Poetic Parodies

I noticed in this batch that a few people seemed to be satirizing... well, the act of writing poetry.  This (along with, more generally, the difficulty inherent in writing) is always a totally legit subject matter.  It seems like the trick, though, is to make the satire obvious while still either avoiding or parodying individual elements of stylistic cliche.  In other words, the poem has to spin several plates at the same time (it has to be entertaining and criticizing pretension and cliche while utilizing pretension and cliche, indicating a narrator that isn't self-aware while still demonstrating that the author is self-aware, etc).  

With all that in mind, let's look at the following example and discuss where the energy of this poem is coming from, i.e. what it's offering to the audience:

The Introduction
by Billy Collins

I don't think this next poem

needs any introduction -

it's best to let the work speak for itself.

Maybe I should just mention

that whenever I use the word five,

I am referring to that group of Russian composers

who came to be known as "The Five,"

Balakirev, Moussorgsky, Borodin - that crowd.

Oh - and Hypsicles was a Greek astronomer.

He did something with the circle.

That's about it, but for the record,

"Grimké" is Angelina Emily Grimké, the abolitionist.

"Imroz" is that little island near the Dardanelles.

"Monad" - well, you all know what a monad is.

There could be a little problem

with mastaba, which is one of those Egyptian

above-ground sepulchers, sort of brick and limestone.

And you're all familiar with helminthology?

It's the science of worms.

Oh, and you will recall that Phoebe Mozee

is the real name of Annie Oakley.

Other than that, everything should be obvious.

Wagga Wagga is in New South Wales.

Rhyolite is that soft volcanic rock.

What else?

Yes, meranti is a type of timber, in tropical Asia I think,

and Rahway is just Rahway, New Jersey.

The rest of the poem should be clear,

I'll just read it and let it speak for itself.

It's about the time I went picking wild strawberries.

It's called, "Picking Wild Strawberries."

Tinkering with Line Breaks

We've talked a little about line breaks (for instance, how you can use them to build suspense and double-meanings) but there are probably as many subtly different philosophies on this as... well, as there are poems.  Ultimately, how you structure your poems is up to you.  Still, one way to get a better feel for line breaks (and help you establish your own aesthetic) is to take a published, “established” poem, change the line breaks, then compare the different versions and ask, in our own subjective opinion, what's gained or lost.  It's also a good way to see how even tiny changes can affect the overall feel of a poem.  By way of illustration, let’s take a look at a few poems from The Good Thief then compare them to some other versions that have all the same language and punctuation but different line breaks.

Part of Eve's Discussion (original)
by Marie Howe

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand,
and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still
and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when
a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,
very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you
your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like
the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,
it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only
all the time.

Part of Eve's Discussion (non-Howe version 1)

It was like the moment when a bird

decides not to eat from your hand, and flies,

just before it flies, the moment the rivers

seem to still and stop because a storm is coming,

but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings

lift and bank together before they wheel

and drop, very much like the moment,

driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you
your car could spin, just before it slowly begins

to spin, like the moment just before you forgot

what it was you were about to say, it was

like that, and after that, it was still

like that, only all the time.

Part of Eve's Discussion (non-Howe version 2)

It was like the moment

when a bird decides not to eat

from your hand,
and flies, just before it flies,

the moment the rivers

seem to still and stop

because a storm is coming,

but there is no storm,

as when a hundred starlings

lift and bank together

before they wheel and drop,
very much like the moment,

driving on bad ice,

when it occurs to you
your car could spin, just before

it slowly begins to spin,

like the moment just before

you forgot what it was

you were about to say,
it was like that, and after that,

it was still like that, only
all the time.

Providing for Each Other (original version)

by Marie Howe

You are the one who takes it all away.

For one moment, the leaning oaks are gone, and the tall grass

where the small birds practice their incoherence.

I know but for your fingers I would lie awake

and what the barter is for their articulate flight,

the agreement we make at night,

our guttural wail the only song for the end of the world,

before we begin blinking on again,

blinking, blinking, when the room comes back

and from the dark barn the lambs cry.

