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The best advice I’ve ever heard on writing came from Stephen King: “Read a lot. Write a lot.” Today on the Substack we are tweaking King’s sage and pithy advice for our audience of poets and poetry lovers.
Read a lot of poetry about poetry. Write a lot of poetry about poetry.
Below you will find ten offerings from poets who are wrestling with, celebrating, and reveling in the topic of poetry in their work.
Remember, in the words of one of the fine poems below:
Your job as a poet is to find what is ordinary,
reveal it to be offensivily miraculous, and lasso it
just near enough to be ordinary again.
Support Group for Adult Children of Writers
by Heather Cadenhead
I heard a writer say there is no excuse for not writing – wrote her first book, single mom, baby screaming in time to the sound of keyboard clacks. Another writer agreed; they preached a gospel of write always – write in war (word count is the real war). Don’t speak of bombs, babies or bills (excuses). My mother told me that prolific writers are neglectful parents, that their children will curse their bones. That a blank page is no better than brown-bagged liquor.
Look, I Know Poetry is Hard to Read…
by JJ Brinski
Take poetry in sips like fine, florid drink. Swirl it around in mouth and brain. Chew it like tender meat or morsel, let every bit of its flavor and flare collide, coalescing with every taste budding. Work it around, with tongue used for telling and talk. Make. Those. Sounds. with…………………………… Breath. Movement. Thought. Back & forth, forward & behind, swallow with savor and sigh. May this wad of words be sweet sustaining to your gaping, hunger-sown soul.
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Contract With the Poet
by Andy Patton
I agree to read this poem twelve times. If I am interrupted by anything (a bell, my stop, someone calling my name) I will start again at once. Unless the interruption is: The wind, a forgotten face, A bird who deigns to visit The chair back across from me. Those also are the poem. I agree that in beginning this poem I am indenturing myself To seven years in its service. It will pay my passage by ship, Will give me board and a bed. In return, I will do whatever it asks. If I am told to remove my sandals And wander pathless In a mountain range inside myself, I will go. Or to give new names, like Adam, To everything I see, I will do it. I will obey even if I must make peace With the bees inside my heart, And eat the honey from my old failures. These also are the poem. When my term of service is up I can return home. I can invite my friends And hold forth late into the night. I can say everything I have to say. If they don’t understand- Or if they say anything at all - I will leave them alone, Give them this, and pray for them. This is also the poem. Signed, _______________________________
I Live Next Door to a Poet
by Kate Gaston
I live next door to a poet. His house is stately white brick. Presumably, his words built it. Often, in the mornings, I’ll see the poet sitting barefoot on his porch. He watches the cardinals, sparrows, and mourning doves busily pecking at seed which spills from the feeder hanging in his yard. I wonder if his mind is as busy, as industrious, as those birds. Are the words he is seeking scattered about, waiting to be gathered up like stray seed? Does he pick them up one by one? Do they leave him still hungry, ceaselessly pecking? When you live next door to a poet, you wonder about these things. Often, in the afternoons, I’ll see the poet straddling the seat of his bike. When I see him take that first, awkward, peddling lunge, I wonder, does he experience gravity differently than me? Does it have a more tenuous grip on him, allowing him to tread the earth more lightly? Or are his steps just as heavy somedays as mine? Is that why he sits watching the birds jostle and peck— to be reminded of what it is to fly?
“How To Be” Poems
by Amelia Freidline
i. how to be a human feel the wind on your face, in your hair under your feet the grass, the ground, the world look at the flowers of the field richly robed listen to the song of the earth’s unfolding yearning toward final resolution and now find yourself in the story living the role you were written to fill — image-bearer of the Storyteller Himself — vapor-frail though you know yourself to be even in this moment He is speaking ii. how to be a poet be not prideful through your given gift of words — each one who listens must tell what he has heard greet the world with wonder remember your place in the story attend to the smallest details travel at the speed of your own feet embrace the limits of life find mystery amid the mundane understand human frailty love from a beloved heart iii. how to be a poem exactly where you are, be. more answers will come someday, but in the time between eternities, rest in the knowledge all shall one day be made well — contrary to what you feel now, every heartache will be healed. take in the joy, the sorrow, the beauty, the pain: hold them up to the Light and examine each facet you find refracted there. more moves within your story than merely eyes can see yearning, like a melody, to be heard and harmonized with sit with silence for a time and learn to listen then, as you hear, sing the song back to its Singer echoing every glad and glorious line until the world itself reverberates with holy laughter. exactly where you are, be. you will find, in time, the words have been finding you.
