Collaborative poems

Yesterday was the final class in my first series of tutoring for CPIT. Good fun! Although got through the material a lot faster than I expected. (Either I’m a brilliant teacher, or they were desperate to get me to shut up and go home…)

One of the things that we did – a couple of times, actually – was that most heinous of crimes: wrote collaborative poems. (collective intake of shocked breath)

Ok, I know the usual objection: that it doesn’t work. Except … sometimes it does. There’s a proud history of such things. Renga, for example, is collaborative. I even have a book in my bookcase – just over my right shoulder, as it happens – that is a collaborative work: Philip Gross and Sylvia Kantaris’s The Air Mines of Mistila. But more to the point, this wasn’t about the resulting poem so much as the learning. By doing it together (me in charge of the whiteboard), it became a window into the process of assembling a poem out of the ideas and words and patterns that we were playing with. And my students seemed to enjoy it – I certainly did! Nice to be able to write with no feeling of ‘something to lose’ in the back of my mind.

So, with the permission of Tricia Tan and Caitlin Peters, below are two examples of our collaborative efforts. The first was a limerick exercise: each providing a line for the others to cap. (A game I used to have a lot of fun with at school when I was supposed to be concentrating on Physics. Sorry Mr Scally!)

I had an old aunty called Annabelle

who – sadly – took up with a cannibal.

He taught her to eat

all kinds of raw meat.

When she ate him, he tasted “quite terrible”.

I think the rhyming of ‘cannibal’ with Annabelle was a stroke of sheer brilliance. (Not mine either!) Keeping it clean is always a challenge with limericks.

The next poem came out of a simple simile-generating exercise, and turned in to a sample piece for extended metaphor. The initial prompt was my bed is like a …

Sundays mornings

our bed is like quicksand.

All night I sink deeper

beside you, but now

lying flat & spreading my weight

isn’t helping. Damn.

Looks like we’re stuck here.

It may not be Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but it’s a mighty fine attempt from two poetry novices! (Ok, the atrocious pun at the end was mine.)

Now I just have to try and recharge the batteries and get myself emotionally prepared for the new course … which starts this Saturday. (Argh.) During the Christchurch Literary Festival. (Double argh.) Oh well.

Teaching, and why it’s good for you

I have a lot of respect for good teachers. For one thing, I come from a family of them. A good teacher can change a student’s life – give them that little push they need to really grow into their potential. Mind you, a bad teacher can destroy potential just as easily. I had both types at high school. My English teacher – Grant Andrews – was brilliant. Robin Williams in Dead Poets’ Society brilliant. He used to use me to teach the other students – make some comment about a poem or play or character that he knew I’d disagree with, and sit back grinning while I  launched into a passionate argument. I think we all learned without realising it, most of the time.

I’ve never wanted to be a teacher. Not a school teacher – I didn’t like kids even when I was one. (Especially when I was one.) But I do love running poetry workshops. I really get a kick out of seeing someone finally getting something – understanding why images are important, why you show rather than tell, what’s going on with the play between line endings and punctuation. All of which sounds boring, but isn’t. It’s the difference between reading a nutritional analysis and eating a meal. (Which isn’t a bad metaphor! Note to self: must use it again.)

So I’m now tutoring the poetry component of a Creative Writing course at CPIT. So far it’s been a lot of fun, if a little disorganised. If nothing else, it’s teaching me how much knowledge of my own I take for granted. But it’s also making me really think about things. Line breaks are a good example: Why would you bother breaking a line against the phrase? What does enjambment actually do? Get in front of a group of people who have limited knowledge of poetic conventions and you suddenly find yourself questioning your own assumptions. Because it doesn’t feel right to just say “this is how it is”.

I now know, right in the bone, the truth of the saying if you really want to learn something, teach it.

Notes for a poem in progress

Since I started teaching at Polytech (sounds so official, doesn’t it?), I’ve had to re-immerse myself in the hundreds of writing exercises that I’ve collected. Which has been good – I’m finally starting to write again, even if only quite minor poems. At least I’m writing. And it feels good! So, so good.

One thing I learned to do at Glamorgan was to use a journal to keep clippings, snippets of info, odd words etc. And as a place to collate any research I did in the process of writing. A blog sounds like the perfect place to do that sort of thing. Who knows, it may even be useful to someone else (if it is, drop me a line and let me know!)

Anyway, the recent exercise I’ve set myself is based on a gorgeous (and disturbingly sexy) poem by one of the Glamorgan tutors, Chris Meredith. (Hi Chris!) It’s based on a tradition in Welsh poetry of writing a poem to accompany an object that you send to a loved one. (At least, I think that’s what it was … he explained it to us as about three am one delightfully sozzled Ty Newydd night-cum-morning.) A small quote, to whet your appetite:

from Electric razor

[...]
Go, my little goat, and graze
those pastures where I’d spend my days.
Go and nip the turfs among
the landscape that I’d stroke and tongue  [...]

As I said, disturbingly sexy. So that was (and still is) my challenge: pick an object to send to an absent beloved, and write a poem to accompany it.

My choice? A spoon.

Yes, I know. We’re in semi-automatic laugh territory. But think about it for a few minutes, and you’ll start to see the possibilities. (I wasn’t consciously thinking of Welsh Love-spoons when I picked my item, but presumably they were prodding my subconscious.)

  

  

The NZPS anthology saga continues (even more)

I spent pretty much all of Monday getting the proof copies out so that all the contributors can check their poems. It’s a simple enough job, but it always takes sooooooooo much longer than I expect. Even when, like this year, I’m mostly sending out pdf proofs by email rather than posting paper copies.

My humble apologies to anyone who got a garbled, inaccurate and/or incomplete proof package.

