Free-Form or Pre-Formed: A Great Guest Post :-)

**Note: This is a "guest blogger" post from the amazing, talented, and thought-provoking Eric "Bubba" Alder of Bubba's Place, a writer of poetry and prose, thinker, and all around interesting person.  If you're interested in guest blogging here, send me an e-mail :-) <3 KL*


                                         Free-Form or Pre-Formed?

When it comes to writing poetry, I’m on the fence when it comes to using forms.

In general, I like to let my ideas flow freely.  I let the ideas and words dictate whether or not there will be an inherent form to the piece I’m writing.  And often my writing just falls into place in my head, so whatever arrangement it takes on is fine by me.  (That’s probably why I write so much prose)

But sometimes my ideas are just a vague notion, or even a single phrase that pops into my head, and the rest of it remains buried just beyond my reach.  That’s when forms can come in handy.  Needing to ‘fill in the blanks’ of a poetry form requires me to stretch my mind a little, to dig up more words or phrases in order to finish things.

But is either method superior to the other?  There are some bloggers who are fanatical about forms, trying as many as possible.  There are even folks who carve their words into shape-poems that create a visual picture.  Others get really slick and create new forms of their own.  On the flip side, I’ve seen people who write nothing but prose, eschewing any ‘form’ as restrictive and limiting.

What do you think?  How do you prefer to write your poetry?

Lightbulbs and Stories

I caught up with a student I had last semester in my Poetry class today in the lobby during my prep period. His growth as a poet over the course of half a year was nothing short of remarkable, particularly in terms of developing his own style and themes. He's working on moving on the next step artistically now--changing up styles and themes.

He told me that he is trying to write a series of poems set up as short stories. He has the imagination and the vocabulary to really make an impact, which is cool ... and it's even cooler that he's challenging himself. Coolest of all, though, is the increase in confidence this kid is demonstrating.

"I want to write about a light bulb," he said.

I looked at him quizzically. "A light bulb?"

"Well, about a guy who wakes up one morning and sees a light bulb. It sort of makes him ..."

"See the light?"

He laughed. "Yeah, pretty much. You know, it's interesting about light bulbs."

"How so?"

"Well, if you turn a light bulb on, it means one thing metaphorically and if you turn it off, it means something else." He paused. "But then, if you think about it, it could mean the exact opposite. Both on and off."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said, "You should write a story about Thomas Edison and the invention of the light bulb. And use the word 'illumination.'"

"Nah, I've already used the word 'illumination' in a lot of my poems."

"That's true."

"And I think I'd rather try to write a story about a guy who wakes up and sees a lightbulb and starts going in those metaphoric directions. Not that Thomas Edison isn't interesting," he added quickly.

"Well, make sure you let me read it when you're done," I said.

He smiled. "I'm sure you'll be reading it before it's done."

As he went to class, it occurred to me the true value of a teacher. Honestly, this kid and his classmates taught me more about writing poetry than I ever taught them, and yet they give me so much credit ... and for what?

It's just a matter of believing in them, of giving them the time and space and support to find their own voices. Some kids never do, of course, but when it does work out, it is just one of the most amazing feelings in the world : )

Prufrockin': To Shake the Status Quo or ...

T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has always stood out to me, I'm not sure why. I think it's mostly because of the end, where Eliot writes, "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each/I do not think that they will sing to me"; ever since reading that, I have always listened for mermaids at the beach. Although I know it's kind of stupid and I know intellectually it's not possible, I believe in my heart and soul that there could be mermaids, a whole world down there in the depths of the ocean--that is the part of me that is a writer.

More academically--and more traditionally, I suppose--"Prufrock" has, to me, served as a warning to eschew mediocrity, to be brave enough to eat a peach and to never, ever be one of those women coming and going, talking of Michelangelo instead of creating their own magic. In other words, the status quo should never be good enough.

Perhaps this is the part of the poem that scares me most:
"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous,
Almost, at times, the Fool."

The thing is, I had sworn my life over to mediocrity for a very long time. I had essentially surrendered myself into the role of an "attendant lord", going about my life in a mundane way, letting someone else call the shots and suppressing the part of myself that looks at stars and wonders why my dogs turn around three times before going to sleep and whether global warming is legit and if we all see the same shade of red when we look at an apple and ... well, you know, the part of myself that was ME.

