This week’s prompt was Cam’s poetry meme:

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was …

"Jabberwocky" is a poem (of nonsense verse) written by Lewis Carroll, and found as a part of his novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). It is generally considered to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe …

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought …

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and …

I don’t remember being forced to memorize any poems.

I do remember
being encouraged to memorize Bible verses, which no doubt contributed
to my love for the rythms of language. It would have been the King
James Version of the Bible.

I did memorize Jabberwocky, above, and didn’t have to look that up before I typed it.

3. I read/don’t read poetry because …

I read poetry because it keeps me alive, awake, paying attention. It reminds me who I am; who I am not; who I want to be.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is …

I have a lot of favorite poems, I think; too many to list here. That one up there is certainly still one of them. I tend to respond to questions like this by thinking about a poet the questioners might like, and directing them there.

I have too many favorite poets, too.

My favorite just now is Jack Gilbert, because that’s who I am reading.

5. I write/don’t write poetry, but …

I write poems, but don’t actually expect anyone to read them. I’m
surprised when they do, and even more surprised when they like them.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature …

… in that poems seem much more personal to me; they elicit my own
emotion in a more sudden, intense way; seemingly bypassing my rational,
thinking self.

7. I find poetry …

… in surprising places. Under stones and pepples. In the river. On my
dinner plate. In the newspaper; on a neighbor’s roof. On the side of a
bus. In the trucks changing gears on the bridge.

8. The last time I heard poetry …

I listen to poetry a fair amount, online and on the radio (Garrison Keillor) — but the last time (InRealLife) I heard a good poet, who is a good reader, do a reading was several years ago, when Pattiann Rogers was here. Now, there’s a poet who brings you out of your chair. She’s also a great teacher.

I’ve noticed that many poets are not the best readers of their work. Perhaps it’s because so many of us are actually introverts. We’re meant to be sitting alone by some deeply seductive body of water. Reading someone else’s poems.

9. I think poetry is like …

Nothing else. It’s closest to music, perhaps; or stories told to children, generation after generation, until they acquire the depth and wisdom and patina of great age, and become something new again.

I feel that I want to say something more about this. I’ve been involved in several discussions elsewhere about poetry as craft; poetry as talent; poetry as personal expression; poetry as spiritual practice. I think, for the practicioner, it can be any or all of these things.

But to make a poem, a good poem, that is a skillful thing. Just as making a table, or a house, or a concerto, is a skillful thing. Anyone can take some boards and a hammer and some nails and make a doghouse — but if they haven’t learned, if they haven’t studied doghouses, or wood, or carpentry, or tools — then that doghouse is likely to fall down. Now matter how ‘talented’ they may be with spatial imagination.

I am often surprised to meet people who want to write poetry —  but never read poems.  Or people who want to be a writer — but never write — or read — anything other than tabloids. They are eager to talk about tools — which computer, which software, which expensive fountain pen, which leather-bound journal (and I can talk about all this, myself, quite happily) —  but …

If you want to write (not be a writer; not be a poet) — this is what you need:  paper; a pen or pencil; the determination to make time and pay attention; and lots of  books. Library books are fine. Second-hand books are fine. Just be sure they are good books, of the sort you would like to write — and then read them. Read some more of them. Read them again.

Read some books about writing by writers you admire. Try out their suggestions. Write, write, write some more. Remember that growth requires compost: write shit. Write some more shit. Let it ferment awhile, while you write some more.

Do that for a long time. Find out who you are. Write some more.

Now you have begun.

Have I forgotten anything?

[Please come by and Introduce Yourself!]