The name of this blog is “good word editing,” but lately I’ve talked more about conceptual editing than mechanics. And I’ve talked a bit about poetry.

In an email recently, someone asked, “How do you edit poetry? How do you know what to cut and what to keep?” Then I read Randy Ingermanson’s discussion of anapests yesterday and got to thinking about how much I love poetry and meter.

First, I won’t claim to know how to write great poetry or edit great poetry. I’m an amateur poet at best. I also won’t bore you with my theory of imagery and metaphor right now. Instead, I’m going to assume you read good poetry (subscribe to Poetry Magazine and 32 Poems) so you understand the basic principles of the form.

That said, there are two main tricks I’ve learned to use when I edit a poem.

First, trust the reader. I let the poem sit for a few days, then return and look for the moral. If I’ve stated the moral as clearly as an Aesop’s fable, that’s the first thing I cut. In poems, I never tell the moral. The power is in the image. Trust the truth of the image alone. If you capture an honest picture or an honest image, it will be more powerful than any truth you can impose on it.

Second, edit for meter. This is a little trickier and takes some explanation.

I prefer to write blank verse, so my poems often have meter but not end-rhyme. (End rhyme is when the words at the end of the lines rhyme in some kind of repeating pattern AABB, ABAB, or something.)

Here’s how I do it.

I print a copy of the poem that is double spaced. Sometimes I also write it out by hand and skip lines. Then, in the space between lines, I scan the meter and try to make sure there are five feet per line. Usually, I approximate iambic pentameter. I figure iambic pentameter was good enough for Shakespeare so it is good enough for me.

Iambic pentameter means the dominant metrical foot is an iamb, and that there are five (penta) iambs per line. Anapestic pentameter would have five anapests. Dactyllic pentameter would have five dactyls. Vermicious knid pentameter would have five vermicious knids.

(Vermicious knids aren’t really metrical feet, but they should be.)

And don’t stress yourself out. Writing with a dominant meter is hardly an exact science.

The dominant meter of a poem is like the drum beat of a song. Think about it. You have the regular beat that occurs most of the time, and the variations on that beat that occur throughout the poem. Like the special drum riff in a song. Any time you vary the meter from the dominant pattern, the variation is going to receive a slight emphasis.

The drum riff is cool because it sticks out. It is where the beat changes. The rhythm is different.

Remember the SNL skit where Christopher Walken called for “More Cowbell“? That cowbell is the dominant meter–and it’s funny because the song doesn’t vary the meter at all. It drives that cowbell like a freight train, baby.

So, next time you want to edit a poem, “trust your reader and scan the meter.” (Hey, I’m a poet!–bonus points to anyone who can scan that little line of poetry.) Try to shoot for some kind of pentameter, five feet per line. To keep it easy, limit yourself to the basic feet, iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, and spondee.

Here’s a quick key to the examples below:

“~” and lowercase =  unstressed syllable

“/” and UPPERCASE = stressed syllable

| = mark to show the separate metrical feet

Here is a simple explanation of the five basic metrical feet with examples that I’ve tried to scan for you.

i-AMB (unstressed, STRESSED)

~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /
“but SOFT | what LIGHT | from YON- | der WIN- | dow BREAKS?”

TROCH-ee (STRESSED, unstressed)

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~
“ONCE up- | ON a | MIDnight | DREARy, | WHILE i | PONdered, | WEAK and | WEARy”
 
an-a-PEST (unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED)

~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / 
“the imMOR- | tal deSIRE |of imMOR- | tals we SAW | in their FAC- | es and SIGHED”
 
DAC-tyl-lic (STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed)

/ ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~
“PICture your | SELF in a | BOAT on a | RIVer with | TANGerine | TREE-ees and | MARMalade | SKII-ii-es.”

SPON-DEE (STRESSED STRESSED, used for emphasis only)
/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / /
“Í say | MóRE: the | JUST man | JUSTices; / KéEPS GRáCE”

If you all are interested, I can post a poem I’m working on to show you how this works.

That’s the joke in my house anyway. Other guys grab a beer, sit on the couch, flip on the TV and respond to every question with grunts:

“Uhhnnnhhh Uhhnnnhhh.”

I grab a beer, sit on the couch, flip open a book of poetry and respond with grunts:

“Uhhnnnhhh Uhhnnnhhh.”

The stack of books on my nightstand is getting rather large, but I got my friend John Poch’s new book the other day. It won a big national prize. So of course, I dropped everything to read it–and grunt at my family. (The truth is I read at night in a cave of covers with a book light while my wife sleeps. Like a kid in middle school or something.)

John’s book Two Men Fighting with a Knife is my kind of poetry. (Here’s the book direct from the publisher.) Like all books of poetry, I only marked half of the poems on the first read. Some I marked “FUN!” Others “sad…” One “wow.” And lots of underlined phrases like this one about the speaker’s father:

A god some nights, he carried me up our stairs,
my feet bumping the wallpapered halls, my prayers
let slide for murmurs. He laid the angel’s shields
over me and let them glisten as I slept.
He woke me for chores, for school. Later, he left.