And I have that part back now. With the help of destiny in the form of alcoholism that shattered my marriage and blew up my world, I have somehow found myself again. There is magic in my life now, tremendous magic, but I am so scared that it's an ephemeral thing, that I am just an attendant lord again, just not to a mentally ill alcoholic husband. The rational part of me says, "Nope, you can feel the magic, you are yourself again, just go with it," but the part of me that needs to know where things stand is yelling, "Be Prince Hamlet, damn it! Shake up the status quo. Live a little--if you don't make the conversation happen, you'll just exist in this vacuum until ..."

Until WHAT, Prince Hamlet part of my brain? Until what?

And then I read the last lines of Eliot's poem, about contemplating on taking that chance, of living a little, "until human voices wake us and we drown." Isn't what I have now better than that?

If you read this blog with any regularity, you can probably figure out what I'm talking about. If you don't, that's okay too ... it's a pretty universal concept, I think. So my question to you, wonderful readers, is this: is it better to just live your life, enjoying a status quo which is pretty decent, or do you shoot for the stars, take destiny into your own hands and put everything you currently have going for you at risk?

Poetry is not my Medium, but ...

During my daily blog-reading, I came across a post by the witty and wise Jinksy sharing a poem meant to shake a friend out of a glum mood. The piece really resonated with me and made me think about sharing a poem I wrote a few months ago when teaching villanelles to my Poetry class.

A word about poetry and me, by the way. I love poetry, read it for pleasure all the time. However, I struggle with writing it--as a writer, I am a novelist and a blogger; my ventures into other forays make me feel awkward. When I found out I would be teaching Poetry class this year, I kind of freaked. I was 100% comfortable with the reading and analyzing part, but I wasn't sure how I would do at teaching the writing process since it is something that I myself struggle with so much. I needn't have worried ... my students, to a child extremely gifted poets, taught me more about the writing of poetry than I could possibly have taught them. "Just do it," they said. "Don't you always tell us that you can make bad writing good but can't do anything with nothing?" Having my own words thrown back at me was the best thing that could have happened. I started writing poetry ... I operate under no illusions that it's GOOD poetry, but at least it is.

And here's the one I'm choosing to share with you ...

“Far More Mind Erasing Motor Booty”
(KL)

I dream of you when winter’s here
And of one chivalrous New Years Eve.
I wish that you were always near.

Friend, please know I hold you dear;
My heart is no longer on my sleeve.
I dream of you when winter’s here.

I know that I’ve shed my last tear;
The past is gone, no reason to grieve.
I wish that you were always near.

It’s more important, with the changing of years,
To know that you will never leave.
I dream of you when winter’s here.

Can I possibly make it any more clear?
Strings of my life were made for you to weave.
I wish that you were always near.

When I’m with you, I have no fear,
No limit to what I might achieve.
I dream of you when winter’s near.
I wish that you were always here.

Edgar Allan Poetry Class

I'm teaching a poetry class for the first time ever this year. As with any new class a teacher takes on, there are learning curves ...

The biggest flop to date has been the now-notorious Poe unit (which seems willing to go on forever). Basically, I thought it would be cool to do an author study, my main point being that a poet's work is often linked intrinsically to his or her life. Poe seemed ideal for this--he was an infamously volatile alcoholic (yeah, this should have clued me in ;)), he was found mysteriously unconscious in a gutter with someone else's clothes on just before he died (and with some interesting last words), he married his thirteen-year-old cousin when he was in his mid-twenties, and so on.

Well, each student was assigned a poem by Mr. Poe to lead a discussion about and then write an analysis paper. The first day was pretty cool, with everything from Poe's haunting via tuburculosis (everyone the guy got close to died of TB--talk about bad luck!) to his possible Oedipal complex (both his biological mother and foster mother died of TB when he was quite young and impressionable, and he seemed to be searching for maternal love throughout his life--including with the cousin/wife). Pretty interesting stuff.

By the third day, though, the class and I made an interesting--and depressing--observation: all of Poe's poetry is pretty much the same. He mixes it up a bit in terms of style (it was especially neat to read a couple of his sonnets, since we've studied both Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets already), but the themes--pretty much same old, same old.

I've managed to ruin Poe's poetry (through overexposure and excessive analysis) for an entire class and for myself as well. I mean, I used to LOVE Poe, and now it's like, "Yeah, yeah, death, loss, darkness, dreams of better things that didn't turn out the way you expected" and so on.

Oh well ... you win some, you lose some ;)