Providing for Each Other (non-Howe version)

by Marie Howe

You are the one

who takes it

all away. For one moment,

the leaning oaks

are gone, and the tall grass

where the small birds practice

their incoherence. I know

but for your fingers

I would lie

awake and what the barter is

for their articulate flight,

the agreement

we make at night,

our guttural wail the only

song for the end of the world,

before we begin blinking

on again, blinking,

blinking, when the room

comes back and from

the dark barn the lambs cry.

Recovery (original version)

by Marie Howe

You have decided to live. This is your fifth

day living. Hard to sleep. Harder to eat,

the food thick on your tongue, as I watch you,

my own mouth moving.

Is this how they felt after the flood? The floor

a mess, the garden ruined,

the animals insufferable, cooped up so long?

So much work to be done.

The sodden dresses. Houses to be built.

Wood to be dried and driven and stacked. Nails!

The muddy roses. So much muck about. Hard walking.

And still a steady drizzle,

the sun like a morning moon, and all of them grumpy

and looking at each other in that new way.

We walk together, slowly, on this your fifth day

and you, occasionally, glimmer with a light

I’ve never seen before. It frightens me,

this new muscle in you, flexing.

I had the crutches ready. The soup simmering.

But now it is as we thought.

Can we endure it, the rain finally stopped?

Recovery (non-Howe version #1)

by Marie Howe

You have decided to live. This is your fifth day living. Hard to sleep. Harder to eat, the food thick on your tongue, as I watch you, my own mouth moving. Is this how they felt after the flood? The floor a mess, the garden ruined, the animals insufferable, cooped up so long? So much work to be done. The sodden dresses. Houses to be built. Wood to be dried and driven and stacked. Nails! The muddy roses. So much muck about. Hard walking. And still a steady drizzle, the sun like a morning moon, and all of them grumpy and looking at each other in that new way. We walk together, slowly, on this your fifth day and you, occasionally, glimmer with a light I’ve never seen before. It frightens me, this new muscle in you, flexing. I had the crutches ready. The soup simmering. But now it is as we thought. Can we endure it, the rain finally stopped?

Recovery (non-Howe version #2)

by Marie Howe

You have decided

to live.

This is your fifth day living. Hard

to sleep. Harder to eat,

the food

thick on your tongue,

as I watch you, my own mouth

moving.

Is this how they felt after the flood?

The floor a mess, the garden ruined, the animals

insufferable, cooped up so long?

So much work to be done. The sodden dresses.

Houses to be built. Wood to be dried

and driven and stacked.

Nails!

The muddy roses. So much muck about.

Hard walking.

And still a steady drizzle,

the sun

like a morning moon,

and all of them grumpy

and looking at each other

in that new way.

We walk together, slowly, on this

your fifth day

and you, occasionally,

glimmer with a light I’ve never seen before.

It frightens me,

this new muscle in you, flexing. I had

the crutches ready. The soup

simmering.

But now it is

as we thought. Can we

endure it,

the rain finally stopped?

Assignment: try this out for yourself.  Choose one of the poems from The Good Thief and implement your own spacing and line breaks.  Don’t spend too much time thinking about it; just follow your first impulse and see what you come up with.

On the Context of Metaphors and Similes

Adv. Poetry

Meyerhofer

On the Context of Metaphors and Similes

When it comes to good writing, maybe a third of the battle is coming up with good lines—which largely seems to require a kind of Zen-like clearing of whatever curtain separates our conscious and subconscious mechanisms of creativity. 

However, that's just the beginning; after all, coming up with a snazzy, poignant or provocative line or image doesn't necessarily mean that you should use it right away.  Maybe it belongs somewhere else (which is why, by the way, that we should always save and be willing to cannibalize our past poems and stories that didn't quite measure up). 

Just as we need to consider the denotation and connotation of our word choice, we also need to consider the tone and context of our metaphors.  For instance, let's say (just to invoke the cliché) that a poet were writing a piece about a traumatic childhood event.  Midway through the poem, they described raindrops (or body-blows) falling "...like a child jumping in mud puddles."  Right away, there are some problems with this.  The image of a child jumping in mud puddles could invoke a carefree feeling, which normally might create an unsettling disharmony with the poem's otherwise sad imagery (in a good way) BUT if the poem is about a child describing something else as a child... well, that's a bit like a clown describing something as "red as a clown's nose," i.e. not very original.