It kind of chokes me up to read it, you know? That’s from “The Angel on the Lamp.” There’s also an astounding sonnet crown dedicated to his surgeon. My favorite poem in the book, though, is a fun sonnet about swatting mosquitoes while on vacation in Mexico (among other things).

Lots of sonnets in the book. John specializes in structured verse, particular forms with rigid rules of rhyme and meter and argument. You can see hints of that in the excerpt above “stairs/prayers,” “slept/left.”

I know the book is good because as soon as I finished I wrote a poem. Good poetry has that effect on me. It’s beautiful and finely crafted, but also inspiring and empowering. In short, John Poch is a master of sprezzatura. So here’s the poem I wrote (which you can hear me read in a new podcast episode):

Shutting Down
for John Poch

I hear a cricket in my room, chirping
in time to the flashing cable modem light.
My ears fight the sound, the constant insect flirting
with my mind to take flight together tonight.
Not quite in my room, though, I think it’s outside
our window back on the porch–behind the grill
or underneath or even, God forbid, inside
on the cold, dirty rack where meat and rust still
decay. Like the day in my mind disintegrates
into static from scratching legs or electronic
squeaks from data packages arriving too late.
The monitor’s glow motivates me with chronic
cricket cries to mouse clicks. Shut down. Window’s
symphonic sigh brings silence I suppose.

My dog ran out
to chase a motorcycle
speeding through
the neighborhood.
Never expected
to catch it
with her puppy head
and a short yelp
that left her
breathing slow
looking scared.
On the back porch
we wrapped her
in black plastic
we had bought
for grass clippings,
but I didn’t cry
until I carried the bag
to the curb for the dead
animal pickup
and felt her inside
the three ply trash sack
furry and cold and stiff.
I had touched death before
on my waxy grandma
but death took a puppy
to touch me.

Normally, I offer comments and analysis on the poetry I put here. Not today.

This poem is part of the What I Learned from Animals group writing project hosted by Robert Hruzek and HighCallingBlogs.com. Go to those sites to read some happier stuff.

I’ve been wanting to create a table of contents of sorts for all my poems. So here’s that page in progress if you’re in the mood to read some poetry today.

The Brooklyn Bridge in New York was 125 years old this past weekend. The New York Times has some good celebration pictures of the celebration.

Since I couldn’t go hang out in New York, I’m celebrating with this super exciting educational reading of Walt Whitman’s masterpiece, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” I know, I know. I’m a real wild man.

Whitman is writing during the period of Romanticism. Technically, I suppose you’d say he’s a light romantic. He fits in with other transcendentalist writers like Emerson and Thoreau. (But not Poe. His gothic stuff made him a dark romantic.)

Whether you like the light or dark, Romanticism emphasizes feelings and impressions over fact and science and form. Whitman is especially interesting to me because he’s a good bridge between romanticism and realism. He maintains the ruthless optimism of the light romantics Emerson and Thoreau, but his experiences as a nurse during the civil war give his writing a hard, visceral edge. He celebrates himself and the crowds of Manhattan and he acknowledges how beautiful people are even with all of their faults.

In one sense, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry is about just that—riding across the river to Manhattan on the Brooklyn Ferry before the Brooklyn Bridge was completed. But it’s also about shared experiences and the personality of humanity, about what those shared experiences mean for the people who remember us, and ultimately about crossing the gap between the writer and the reader.

Something about this poem makes me think of blogging. Someday all of this turn-of-the-21^st-century online flurry will be staring into the faces of people in the future—speaking to them. This blog maybe. Many podcasts. The bests one anyway—the ones with the most truth and beauty will endure. And who knows but that we writers will be looking back at our future readers?

It’s a silly Romantic notion, I know.

But I always feel romantic when I read Whitman.

A few weeks ago I posted one of those whiny, doubtful things. I just wanted to say, “God cut through the crap already.” Shortly after that, he gave me a poem that seems to have been a response to that post. There are two versions of the poem, and I’ll post the short one first.

As usual, you can click on the evoca recording to hear me read it. (I’m having more and more fun with these audio productions in audacity…) If you are really a glutton for punishment, you can subscribe to my podcast! (It’s really just me at my kitchen table late at night.)

Looking for Intimacy

I want your R-rated prayers.
You think I can’t handle it?
Polite words leave me cold–
Congested and snot-filled.
I won’t use tissue. I’ll snort
You down, roll you into a ball
Of yellow phlegm with my tongue,
Hock up a church and spit it out.

Wasn’t that a happy little response from God? Happy Friday, everyone!

…and Children, Television, Recreation, Relatives, Food, Pets, Automobiles, Bugs, and Bibles

You see, Robert Hruzek is hosting a group writing project where people write about a mash-up of 18 fun topics. I added bugs and Bibles to his list just for good measure and polished up a poem for his group. He says it’s the first ever poetry entry. Yea, me!

