The Muse has a Sick Sense of Humor

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I was so inspired by yesterday's guest post by Justin Germino that I plunked my ample behind in a comfy chair and had another go at poetry writing.

Like most, I have a teen journal filled with earnest but wanting attempts and it breaks my heart to read them. A bad poem is like a sloppy kiss. I want my poetry to be like uvula-rattling historical fiction sex—the kind where the hero has you backwards on a horse and you both climax as you leap from a cliff to the top of his castle, or I don't want it to exist at all.

Granted, this demand for perfection of expression is most likely going to keep my feet glued to the springboard unless I beat it into submission with insolent, mediocre little practice poems.

So I gave it a go, and it wasn't long before I started to remember that if you're me it sucks to write poetry. It's fun—an absolute blast in fact, but it sucks. I can usually cough up a good line or two, but, as with ball sports, the difference between a zero and a hero rests in the follow-through—and I ain't got none o' that.

I attempted a poem about rain and somehow ended up with the start of a Country Western song:

The last time Georgia danced slow
was at a honky tonk in Barstow
The rain was hard
and the wind whipped cruel
but his body was safe and warm

Maybe someday I'll finish it. Or maybe not. 8O

Then out of nowhere this popped into my head:

His gentle white ivories nourished
the keys and the
song sprang up
to greet
him

Then nothing. It was like a door slammed shut in my brain. I chased after the next door and the next until the scenario played out in my brain in the manner of the opening sequence of Get Smart. As always, the sophomore stanza is devastated by some ludicrous, infantile rhyme that my consciousness rightfully (and thankfully!) dives ten neural feet to head-butt into oblivion.

I blame you, Dr. Seuss. It’s become apparent that I’ve fatally internalized you and Theo LeSeig, and am doomed to emulate and derate your legacy. Case in point:

The man went to the country bar
Far, far to the country bar
And his boots
Went root toot
And his spurs and belt buckle
went whir and tootschmukel
In the most particularly schmuckulous way
you might say...

I am ruined!

Never again!

Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

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All ridiculousness © Heather Kephart

Writing Down the Bones

[caption id="attachment_1051" align="alignleft" width="214" caption="Helpful writing exercise?"][/caption]

Did you ever put a jingle on a jangle?

How about a dingle on a dangle?

On the advice of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, and other writing books through which I am currently skimming, I perform a daily writing exercise that involves me grabbing a notebook and a pen, sitting down, preferably with earplugs in, and writing for as long as I can without allowing the pen to stop.

Usually, after I get past two or three pages of "this is stupid and not helpful" and "I just heard Lily in the other room" type of stuff, I enter a dreamlike state wherein I am writing about what I am seeing inside of my mind.  I am a burst of light flowing onward, describing what I encounter on my fluid path of energy.

Not well. Not poetically. And as I go on my handwriting becomes increasingly illegible. It's all very relaxing, but today I find myself wondering... is this actually helping me to become a better writer? I don't produce any usable material during these exercises.

Sometimes I "snap to" upon penning a moderately interesting sentence and desperately try to steer it into becoming a poem of some satisfying consequence, all the while aware that my pen mustn't halt. Unfortunately, my sanguine expectations are always for naught and the afterbirth of my efforts appears childlike with brief, clipped, simplistic verses that are often ugly in nature, and impugn my present peace of mind.

Do any of you participate in writing exercises of this sort, or any that you have found to be particularly helpful with regards to producing quality publishable material?

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