Let's look at another context: a grown adult in a board meeting, noticing how rain is pelting the window "like a child jumping through mud puddles."  Well, it's a bit problematic to compare water to water, but in terms of CONTEXT, see how the second example sets up a better contrast?

Going along with that, the primary aim of similes and metaphors seems to be to create a visceral reaction in the reader by basically taking their brain in two different directions at the same time.  In so doing, our multidimensional, creativity-loving selves momentarily arc out of what might otherwise be a rather bland, mundane, straightforward narrative, and THAT motion seems to be what quickens the senses.

So a good rule of thumb is to begin by pairing fairly dissimilar things, making sure that your similes and metaphors have an unexpected element to them, something that also seems to relate back to the core object or feeling that you're describing.  Don't just do this for shock value, though, or else you risk writing the poetic equivalent of junk food.

To get a better feel for this, let's look at some more basic images and similes/metaphors and discuss contexts in which they WOULD or WOULD NOT be effective (in our obviously subjective postmodern opinion).

1.  ...bright as a birthday cake
    A) To describe a child's smile at a literal birthday party*
    B) To describe a burning building
    C) To describe an electric blanket that caught on fire
    D) To describe an embarrassing rash

2.  ...like ash from a crematory
    A)  To describe the soot in a fireplace
    B)  To describe the color of someone's hair
    C)  To describe the sky on a cloudy day
    D)  To describe the taste of a crappy dinner you're pretending to like

3.  ...like an apostle
    A)  An attentive nurse in a hospice
    B)  A tollbooth operator with a hairy mole, who lets you by despite you forgetting your change
    C)  Mitochondria
    D)  The posts in a neighbor's fence
    E)   A priest offering comfort at a funeral

4.  ...necking like seahorses
    A)  Strands of DNA
    B)  Teenagers at a movie
    C)   Mating giraffes
    D)  Wires in a computer terminal
    E)   Mating dolphins

*There's an odd, possible exception to this kind of thing: using an unsurprising metaphor purely to advance a specific scene or action, i.e. "...her face bright as the cake her mother, hungover, had simply bought from the store on the way home from Vito's, where all the liquor bottles glowed with thumbprints."  Note, though, that you still seem to need some kind of contrast to avoid Hallmark-like cheesiness (which is really just another way of describing lack of dimension).

Poetry and Pop Culture

Many people (myself included) draw enormous inspiration from the poems that they read.  Inevitably, that can lead to a bit of stylistic imitation.  This is a perfectly legitimate way to begin, but what happens when those great works of literature make no mention of current events, no allowance for hybrid cars and cell phones?  Obviously, we can still write enormously successful poems about nature, or about human nature in a traditional or innocuous setting, but what are the risks and benefits of acknowledging the technologies, trends, and contemporary quirks of the people and culture around us?

To begin, let’s look at one of my favorite poems by Li Po (701--762 A.D.), translated by Sam Hamill.

               I take my wine jug out among the flowers

               to drink alone, without friends.

               I raise my cup to entice the moon.

               That, and my shadow, makes us three.

               But the moon doesn't drink,

               and my shadow silently follows.

               I will travel with moon and shadow,

               happy to the end of spring.

               When I sing, the moon dances.

               When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

               We share life's joys when sober.

               Drunk, each goes a separate way.

               Constant friends, although we wander,

               we'll meet again in the Milky Way.

I think one of the strengths of this poem (besides its beautiful pacing and imagery) is its ability to be savored and visualized by an audience well over a thousand years after it was written!  On the other hand, there are also plenty of powerful poems that invoke the trends, quirks, and unique cultural baggage of our contemporary audience, even though some of those elements might not be recognizable to an audience fifty, a hundred, or a thousand years from now. 

Let’s work through the following contemporary poems and see if we can get a feel for the poets’ strategies.  Also, let’s see if we can identify those familiar human elements that are driving the poem, beyond the mention of cell phones, Teletubbies, and barbed wire tattoos.

