How do you know when a poem is finished?
When the words reach a state of equilibrium over their reference, when the words are at once faithful to the experience or emotion that prompted their arrangement and working to name an unestablished experience or emotion. Others might call this interplay of conflicting desires a contradiction or ambivalence, but I find the feeling I experience when language is torqued to this state better described by equilibrium. It goes without saying that I have no way of predicting or measuring this process. I just intuitively know when the words sing an experience new.
There’s another, perhaps more simple way of answering this question: I know a poem is finished when it has convinced me that it will survive anonymity, when the poem has made me feel sure it’ll speak to a reader without needing a disclaimer like you needed to be there.
Showing posts with label M.W. Jaeggle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M.W. Jaeggle. Show all posts
Monday, 18 November 2019
Monday, 11 November 2019
M.W. Jaeggle : part four
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Carl Phillips has taught me how a poem might be a scene of intimacy between poet and reader, poet and memory, and reader and imagination. His poems on the big poetic subjects—change, loss, longing—are shaped by a syntax that makes poetic revelation appear where you’d least expect. I’ve tried to include this form of surprise in my writing.
Charles Wright has shown me how the length of a line and its terminus can do more than complement the words expressed. I’ve learned from him that a line broken at a certain point may downplay the content of the line while echoing or prefiguring another line. Such a concern for the inner relations of a poem is something I’ve tried to apply to my writing. Wright’s playful manipulation of idiom—the sort of formulaic language that often flirts with banality and cliché—reassures me that great poetry involves renewal as much as creation.
I have learned from Jan Zwicky that there is a porous boundary between the sensuous, perceiving body and the intelligence, that immeasurable storehouse of information and knowledge. Before reading her work, I thought that there was a meaningful distinction between these forms of being in the world, that this distinction was better respected than played with in poetry. Zwicky has repeatedly shown me that poetry creates forms of truth out of perceptions likely overlooked by other fields of knowledge. I don’t know where a self-evident truth such as this would be more at home besides in poetry: “When we draw the blinds at dusk / is the moment we most want to open / them again.” She’s given me the confidence to pursue these truths and the forms of knowledge that would assist in their realization.
Carl Phillips has taught me how a poem might be a scene of intimacy between poet and reader, poet and memory, and reader and imagination. His poems on the big poetic subjects—change, loss, longing—are shaped by a syntax that makes poetic revelation appear where you’d least expect. I’ve tried to include this form of surprise in my writing.
Charles Wright has shown me how the length of a line and its terminus can do more than complement the words expressed. I’ve learned from him that a line broken at a certain point may downplay the content of the line while echoing or prefiguring another line. Such a concern for the inner relations of a poem is something I’ve tried to apply to my writing. Wright’s playful manipulation of idiom—the sort of formulaic language that often flirts with banality and cliché—reassures me that great poetry involves renewal as much as creation.
I have learned from Jan Zwicky that there is a porous boundary between the sensuous, perceiving body and the intelligence, that immeasurable storehouse of information and knowledge. Before reading her work, I thought that there was a meaningful distinction between these forms of being in the world, that this distinction was better respected than played with in poetry. Zwicky has repeatedly shown me that poetry creates forms of truth out of perceptions likely overlooked by other fields of knowledge. I don’t know where a self-evident truth such as this would be more at home besides in poetry: “When we draw the blinds at dusk / is the moment we most want to open / them again.” She’s given me the confidence to pursue these truths and the forms of knowledge that would assist in their realization.
Monday, 4 November 2019
M.W. Jaeggle : part three
How important is music to your poetry?
I often compose my poetry to some sort of rhythm, though seldom to anything consciously predetermined. The rhythm of a poem typically appears when the images begin to rub shoulders. Sometimes this friction feels like the experience of music.
I often listen to music while writing, though only when I know the music really well. I can focus on the writing when I know there’s familiar music between me and the world. When I don’t know the music, I shift my attention from the writing to the music. I like to think I know enough music to keep things from growing stale, but my partner would say otherwise.
I often compose my poetry to some sort of rhythm, though seldom to anything consciously predetermined. The rhythm of a poem typically appears when the images begin to rub shoulders. Sometimes this friction feels like the experience of music.
I often listen to music while writing, though only when I know the music really well. I can focus on the writing when I know there’s familiar music between me and the world. When I don’t know the music, I shift my attention from the writing to the music. I like to think I know enough music to keep things from growing stale, but my partner would say otherwise.
Monday, 28 October 2019
M.W. Jaeggle : part two
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
Yes, very much so. When I first started writing, I wanted to write poetry that startled people out emotional torpor, what I thought was the result of the best writing to come out of the Beat Generation. My writing wasn’t any good by any measure, mainly because I understood a desire to shock as giving me license to write about whatever so long as the writing was in a shrill tone. Eventually, I grew into a person who realized that this was all ego, the result of grossly undervaluing the emotional intelligence of others while overestimating my powers of observation. I like to think I have put a lot of distance between the poet I was and the poet I am today.
Yes, very much so. When I first started writing, I wanted to write poetry that startled people out emotional torpor, what I thought was the result of the best writing to come out of the Beat Generation. My writing wasn’t any good by any measure, mainly because I understood a desire to shock as giving me license to write about whatever so long as the writing was in a shrill tone. Eventually, I grew into a person who realized that this was all ego, the result of grossly undervaluing the emotional intelligence of others while overestimating my powers of observation. I like to think I have put a lot of distance between the poet I was and the poet I am today.
Monday, 21 October 2019
M.W. Jaeggle : part one
How does a poem begin?
A poem begins as a perception that breaks the normal, unnoticed flow of things. Something I have experienced interjects into the rhythm of my day and promptly declares, “I am significant.” As I give more attention to this rupture, as I question its significance, I recognize my thinking making the sort of associations that I experience when reading or hearing poetry. These associations then travel to a notebook where they sit for a while. When I return to these associations with sufficient time, then I’m shaping the perception and its attendant thoughts into a poem.
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