The Cerebral Mum

The assignments I haven’t done from 30 poems in 30 days are just sitting there, clogging up my dashboard. I can’t write anything good. It feels like thinking. And I can’t think. So I’m just going to do them. Randomly. Whatever assignment I open, I’m cutting and pasting it in, then… Bang: A poem! In 30 seconds. I don’t even care how bad they are, or good. I just want my brain to start feeling fluid again. Instead of crushed.

So..

Bang! The 10th assignment: The good, the bad and the meter…

“Write a three or more stanza poem that uses a metered style for the first two stanzas and a non-metered format for the remaining stanzas.”

My head is just imploding,
I don’t know what I’m saying,
I’m sick of all this thinking,
There are no words left in me.

Numb and poetry is lost,
Blind and all my meaning gone,
Nights too short and days too long,
There are no words left in me.

I hate this.

I hate my stuck mind,
I hate my lost time,
and yesterday
and nothing.

There are no words left in me.

Bang! The 17th assignment: The constraint as a tool.

“Wikipedia’s Random Button is a great and magical thing. Today it lead me to an article about Cheshire Mammoth Cheese. The story of Cheshire Mammoth Cheese has everything you need for poetic inspiration. It has historical significance. It has political significance. It has small town appeal. It has people working together toward a common goaland it contains a pop culture reference. Most importantly, it has cheese. Find a way to incorporate this article into a poem.”

I’m not reading about the stupid cheese.
Seriously? Seriously?
(That’s a pop culture reference. )

I’ve heard the story before.
Cheese and politics
and highways for wolves
on The West Wing.
(That’s the pop culture reference.)

But politics isn’t like that,
It wasn’t like that then either.
Now, we talk faster.
We film it, dreaming they
Talk faster. And better.
Politics is pop culture.

Buffy likes cheese.
(That’s a pop culture reference.)

Bang! The 13th assignment: What is your writing process?

“Today is a two-part assignment. The first part is to think about your method of writing poetry… The second part is to shake up your process. If you have a lot of structure, try loosening up. If you write very loosely, try adding some structure to the process. Find a new place to write or use a different tool. The change doesn’t have to be major, but if you post your poem, please tell us what you changed.”

I normally don’t write poems
in 30 seconds bang.
I normally don’t write poetry at all.
I’m not a poet.

None of that’s true,
or it wasn’t once,
once-upon-a-time.

Then, I just wrote
and words were dark
and rich
and deep,
saturated with music
and sensation.

Redolent.

Now, nothing.

Bang! The 15th assignment: Imagism.

“Write a poem that follows the three rules of the imagists.

1. Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.”

Too rigid, imagism.
Too conscientiously flowing. Abrupt. Flowing.
The thing is not a thing.
It expands, contracts, unfolds. It has no substance.
I am not T.S Eliot,
The thing is words, stripped words, naked, undulating.
Shock me with it. Hurts like hills and dreams and loves,
like blood.
Flowing.
Gone.

Bang! The 14th assignment: Repetition

“Write a poem that uses at least two different forms of repetition. Try to embrace at least one form of repetition that you don’t ordinarily use. “

Repeat.
Repeat.
That’s all I do.

Fucking echoing, empty
chamber of my mind.

Repeat.
Repeat.

Dead nouns. Dead signs.
No metaphor,
no semaphore,
Just dot dot dot,
dash dash dash,
dot dot dot.

Repeat.

Bang! The sixth assignment: Developing your voice…

“Take at least five minutes to meditate in a quite room free of outside influences before you write today’s poem. Try to clear your head of stray thoughts. Once you feel like you are clear and calm, write your poem. Let the topic be about whatever comes to mind after your meditation. If you have never meditated before, simply sit in a chair with your eyes closed and try to relax.”

Yeah, right. That’s going to happen. I couldn’t do it then. And I sure as hell can’t now.

How long is a second,
how long a breath?
How many moments spent,
With glass grating
my screaming head?

How long is five minutes?
Is it tense or dead?
My only thought:
Too much. I’m going
to bed.

The 18th assignment for 30 Poems in 3o Days: Joining the community.

“Include the words “formal” and “casual” at some point in your poem.”

He introduces us…

Now at the bar,
while he greets friends and fellow artists,
you make a casual inquiry
into my formal education,
into how I make my living,
and my face shutters
as yours did
when you saw me walking toward you
on the candled city street
and he said hello
and your grip tightened
on his arm.

I know your kind
but I recite
a hollow resume for you
while you resent me for the flower
in my hair.

And you have no more conversation,
so I turn my attention
to the stranger at my left
while you stare at
anaglypta on the walls.

Later, at the table,
with your pretended inattention,
with your eyes drifting, seeing nothing,
with your nothingness to say,
you sit, say nothing,
while all his people, strangers,
discuss art and film and music
until his name is called
and he accepts his award
and then returns and your grip tightens
on his arm.

