On becoming a poet

Reading my poetry

When I was a very young child, maybe four or five, I wrote a song called “The Mac the Monkey Show.” Growing up with a mother who spent years attending British Music Hall events obviously influenced my sensibilities at an early age!

In school, I was drawn to the Victorian poets, especially Matthew Arnold, and to Emily Dickinson and—perhaps most of all—Edna St. Vincent Millay. But I didn’t write another poem until I was 30. I don’t think it was that bad a poem, either. But that was the only poem I wrote for decades.

I always enjoyed writing essays, and later in life, I not only took my essay-writing more seriously, I also began to write—and publish—creative nonfiction. For several  years, I wrote political/social issues essays and creative nonfiction about a wide number of subjects.

Then, all of a sudden, I decided to try my hand at writing short fiction. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I did it anyway. When my very first short story was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, I was encouraged. (I did start a novel, but was too overwhelmed to carry on with it, though the first few chapters are still on my hard drive.)

I wrote a lot of short stories, though I found writing fiction rather difficult. And then I ran out of ideas, so—while I was waiting for some to arrive—I thought, “What the hell? I’ll try writing poetry.” Again, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did it anyway. An Internet course with prize-winning poet Geoffrey Nutter helped me a lot, as did a membership on a high-quality poetry forum. Participating on the forum meant that some very respected poets helped me refine my skills.

I discovered that I especially liked writing formal poetry. When teaching formal verse, Nutter said something that has stayed with me: “Form is a substitute for inspiration.” How true. Writing within a form forces my brain to make connections it would not otherwise make. I also write a lot of free verse (my forthcoming chapbook is half and half), but I have a fondness for writing formal verse, especially sonnets of all kinds.

Last year, I wrote my first sonnet crown, which included Shakespearean, Petrarchan, Australian (a rare form I never see used, yet I use it often), and “modern” (unrhymed blank verse) sonnets—everything but Spenserian. I look forward to writing my second one, though a subject has yet to make itself known.

Even as a poet, I continue to feel somewhat ignorant about poetry. Visual poetry disturbs me; I just don’t like looking at it. And much of the poetry that I read, I simply do not understand. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, yet I struggle to grasp the meaning of much contemporary poetry. I suppose that what I write is what’s known as “accessible” poetry.

I hope to return to writing short fiction. I recently used a prompt to write a short story, but I was only minimally pleased with it. At least it was a start. Writer’s block is a very real thing, and so is its opposite, which occurs when a poem or a story simply “arrives,” and I feel as though I’m just recording it. What’s interesting about poems that “arrive” is that they tend to arrive complete with assonance, consonance and apt metaphors. This is a phenomenon that I find mystifying, but which is part of what happens during a creative process of any kind.