First, the poem itself. You can hear me read it on the Evoca recording, but you’ll have to skip ahead to 1:20 remaining because I get long winded in my intro. (Be sure to check out my sweet musical intro/outro. Royalty free audio is fun!)

Welcoming Summer

Two love bugs mate on my leg
Until I draw them off with this
#2 pencil. The pair crawls past
my thumb as I write—then up
to the pink eraser which must taste
funny to tongue buds on their feet.
They fly away, black-legged snow-
flakes. We think of Christmas specials
where painted children catch snow
on tongues to welcome winter.
“Open wide, kids,” I say. “There’s
never snow in South Texas.”
My son plays along and we run
up and down the blacktop lot—
heat rising in waves around us—
we must look a pair of Baptist Johns,
prophesying protein in the desert.
A voice of two calling between
parked cars: “Prepare the way
for summer bugs. Make straight
your tongues for them.” Push that
play too far and bugs become God.
All mankind finds salvation in bugs.
And why not? God can raise up
children from rocks and bugs—
even cars with bug-splattered bumpers.

Second, here’s how the poem fits the mash-up rules.

A few weeks ago, we drove (automobiles) to a family reunion (relatives) where my children and I found ourselves surrounded by bugs on our little vacation (recreation) to decorate the graveyard at the Hebron Baptist Church. In fact, the bugs were so thick, we talked about how it was like a blizzard of black snowflakes with legs. My son loved this because he keeps bugs as pets (which means he puts them in bug cages over-night and holds a daily funeral for the ones who don’t make it). You can see from the picture above what so many bugs do to a white car (automobile—again). The snowstorm made me think of the peanuts gang catching snow on their tongues (like food) in the television Christmas special. At that point, my mind took off, and I started writing this poem.

I have to ask, though. Who uses the word automobile anymore, Bob?

Also, Gordon, you asked about W. P. and decoration. I provide a long answer in the audio file above. And you can see W. P.’s grave there on the right. He is my kid’s great-great-great-great granddad. Or maybe just great-great-great, I can never remember.

One last thing about poetry. Bob’s project “What I Learned From…” suggests that I’ll have answers for you here. But poetry isn’t very good at providing answers in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, I hope you’ve found some things to think about in my mash-up of mashed-up of bibles, bugs on my windshield, the subsequent discussions that followed us that weekend, and Writing, Children, Television, Recreation, Relatives, Food, Pets, Automobiles.

Lately, I’ve been writing hard, more professionally than years past, which means also a bit more mechanically. Some words are needed, so I crank them out.

GoodWordEditing.com (which I have tabbed as GWE in my browser) is one of my few places where I can still play. Play is so important. Like I’ve said before, this is not a subscribe to me kind of blog. I’ve thought of posts this week, I might write–about the twenty-two-thirty rule of engaging readers that I learned on Tuesday, about the scene and plot things I’m learning in my own writing, about how to carve out writing time when you have a family and a career and a church and dogs that need someone to throw the frisbee, about how to use tools like Plaxo to follow other bloggers, about how to use Twitter as a method of social note taking, even a spiritual analysis of Battlestar Galactica Resistance clips showing where that series does a good job of opening the door to think about faith and religion as something to be taken seriously.

Except for Battlestar Galactica, those things don’t feel much like play to me. Even Battlestar doesn’t feel as playful when I’m analyzing it for scene structure, character motivation, and theme.

But poetry is so useless, it’s only good for play. The movement of a poem isn’t going to take me anywhere in particular. I’m just here swinging with the words. Up and back. Up and back. Or maybe kayaking around Serenity Island at one of our city parks. (Yes, I live in heaven.)

And earlier this morning, I finally found this poem. Or I should say it found me. People kept sending it to me. Quoting it back to me. And I realized it was time to climb on the swing, time to get in the boat again.

In honor of my own occasional Poetry Friday, in honor of my recent comment on Becky’s blog, in honor of good friends and new friends who like poetry, in honor of God really, the original poet who (Howard Butt taught me) makes all of us into his poiema, his workmanship…

Sometimes

Sometimes
images are
too intimate,
too desperate,
too honest.
Sometimes
reading is
a little death.
Sometimes
writing is too.

Several posts this morning struck me as I wandered the highcallingblogs.com network.

First, new comer Sarah Fry thinks about practice and discipline as a way to tune our ears. It is a rich metaphor that she doesn’t pin down, inspired by Heifetz playing a Bach Chaconne.

In fact, scroll down to the bottom of this post and click play on the video below. Listen to that music while you read this. (I’ve made the links open in new windows, so you can keep listening while you read Sarah and L.L. and PapaPoet and Ginger.)

I’m listening while I write.

We can share this moment, these words and music–together on my screen and my speakers–will be together on yours as well. Continue reading →

Here’s a little poem since I haven’t posted one in awhile. Comments to follow.

Continue reading →