I know your kind
but I, polite,
try to include you in our talk
while you resent me for the flower
in my hair.

This still reads as a little juvenile to me. It is too direct, I think, relying on explicit statements rather than letting the feelings come out through imagery. It also needs some makor editing. I shall sit on it a while and see what I can do with it.

In the meantime, I might perhaps write a post about “her kind”.

30 poems in 30 days. A simple enough task. It is now Day 22 and I have written only 10 poems for the project. I have never been very good at finishing things. I am a great procrastinator. Take for example my novel and this painful confession:

I began it in 1994.

Even allowing for 3 computer disasters (which left me computerless for roughly 5 of those 13 years), a lost manuscript (recovered after 7 torturous months) and a ritual burning of about 200 pages (somewhere around the turn of the century), it is a fairly unimpressive effort. At the moment I could not even tell you what state it is in. I hadn’t finished word processing the copious notebooks and scrap paper I filled with my insane scrawls during the penultimate computer crash before the last one occurred.

And then I got pregnant.

I worked my butt off during my pregnancy to save as much money as I could before entering the realm of single motherhood and have not touched my novel since. And I won’t. Work will not begin again until Cas and I have moved back into the city and I am no longer in the in-between. My rough estimate is that about 60% of it is written but it will require some major structural editing as I have been writing it disjointedly for years.

When it does get published, we’ll just avoid mentioning the year 1994 to the critics. Marcel Proust I am not.

But back to that original thought I haven’t yet finished. I am 12 poems behind with only 8 days left. Even excusing myself for the days I was hanging over the toilet bowl as though I were in my first trimester, that too is a fairly unimpressive effort. I’m not being hard on myself. It’s just a fact.

So do I try and catch up? Do I give up? Do I let it go and finish each assignment at my leisure?

I would like to finish the 30 poems in the allotted time; because I chose to participate; because it is hard; because leaving everything to the last minute, until it seems everything is about to implode, is no longer a habit that works for me.

I am a mother.

I used to thrive under pressure; write papers which earned High Distinctions on the night before they were due, work 17 hour shifts on two hours sleep and then go back for more, frantically fill page after page until I was dizzy from the pace of it and I could no longer see. It’s not that I don’t have the stamina any more: I never had it. It’s because I don’t have the drug.

Adrenaline.

I was an adrenaline junkie. Life just pushed so hard that there was never a chance to be tired, and if it didn’t push me hard enough, I made it. I ran on my second wind for years and I loved it. Motherhood has its own hormonal highs but it is nothing like that rush of blood to the head. Motherhood is not strenuous. It is neither a sprint or a marathon. Motherhood is a slow shift.

I was about to launch into a long paragraph about how working in hospitality is like being a rock star but that would be another digression. Let’s just say that it is driving, physical work and it has it’s own momentum. It generates energy and you feed off it. You get caned all night then you clean up and hang out, drinking and smoking and seeing who can tell the most scurrilous stories about the guests.

But the slow shifts - the ones where you’ve polished every bottle, restocked every fridge and wiped every surface twice - those shifts are the killers. Your body isn’t pumping sugars to your brain and you have time to think. Usually, I would think about all the other things I could be doing if I wasn’t trapped in that bar or restaurant, standing at attention like a palace guard. I would be annoyed by the lack of customers, and then annoyed when a customer interrupted whatever boondoggly task I’d found to do.

Babies aren’t very demanding. Their needs are simple, they sleep a lot, their movements are limited and they are easily amused. But in that first year we have to stand at attention constantly and all the things that used to get done in large blocks of time have to get done in pieces. We cannot let the house go to wrack and ruin while we play at whatever is more interesting and then tidy it in a frenzy all in one day. We can’t immerse ourselves in a book and read it cover to cover. Babies’ needs are too constant and not constant enough. There is too little to do but you aren’t free to go and do something else.

This manic insomniac who burnt the candle at both ends until she crashed and and then lit the next one with glee needs to find new ways to get things done. There is not enough pressure but there is no valve to release what is there if it builds up. You can’t put babies on hold. You can’t call in sick. You can’t take a mental health day. You can’t just say, Stuff it - I’m going to the beach.

So I will try and get my poems done but in all likelihood some won’t make it within the 30 days. I’m trying to realign the way my energy works with the requirements of my new life (which I love!) but it is a trial and error process and I don’t have the answers yet.

I do know, however, that it hasn’t done me in!

The 12th assignment from 30 poems in 30 days:

“Write a poem using syllabic verse. You can assign length ether by line or stanza. If you are stuck for a way to begin, start with this two-word ten-syllable line:

Incompatible Participation”

I wrote two, using set forms.

Summer Cinquain

Sunshine,
Lure me again
to Lych Gate; December
cherries; dense green shade; picnic lace
and words.