 

Say My Name

by George Bilgere

Beyoncé's singing,
And what's strange about that
Is, first of all, I somehow know who Beyoncé is,

And second, the voice I'm hearing
Is coming from the earbuds of an iPod
Plugged into a kid sitting about thirty feet from me

On the fourth floor of the library
On a humid summer night,
The buzz of cicadas outside

Sounding weirdly like the buzz
Coming from his head — and third,
I know exactly what he's reading, because

I assigned it to him. It's the immortal
Paradise Lost, by John Milton,
And it's very long and very hard

And it's a terrible thing to be reading
Late in the summer, time running short,
Life running out, the moon

Throbbing just above the trees
And somewhere out there a woman
Is leaning against the fender of a car,

Waiting for you to shift her
Transmission into submission, and God knows
I don't blame this kid for blowing out his ears

At an early age, as Adam and Eve
Stand there stunned in the garden,
Stupidly covering their crotches, as if

That would do any good, as if it would stop
Beyoncé, dark serpent, from reminding
This nice Catholic boy in his brand new

Tommy Hilfiger muscle shirt,
With his fresh, 'round-the-biceps badass
Barbed wire tattoo, that in this
Fallen world he's never,
Never, evah gonna get his
Smooth white hands on what they burn for.

Speaking American

by Bob Hicok

When he learned I'm a poet he asked if I knew
this other poet. We don't all know each other,
I told him as he informed me she likes cheese
similes. Love is like cheese, time is like cheese,
cheese is surprisingly like cheese. Then I said
I know this poet and he went, see. "He went, see"
means he said see, see, but you know that
if you're American and alive. I explained
that "I know this poet" means "I know her work,"
when he was like, work? "When he was like"
is like "he went," which is past tense of "he goes,"
in case you're from another country and confused
by our lack of roundabouts. But poetry isn't work,
he said, unless you're talking about reading it.
But I'm not talking about reading it, I went,
in a moment that was the future past of everything
I'd do from then on. Such as snag the last
of the hyacinth cookies and step onto the veranda
to be awed by stars. Where I went, it's hard work,
to be awed by stars: they're just little lights
about which we learn a song as children.
And he was like, but I do wonder what they are,
as both of us lifted our heads like birds
waiting for our mother to throw up in our mouths.
When I shared the image, he was like, gross,
but then he went, you're right, that's what we do,
we expect the sky to feed us. This lead
to a long discussion about yearning
in which the word yearning never appeared,
in which he went and I went and he was like
and I was like and the stars
kept doing what the song says they do,
because "burn your hydrogen burn your hydrogen
little star" doesn't fit the diatonic harmony
that pivots on an opposition between tonic and dominant
in a tune derived from "Ah! Vous Dirai-Je, Maman."
Then a woman came out wearing a red dress
the size of a whisper, lit a smoke
and the smoke's smoke acted all floaty
and sexy and better than us, and she was like,
want one, and we were like, yes.

(Note: Ah! Vous Dirai-Je, Maman is the French melody used for “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star”)

Ink
by Bob Hicok

I feel obligated to get a tattoo.
It's how the skin of the species
is evolving. If I continue
living without plumage,
it will be impossible to mate
or hold a conversation
with a banker. My favorite
is strawberry ice cream. Not
average size scoops, Baskin
and Robbins size scoops
but three and tiny
I discovered one night
tattooed to a thigh.
It was the possibility
of kissing a private dessert
I so admired. I've decided
to get tattoos of my eyes
on the inside of my eyelids
so I can stare at the oceans
of my dreams. I'll have
muscles tattooed to my chest,
money to my palms, the smell
of honeysuckle to my breath. I want
BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF FIRE
tattooed to my brain, mouths
to the bottom of my feet, you
to me. There is not
enough art in this life.
Tattoo my front door
to my tombstone and place
a key on my tongue
like a mint. It's not for me
to decide whether my return
will be called
breaking out or breaking in.

What the Living Do

by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living room windows because the heat's on too high in here, and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

Uninhibited, Baby
by Tom Hunley

I want to be uninhibited like my baby boy
who does not fuss about manners
but drools on the bedsheets, shouts out
in church, and does not say, Hallelujah,
but grins and groans and grabs at my shirt,

and who, no matter how many times we burp him,
always has more projectile puke to take to the bank,
to the new neighbor's living room, or to the food court at the mall,

who will not take his own moral inventory or even the first step,
will not toe a party line or visualize world peace,
but cries and craps and tries to crawl,

and will not talk politely on the telephone to long-distance relatives,
and will not be ignored
even when he's asleep on my lap,
stretching like a tightrope or the ignition cord on a power lawnmower,

 a diapered despot
who doesn't bother to comb over the bald spot on his crown
and is spellbound every minute of every Teletubbies episode,

and every day I study his countenance and try to learn
how to be uninhibited like him, as uninhibited
as the dawn's first sunbeam when it skips
all preliminaries and formal introductions,
careering downward to caress my face.

