lacking in it for me. My background --creative seamstress mother, music training, degree in fine arts, creative writing was a great fit. (Oh, lord, does my upbringing have hopeless literate writer all over it?) Sensing this, the teacher, Les, suggested that I take poetry in order to really learn how to craft prose.Les
They were the hardest classes I've ever taken. All that sculpting, shoving, cutting,
carving ...utterly exhausting. Naturally, given my background, I'd play with the form --a poem like Water On Glass that was one long sentence, for instance. It was natural even playing with the shapes text could make on a page (on the blog, it's a bit different), an extension of the feelings I wanted to capture in a scene. Others did it as well, while some kept to a "coffee house" standard and produced strong works that were akin to rants.So we continued with free verse, refining our imagery, cutting out words to get
down to the core of our message. Kristin Herbert -- co-author of "A Fine Excess," was patient. She knew she had to instill in us a sense of fearlessness before she presented traditional poetic form to us. Imagine how vexed I was when I saw this:Kristin & Kirby Gann's book
A1 (refrain)b
A2 (refrain)
a
b
A1 (refrain)
a
b
A2 (refrain)
a
b
A1 (refrain)
a
b
A2 (refrain)
a
b
A1
A2 (refrain)
That of course, is the structure to "Do Not Go Gentle" by Dylan Thomas, which is one of the greatest villanelles of all time, and resonates with foreboding considering the hard road he took. When I think how many coffee house rants I've heard this (and other forms) come across as fresh and challenging. In a sense, taking something very old and infusing it with contemporary images. The writer, artist and blogger Wind on The Quilting Sword has written a great villanelle, "La Seine."
I have yet to write a villanelle. Someday, I will. As for form, when I find myself getting comfortable as I plough through the final rewrite of my novel, I start to think --what can I do to make this fresh? To get rid of the drag? Inevitably, it means that I have to cut, move and reshaping to breathe a new perspective into it. And sometimes, it means digging around a bit and looking at what others have done and starting anew and pushing the form.
Writer Impossible appears on this blog on Wednesdays (or Thursdays), and will be warehoused over its own blog when I get the chance.