Winter Tanka

So long were the nights
of our grey stolen season.
Cold glitter of stars,
in the mist corporeal,
broken by morning’s bright frost.

It’s been interesting experimenting with formal structures as I have previously written most of my poetry without them, although I have used syllabics often in the past without realising that constituted an “official” technique. (Incidentally, I used them for the last three lines in each stanza of Barcelona.) I chose to use recognised forms here, without rhyme, as I did with Sapphics on the Deep in order to keep my focus on the specifics of the assignment.

But isn’t it odd what you pick up via osmosis. I remember in my first year of Professional Writing & Editing taking a long, complicated poem I wrote to my grammar teacher, the adored, illustrious Captain Slusher, and asking him to check it for me. He told me I could do it myself. I told him I hadn’t learned enough grammar yet and he said, Not consciously…

The 11th assignment from 30 poems in 30 days: Courting controversy…

“Read a poet you don’t like. Try to figure out what they do that upsets you and determine whether or not this assessment is fair. Try to think of ways that you would approach the same subject matter using your style. Write a poem that addresses some of the same subject / style / tone of the poet you dislike but do it in your own style.”

I am breaking my tradition and writing about this poem before you get to read it. The poet I chose is Robert Frost, whom I loathe and detest with a violent passion. I have heard him referred to as ambiguous but I find his work overly simplistic, transparent and smarmy. Dainty, lily-livered pop-psychology with no real sensitivity, abusing what can truly be seen through nature just to make himself appear insightful. Truly, he makes me vomit a little in my mouth.

The poem I chose was A Minor Bird and I veered slightly off the assignment by writing something of an invective rather than approaching the subject matter in a different way.

I do not need
to speak of birds
I can say the word
Depression.

I can say
I hate
the imitation of my sorrow
by a mynah at my window
or echoed in a song
in minor key.

I don’t need
pastoral devices
to disguise
my inner turmoil.

Fences do not make
good poets
Just say the word
Depression.

As I said over at The Writer’s Resource… If Robert Frost could be framed, he would be a motivational poster.

The seventh assignment from 30 Poems in 30 Days… About forms and lists…

“Write a list poem that uses a single line for each item on the list. Feel free to choose one of the topics above [topics can be found at the Writer’s Resource Center via the assignment link], or use anything else that comes to mind.”

Note to Self

Don’t be so literal (This is a poem)
Don’t be so linear (And then and then…)
Use an adjective (Now and again)
Or a metaphor (This is a poem)

Use punctuation (It’s there for a reason)
And capital letters (For proper nouns)
Finish your sentence (See how it sounds)
And rhyming won’t kill you (This is a poem)

Say something smaller (It’s all in the detail)
Say something greater (What does it mean?)
Write of the seen (No, of the unseen)
What does it matter? (This is a poem)

I truly do think this is a bloody awful poem. I started this list before writing Sapphics on the Deep when I was quite frustrated with what I had been writing, but the subject of my list puts me in mind of a poem I really like by Edward Morgan, Opening the Cage. And while looking for a link so you could read it, I found another based on the same John Cage quote, John Cage by Dillingworth. Both of these put my effort to shame.

And if you’re interested in John Cage or jazz, this short film in three parts is worth watching:

Sound (1966-67), Pt. 1
Sound (1966-67), Pt. 2
Sound (1966-67), Pt. 3

The 9th assignment from 30 poems in 30 days… A brief glossary of metre…

“Write a poem using a specific meter. The meter can be of your own choosing or even your own making, as long as you put a pattern into place.”

Sapphics of the Deep

Clams without teeth stopper their jaws and bind the
Currents; white flotillas of paper beach on
Tideless shores; I walk through convention, silenced,
Greeting the grey men.

Speaking nothing, language reduced by empty
Habit; sounds now mindless, unmade, like boats that
Drift in shallows, seeking no stormfront, sighting
No more the giants.

Leashed what once was swollen with Gods and Jung and
Darkness; thick, primordial waters made of
Words like squid, electric and phosphorescent
Colours in ink moved.

Never having worked with meter before (I don’t count bad sonnets) I chose, in my ignorance, to use sapphic meter. It had been my intention to publish just the one post tonight with all my “catch-up” poems and call it Bloody awful poetry… Instead, I am bloody proud of this and it gets to have a post all of it’s own.

Let me just say, Sapphics are hard.

Perhaps someone better-versed in scansion than me will find fault with what I have written. It is possibly imperfect. But I didn’t know what a trochee was before I started this and working with such an unnatural meter, in a language the meter was not intended for, I think I succeeded.

Not only that, but I have been frustrated by the simplicity of my previous poems and their lack of imagery. I used to write poetry in a very stream-of-consciousness way and it was dense with symbolism, not deliberately but because my mind thought in pictures.

Finally, I have written pictures with my words again.