This is not a traditional how-to book. The Editor, Rishi Dastidar (a friend who’s given me an ARC copy) acknowledges that. There are other places for dactyls to land and pentameters to dance.
In broadening what it means to be a poet in today’s world - this messy glocal - global-local - live and digital - multicoloured - multishaped world.
Rishi advocates:
“... I want you to recognise that, to write poetry today, you need to be thinking about more than just your technical, prosodic abilities. How do you perform your work? What about the ethics of using real life in what you write? Can you use technology as a way to push your work to new places? These are ‘craft’ questions, as much as knowing how to get the most out of a sonnet, attempting your own translations and improving the titles you give your poems – all subjects covered here…”
And so expands our notions of craft. The craft of food, the craft of joinery, the craft of work - life everywhere - are involved in these questions and this book adds wonderfully to these wider challenges.
It’s a minority art with a perceived lack of minority visibility with an occasional enormous society life changing impact wrapped in an economic paupers cloak.
These poets pack punches and dance jazz while in packed in an essay form.
As might be expected from poets pithy notions jilting aphorisms open ended contradictory thoughts are all present - in their best sense.
If you’ve ever pondered writing form and especially how it might not really be working for you - then join a fine company of poets who question this very area and come up with some insightful ideas and provocations. Perhaps my only note of caution might be the complete beginner into this world may initially be overwhelmed - yet step further and the discussion of form is wide and fascinating.
Dive into the ghazal - and the ghazal adaptation - challenging when is ghazal not a ghazal, when a haiku not a haiku and the challenges of different linguistically roots.
Discover the golden shovel…. “Poetic forms can liberate or constrict writers. I’ve found that forms that carry the weight of history, like sestinas, sonnets and villanelles, can sometimes be intimidating. These forms risk shutting writers down before they even start, or make them try to stiffly imitate the masters, most of whom died long before they were born. I’m not suggesting that we don’t try these forms, but I’ve found a new form–the golden shovel–that provides an entry-way to form which is often more accessible and inviting. It promotes creativity, while providing scaffolding by borrowing words and ideas from another writer.”
Learn the tools of the short story as applied to poems.
Then after form grapple with making..
“...Writing a poem is impossible and once you realise this, you’re free. Rimbaud said that the language of poetry is not brain to brain but ‘soul to soul’..”
With tools to take into the impossible
“...When a poet is willing to risk not-knowing, that’s when something might happen.–Chase Twitchell People talk about the fear of the blank page. Turn this thought upside down–the blankness is the best bit. The blankness is vital, it’s the “continuous I don’t know” that births the poem, the breath that precedes the words, the thin air from whence something can magically appear. You can’t have magic without thin air, and you can’t have inspiration (whatever that is), without blankness, and so our first job, in the writing of a poem, is to resist the temptation to thicken our air with pre-empting, to let go of the need for an outcome. First drafts are entirely about discovery and you can’t plan a surprise. But it’s counter-intuitive isn’t it? Why would you step forward without the certainty of ground? How do we trust nothingness? Unlearn in order to encounter? And how on earth can ‘getting lost’ be a discipline?...”
Sound
Line breaks
Imagery
All have significant essays plus
Titles
And there lies another part of the genius of this collection - taking the small details of word smithing of poetry and expanding it the deep levels of practitioners grappling with their work.
And referencing widely - and why I can’t call a poem Rain.
Another essay is a notebook - it’s almost like a memoir of the making of a poem - again a different lens into the poem making business
We go on
Voice and vernacular
Character
Translation
Technology (which I feel only starts to touch this area but with many jumping off points)
And performance
As applied to poetry but by now I start to feel this somehow comments and applies to the world today as well as the world of words -
Research / politics (and touching on found poetry) and on to family and your real life and crossing myth, class, identity and forms of truth -
In this section of poetry speaking truth to power the essays also speak to a political time in big P politics and small p politics - an intersectionality (referencing the sections of form and making) which is unique to my reading as it weaves a thread from form to making to speaking to politics.
Ending with a set of questions, tips, provocations and exercises - the idiosyncratic coda is a lovely quirky finish.
This set of essays are modern and current yet speak to traditions of many poetic forms. Its focus on modern challenges such as technology, politics and performance all in one collection by practitioners flourishing mostly in the middle of their careers should be a useful source for the early poet or even a fully fledged one who would like to be provoked or reminded of paths not taken or yet to be danced.
Order a copy from Nine Arches, 14.99 + PP. Contents below.