Al Jadida cistern

As a matter of interest, I thought I’d list the names of all the contributors below. Pleasing to see all the new faces, and well as those poets who I’ve enjoyed reading before. I think that’s the most enjoyable aspect of doing this job two years in a row – being impressed by the work of someone new last year, and then having the delightful surprise of finding that I’ve selected a poem by them again this year. (If nothing else, it suggests that I’m moderately consistent in my choices.)

This year we had 123 poets selected for inclusion in the anthology. Congratulations if your name is on the list below, and my apologies if you aren’t. (And if your name is on the list, but you’ve not received your proof copies or launch invitation, get in touch with me asap!

 

 

Lorna Ashby

Lynn Tara Austin

Ernest J Berry

Margaret Beverland

John Bird

Nola Borrell

Nathalie Buckland

Owen Bullock

Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

Lyall Clarke

Jenny Clay

Kirsten Cliff

Waiata Dawn Davies

Eric Dodson

Tom Dowling

Anne Edmunds

Raschel-Miette Essa-Danes

Rangi Faith

Lynn Frances

Robin Fry

Rhian Gallagher

Erika Galpin

Nola Gazzard

Barry George

Stephen Giles

Bernadette Hall

Jeffrey Harpeng

Anne Harré

Tim Heath

Lois E Hunter

Kenichi Ikemoto

Jim Kacian

Claire Knight

Helen Lowe

Catherine Mair

Kelly Anne Malone

Scott Mason

Helen McKinlay

Frankie McMillan

Elise Mei

Jo Morris

Janet Newman

John O’Connor

Roland Packer

John Pache

Karen Peterson Butterworth

Kelly Pope

Patricia Prime

Bruce Rankin

Elizabeth Robertson

Bruce Ross

Julie Sargisson

Katrina Shepherd

Sandra Simpson

Barry L Smith

Janine Sowerby

Barbara Strang

André Surridge

Sheila K Barksdale

L M Wallace

Mavis Wentworth

Pat White

Kiri Piahana-Wong

Quendryth Young

Karen Zelas

Emily Adlam

Amelia Anderson

Anthony Baker

Rachel Boddy

Rosie Bolderston

Ashley Briscoe

Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

Cara Chimirri

Emily Clemence

Lauren Clews

Liam Collinson

Wilson Cowie

Wallace Davidson

Sarah Daymond

Ish Doney

Monty Elworthy

Clare Fairgray

Jess Fiebig

Abby Field

Marcel Foster

Harry Frentz

Sophia Frentz

Bede Gorman

Sage Gwatkin

Alex Harding

Nic Harty

Maddy Hayward

Monique Hodgkinson

Philipp Hoeper

Alexandrea Hollyman

Sue Mun Huang

Jakob Kennedy

Sophie Kirkby

Ashish Kumar

Cory Lipinski

Joel Lynch

Christine Maxwell

Kate McIlhone

Keava McKeogh

Rebecca McLaughlin

Alex Morris

Lalitha Mukunden

Lorelei Parker

Amy Pepper

Kirsty Plowman

Rhianne Price

Charlotte Read

Bertie Ruscoe

Beth Rust

Sam Shand

Wanzhi Tay

Aglaia Tee

Charlotte Trevella

Sommer Valledy

Elizabeth Waldron

Iolanthe Warburton

Tamara Webley

Jack Whittam

Return to normal transmission

I love the Olympics. I know it’s “not done” in a lot of circles, but I love them. There’s something wonderful about watching people excel. People fulfilling their potential. And heartbreaking about watching people try, and fail. But even then it’s a good reminder of how fleeting and ephemeral perfection is. 

I was living in Sydney the night that we were awarded the right to host the 2000 Olympics. The cheering woke me. Everyone on the east coast knew that we’d won them, and four million people went to work the next day with sore throats. It was a wonderful feeling.

And I remember how utterly terrified I felt when they actually happened. So much pride at stake. So many ways things could go wrong. The Games was actually a pretty good reflection of most people’s fears. (BTW it was a superb programme. If you like your satire dry and very close to the bone, I highly recommend it!)  

I remember watching Cathy Freeman win the 400 m. Poor woman had an entire country tied to her feet. Mind you, there were also nineteen million sets of lungs breathing for her. If passion and hope and sheer collective willpower could win a race, then she would have won without needing to leave the blocks. 

I tried to capture that feeling in a poem once (as you do). Possibly the worst poem I’ve ever written. I think I’m beginning to understand what it would take to be able to do it justice. The language would have to be physical, not just use physical words. Structure would be incredibly important.

Maybe one day I’ll try again.

But it occurred to me how similar a good poem is to a top athlete. There’s the simple pleasure of seeing someone/thing where every muscle is honed for one purpose. Of a thing well-made. Crafted. Perfected. Purposeful. The muscularity of a really good line. The focus towards one particular goal. But there’s more to it than that. You can’t be a top athlete if you only take care of the muscles specific to your sport. Look at sprinters. It’s not just the legs that have to be strong. Or the heart. You need torso stability, to oppose the twisting force generated by each leg. (Think about it: if you push with only one leg – essentially what you’re doing each stride – you’ll tend to veer off in that direction. And early on in the race, the sprinters do tend to ping from side to side of their lanes.) So that means strong abdominals. And you need to use your arms too, to balance those forces. So that means work on biceps and triceps. And shoulders. And back. The body is a system, and you have to be aware of each part of the system and their interplay when you start enhancing one area. The same with a poem – it’s not enough just to pick the most evocative word for this line. You have to be aware of how that affects the rhythm, and the sound. The imagery. The whole thing. Will it make the next line seem weak? Pre-empt the ending? Offer a foothold for the next bit of imagery? Twist the poem in a new direction?

 

Wait. Does that make caffeine the equivalent of EPO? (Laudanum for anabolic steroids?)