Immutable No-Win Laws of the Poetry Workshop

• If you use synaesthesia in a poem, someone in your workshop will say something along the lines of "I like synaesthesia, but it's not working here." They are quite likely wrong on both counts.
• Someone will always want your obscure reference explained in a note or the poem body, unless you actually do it.
• If you are in the same workshop for a year, you will hear at least two of "Show, don't tell," "A poem should not mean, but be," "Real toads in imaginary gardens," and "No ideas but in things." Both uses will be applied badly in a patronizing voice.
• If you are in the read-and-respond-in-the-same-session sort of workshop, no one will ever address the overall theme or point of any poem whose meaning isn't immediately accessible, for fear of looking ignorant (and because it can't be done effectively in five minutes).
• At least one writer in your workshop won't even take notes on what other people say about his/her poem, just to let you know the high regard he/she holds everyone in.
• Live workshops consist of 99% people who are too nice to each other's poems. Online workshops consist of 50% those people and 49% mean trolls.
• Someone will insist on bringing multiple poems to one session because "they're all short."
• And last but most: everyone else will try to turn your poems into their poems. (Thanks for the comment reminding me of that one, C. Dale)
  

Here's a little poem exercise I'm trying in order to shake up the way I write:

Take two lines that you think are strong lines but that you don't have connected to a whole poem (or even a whole poem idea) yet. (If you're like me, you have quite a few of these lines floating around.) The two lines should have no immediate connection to each other: no repeated words, no similar thematic associations, etc.

Now make one of those lines your first line and one your last, and write the poem that connects the two seemingly unrelated lines. If you have to change the lines up a little as you write, that's fine, but no matter what, they shouldn't ever have an obvious similarity.

The two lines I've chosen are "Remember we weren't always as old as we're going to be" and "When you open the refrigerator, what will attack?" The first is salvaged from an old draft that didn't work out. The second is a line I think I came up with while I was half asleep.

I'll be working on this poem this week (and maybe next given how many things I have going on right now). Once I have a draft done, I'll post it.

• People try to set up poetry as oppositional, often between two extreme poles. Both of these propositions are nonsense, and one should be suspicious of these people's agendas.
• Richard Wilbur and John Ashbery are not diametrical opposites. Even within poetry, they're not on two ends of some big line, and in the whole wide world, they're pretty much on the same spot.
• Neither are Billy Collins and Rae Armantrout opposites.
• There is no Platonic ideal for "poem."
• "New" is no more inherently good than "traditional."
  
• Difficulty and accessibility are not mutually exclusive. Nor are accessibility/depth and difficulty/enjoyability.
• All but the very best poets are only sporadically successful in the poems they write.
• Most of the poems we've read this year, even most of the ones we praised, will be long gone in 25 years.
  
• Most people who work primarily as "poetry critics" are at best enjoyable gasbags and should be treated as such.
• You shouldn't take it personally if I don't like the work of a poet you like, with the possible exception of that poet being you.

More bulleted sound-bites to come someday.

I understand people tell Seth he should write less about politics and more about poetry and other frivolous things. Well, I almost never write about politics, but I think I will right now. Here are some changes I think we need to make on a national level. Most of these are nonpartisan things I really think people across the spectrum could get behind.

1. Eliminate the electoral college. Any system that enables presidential candidates to essentially ignore all but about 10 of the 50 states is a bullshit system. It doesn't eliminate shenanigans anyway, which is the chief argument of pro-EC people.

2. Eliminate gerrymandering of congressional districts. Arnold Schwarzenegger actually has a good idea in California (nonpartisan panels of judges drawing political districts), though if you only do it there and not somewhere like (cough) Texas, it's pretty partisan. Enforce sensible drawing of the districts on a national level, and you have something good.

3. Conduct all primaries/caucuses on the same date. Let's stop giving Iowa and New Hampshire undue influence over who the non-incumbent party's next presidential candidate is. The current setup is a relic.

4. Term limits for Supreme Court justices. Okay, I realize not many Republicans would get behind this one right now. Nonetheless, I think the fact that whichever party is in control gets to put someone in what is a top-20 national position of influence for what could wind up being 25+ years with no real reassessment of the pick is nonsense. Since the idea with judges is that they don't consider the need to get reelected in their decisions, I think limiting the amount of time they serve in the highest post would be a good idea, and would eliminate the sorry spectacle of daft old men trying to hold on until the next presidential election.

5. Make it easier for third-party candidates. Yeah, yeah, that's a pipe dream. Plus, I don't have a specific idea here, unlike the others. Ah well. As a registered independent, I want and have long wanted this.

I have other ideas, but they're mostly partisan. For example, I think Social Security should go to more progressive indexing and lift the $100,000 tax cap. Good luck getting a fiscal conservative behind that shit, yo.

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Just so's you don't think I'm too political, here are the musical artists that I have at least one hour worth of songs by on my mp3 player right now (in order of track time):

• Metallica
• Tool
• Bad Religion
• Clutch
• U2
• Nirvana
• Led Zeppelin
• Neil Young
• Queensryche (shut up)
• Tom Petty
• Pearl Jam
• House of Freaks
• Stone Temple Pilots
• Johnny Cash
• Hawksley Workman
• God Lives Underwater
• Antonin Dvorak
• Nine Inch Nails
• A Perfect Circle
• Husker Du
• Poe

Groups I'm most surprised didn't make the list: Public Enemy, The Beatles.

Well, Blogger (or this browser or something) has struck again and taken one of my entries, so here's a shorter version of the same thing. I was thinking about poem titles that are intriguing or clever or memorable on their own without the actual text of the poem, and some of my favorite titles both by me and by others.

By me:
Prayer to a Higher Horsepower
God as a Somewhat Distant Relative
Poem with Chimpanzee
Easy Homunculus Assembly
Penelope at the Singer Quantum Futura
Seen from a Telephone Wire
Cram It

By others:
Into the Realm of Angels and Radio Waves (one of many fine Steve Mueske titles)
First Accidental Day of Winter (Jeffery Bahr)
The Interior Life of Ralph Wiggum (Melanie Jordan)
I Love to Stand on the Backs of the Turtles (Karen Donovan)
No Less Than Twenty-Six Distinct Necronyms (H. L. Hix)

James Wright was the champion of titles:
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned
Saint Judas
Goodbye to The Poetry of Calcium
etc.

What are some of your favorite titles, your own or others'?

This is a thing I've been thinking about sporadically for quite a while now. Apologies to Justin, who made me think of it again. I'm gonna keep adding to it.

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Ars Poetica

Never write something called "Ars Poetica."

A cow perching in a tree is much better than a crow doing the same.

"You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. . . . If you win twenty in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful."--Bull Durham

Get the fuck out of Plato's cave.

The punchline should come at least one line after you end the poem.

You know how agonizing it is when that one friend of yours tells you in great detail about the random dream she had last night and you can't figure out why in the world it matters to anyone but her?

That river may hold the secret of life, but it's already packed with people fishing shoulder to shoulder.

All poetry is loss.