or so back, but not much has come of those, I have to say. I do tend to be mostly in the moment--that is, I write the poem and then it's more or less done, or as done as it can be. I sometimes wonder if that's because with each poem I'm developing as a poet? At least, that's a nice thought!

Charlotte

[Catherine Chandler]

Annie,
I can work on only one new poem at a time. And that's about one, or (if I'm lucky) two per month.