I Went to the Movies Hoping Just Once the Monster Got the Girl

Ronald Koertge

He was as hungry for love as I.  He lay in his cave

or castle longing for the doctor’s lovely nurse,

the archaeologist’s terrific assistant while I hid

in my bedroom, acne lighting up the gloom like

a stoplight, wondering if anybody anywhere would

ever marry me.

I was hardly able to stay in my seat as the possibilities

were whittled away; her laughter at his clumsy gifts,

her terror at his dumbness and rage, his final realization

synapses lazy as fly balls connecting at last as he

stands in the rain peering through her bedroom window

she in chiffon and dainty slingbacks he looking at

his butcher shop hands knowing he could never unsnap

a bra

and in comes Jock Mahoney or Steve Cochran and takes

everything off in a wink and she kisses him over

and over, wants to kiss him has been waiting to kiss

him while the monster feels his own lips big as eels

or can’t find them at all or finds four. 

I almost shouted into the dark that life with Jock

or Steve was almost something to be feared.  Couldn’t

she see herself in a year or two dying at a barbecue,

another profile nobody with his tongue in her ear?

Wouldn’t she regret that she had not chosen to stay

with someone whose adoration was as gigantic as

his feet?

I went to the movies hoping that just once somebody

would see beneath the scales and stitches to the huge

borrowed heart and choose it, but each time Blob

was dissolved, Ogre subdued, Ratman trapped, Giant

Leech dislodged forever and each time Sweater Girl

ran sobbing into those predictable rolled up sleeves

I started to cry too, afraid for myself, lonely as

a leftover thumb.

What’s the matter with him?” the cheerleaders asked

the high scorers as they filed out.

“Nothing.  He’s weird, that’s all.” 

Fast Gas

by Dorianne Laux

for Richard

Before the days of self service,
when you never had to pump your own gas,
I was the one who did it for you, the girl
who stepped out at the sound of a bell
with a blue rag in my hand, my hair pulled back
in a straight, unlovely ponytail.
This was before automatic shut-offs
and vapor seals, and once, while filling a tank,
I hit a bubble of trapped air and the gas
backed up, came arcing out of the hole
in a bright gold wave and soaked me - face, breasts,
belly and legs. And I had to hurry
back to the booth, the small employee bathroom
with the broken lock, to change my uniform,
peel the gas-soaked cloth from my skin
and wash myself in the sink.
Light-headed, scrubbed raw, I felt
pure and amazed - the way the amber gas
glazed my flesh, the searing,
subterranean pain of it, how my skin
shimmered and ached, glowed
like rainbowed oil on the pavement.
I was twenty. In a few weeks I would fall,
for the first time, in love, that man waiting
patiently in my future like a red leaf
on the sidewalk, the kind of beauty
that asks to be noticed. How was I to know
it would begin this way: every cell of my body
burning with a dangerous beauty, the air around me
a nimbus of light that would carry me
through the days, how when he found me,
weeks later, he would find me like that,
an ordinary woman who could rise
in flame, all he would have to do
is come close and touch me.

Exercise:

To get a better feel for the risks and potential benefits of incorporating uniquely contemporary elements into a poem—in effect, “dating” the poem—let’s try a quick exercise.  Write a poem (or even just a scene or short, prosaic description) that is utterly devoid of “pop culture” references.  In other words, give no clue as to the era in which the piece is set.

Next, revising the same description or writing something completely new, go ahead and make reference to the Top 40 music blasting from the passing car, the student wandering into traffic while tethered to his iPod, the new toy your child or nephew wants for his birthday, a political dispute on the television—whatever you want.  See if you can make the meaning and/or appearance of what you’re describing clear to a potentially unfamiliar audience without utilizing too much exposition.

From this point, it’s a “simple” matter of comparing the two and deciding which one you like best.