Tractor Tracks
by Anna A. Friedrich
A mile from home / and I need a pen / I’ve got the makings / of a poem / and I need a pen / the earth is Yours / and everything in it / can You please / send me a pen? To whole-hearted / prayers You say No / I know, but a half-ass / prayer is still a prayer / I need a pen, Lord / because art matters / in this world of Yours / where whole-hearted prayer / sometimes gets a No / I’m walking at a farm / where surely a farmer / at some point / dropped a pen, Lord / show me / I’m walking / past the goats / whose smooth backs / in late sunlight call / for poems— a pencil / will do, Lord, or just ink / in this old pen / I brought from home / forgetting it was dry— ink like water / from a rock, Lord, ink / like wine for a wedding / there are so many ways / for you to answer / this, my prayer / Lord, so many pens / in the world that might / appear without / too much interference / come on, I’m sure, rehearsing / each line of this poem / a thousand times / to remember / is absurd when / all I need is a pen / to get it down, good / lord not / a tongue of fire / not a flaming chariot / I’m not expecting / angels at the farm, I need a pen / ashamed to ask / Does it matter? Mosquitos hover / as I scour the path's / sandy tractor tracks.
Handmade
by Heather Cadenhead
I pieced this together without a pattern and I’m proud of the lines I got just right as well as the ones that snag and falter. I’m proud because this is mine, every bit of it, and I’d rather have something imperfect and earned – with the needle pricks and wasted time to show for it. A store-bought dress won’t scar my hands. It will be given away the minute the zipper breaks.
Occupation
by Adam Whipple
Your job as a poet is to find what is ordinary, reveal it to be offensively miraculous, and lasso it just near enough to be ordinary again. Discover enough alchemy in a tub of butter to make someone fear for his life, then fry his eggs in it, sunny-side up. Unveil tiny violences in altocumulus clouds coalescing until water falls from the sky, then dance open-mouthed in the rain. See grueling death in a roadside weed, resurrection in a spoonful of dirt, then roll your friends bodily over the ground. Spend six years with a Bunsen burner, parsing the quanta of the liquid cosmos, then turn over your tables with a metaphysical word. Irritate well-heeled symphony patrons with the finer points of Tom Waits’ catalog and metalheads with Hildegard’s visions. Choose martyrdom when it goes nameless and fame when it doesn’t sell. Especially when it sells no satisfaction. Confound the desires of the crowd only after you’ve confounded your own, and never desire the crowd for its own sake. Dwell at the edges of cliffs when they scare you. Choose boredom, the dusty inroad through the dark valley of holy silence. Write about it all. Or don’t. At the end of time is a book-burning. The poem that survives will have breathed of water and the Ghost.
What is a Poem?
by Amelia Freidline
i am arguing with myself the worth of my writing one part of me says yes! this poem is good and true and genuine and beautiful it is heartfelt, artful, artless the other part is not so sympathetic but feels more honest this poem is not bad, but it is about you. where is the eternal, the everlasting, the struggle of man to find God in his breath-long life? where is the weight of the world? what is a poem? is this one? is it merely an artful arrangement of words with precious line breaks and little to no punctuation? does it require deliberate form determined rhythm a pre-destined end? what is a poem that i should be given the writing of one, or take its writing upon me? and how shall i answer my own questions?
The Challenge
by Rachel Donahue
Form poetry is like a thousand piece puzzle where only twenty pieces can fit just right to make a picture.
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This selection of poems about writing poetry was both insightful and inspiring. It captured the creative journey in a way that writers and readers alike can appreciate. https://www.jenniferfahie.com/
Brilliant!