Monthly Archives: June 2012

Sonnet Attack!

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COLORADO SUSAN

a guest blog
by Susan Delaney Spear

Poet ♦ Teacher
Grammar Maven

Welcome once again Susan Delaney Spear—Rocky Mountain bloom, rhetoric instructor, grammar maven, good friend, and poetry MFA classmate—who occasionally joins us on blogopus to discuss prosody, ‘cause metrics matters.

While I attended the annual New Jersey SCBWI conference last weekend, Colorado Susan was versifying in West Chester, Pennsylvania at the annual West Chester University Poetry Conference.

Participants in my conference sessions, “Summoning the Muse: Let Poetry Add Precision and Punch to Your Novel/Picture Book” may recall a comment I made about writing being all about paying attention. Perhaps I’ve attributed this to the wrong author (although I’m certain he was French), but I recall learning in ninth-grade English class that Guy de Maupassant—a father of the short story—said that a writer should sit in the town square every day for three years straight people-watching before putting a single word on paper.

Colorado Susan’s latest post reminds me of that remark—and underlines how poets are accustomed to exploring what we write from every possible angle.

Felicia

SONNET ATTACK!

I am a formalist. I write sonnets, villanelles, blank verse, triolets, tritinas, and their like. Because of my inherent love of meter (rhythm) in poetic lines, I will never stray too far afield from these received forms. This formalist just spent a week at the West Chester University Poetry Conference, which is devoted almost entirely to the pursuit of form and narrative. This year I wanted to fuel my right brain so I chose a workshop in Experimental Form. During the brief three days of the workshop, my right brain, my left brain, my fountain pen, and my rear end all got a much-needed kick.

I have considered a poem’s space on the page, but until this week I had not pondered the poem’s place in the literal space around me. Our instructor handed down the gauntlet. Leave something somewhere and watch what happens. Among the things left by the group: a blue magnetic butterfly, a hand-knit hat, a newly penned poem, a bag of olives from Greece, and a boyfriend! (He had it coming.)

When a friend invited me to take a joyride to the home and garden store Terrain, I accepted. The WCU campus was swarming with successful and aspiring poets. In other words, this was not a typical space. I had hand copied one of my poems, and I wanted to leave it where it might surprise, dare I say bless, someone.

I placed my poem on the middle of a beautifully set table in the outdoor restaurant. Actually it was two wooden tables put together to create a table for four. The linen-wrapped tableware, the glasses of ice water, and my poem “Impediment” waited for hungry diners.

My friend and I sat at the indoor coffee bar and watched through a window. My heart actually started beating faster when the waitress seated an older woman and a younger woman and her male significant other (no wedding rings, but clearly a couple) at the table under surveillance. The older woman picked up my poem, gave it a dismissive look, and stuck it in the crack between the two wooden tables.

The time they perused the menu felt like forever. Seriously, who sets poetry aside to ponder food? When at last they put down their menus, the younger woman plucked the poem from between the tables read it. The farther she read, the broader her smile grew. She laid her hand on the man’s arm, said something, and held the poem in front of him. Immediately he held up his right hand as if to protect himself from this sudden sonnet attack. If I had to guess what I saw him say it would be akin to, “No Brussels sprouts for me.” She laid the poem aside and her smile disappeared. They continued to chat.

I enjoyed this noontime prosodical espionage and the further challenge to fill the space in my life with poetry, with art, and with beauty. When autumn rolls around and academic work and my serious life takes over my senses, would one of you please kick me in the right brain?

——

Readers, we invite you to post your thoughts in the comment section.
Colorado Susan‘s next post will bloom in July.

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    Ataraxia

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    Today’s Best Word Ever is ataraxia: calmness untouched by mental or emotional disquiet.

    Circa 1600 noun—also Anglicized as ataraxy—from Modern Latin, from Greek ataraxia, “impassiveness,” from a- + tarassein “to disturb, confuse.” 

     

    The first day of summer vacation the kids rose with a roar at 5:30 
    and Mom was already reaching deep within to achieve ataraxia.

     

    Thumbnail for version as of 10:55, 30 August 2011
    I musk be calm! I musk be calm!

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      P.S. New Jersey SCBWI Conference

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      I wrote a much longer, detailed post about my experience at the this year’s New Jersey SCBWI conference that I just deleted.

      I’ll get to the point: much occurred.

      I taught a poetry seminar for novelists and picture book writers. I gave one-on-one critiques. I heard inspiring keynote speeches by Dan Yaccarino and Kate DeCamillo. I communicated with my fellow children’s book writers and illustrators. I spent a lot of great face time with my agent. I talked shop and shopped for books, many of them new publications by people I have come to know and respect.

      I came home with a stack of business cards of new faces I hope to keep in touch with, most notably a poet from Kansas and a novelist from Bridgewater. I came home to an invitation to join an online poetry critique group.

      What is the lesson of the angel behind all of this? First of all, her name is Beth and she’s a real person. Second, her human form isn’t scary but her true form is. As Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in the First Elegy of his Duino Elegies:

                                                                For beauty is nothing
      but the beginning of terror, which we can just barely endure,
      and we stand in awe of it as it coolly
      disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

      The true challenge of this conference—for me—wasn’t conducting my seminars or giving the critiques or taking notes during workshops and speeches. It was navigating through the crowds and interacting with the other conference attendees. It was diving into community.

      That’s an extra challenge for someone, like me, who has strong monkish inclinations.

      But my angel kept appearing to nudge me to continue to leap, and I did. It  felt like an abyss, but what I plunged into was fellowship, inspiration, and renewed commitment to continue this well-worn yet solitary pilgrimage.

      We all have sharp edges. We can cut each other. We can also polish each other to incandescence. It’s a glow that lights our way forward.

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        Cross-pollination

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        This weekend I’ll participate in the annual New Jersey SCBWI convention in Princeton—as an attendee, but also as a faculty member. I’ll be giving critiques on novel, picture book, and rhyming picture book manuscripts, as well as poetry collections. I’ll also teach two sessions of a seminar called “Summoning the Muse: Let Poetry Add Precision and Punch to Your Novel” or “Picture Book.”

        A lot lies in store for this weekend, including seeing some inspiring artwork, taking notes in great sessions on all sorts of topics for children’s book writers and illustrators, and hearing words of wisdom from keynote speakers Kate DiCamillo and Dan Yaccarino. I’m looking forward to soaking up the fellowship as well as the many lessons to be learned at the conference.

        I’ve been working on a MFA in poetry with a focus on versecraft at Western State College of Colorado at the same time I’ve been exploring avenues and opportunities in children’s publishing, and a lot of cross-pollination has occurred in my own writing. The thought of the small part I’ll be playing in the NJ SCBWI conference proceedings is a bit daunting. However, I’m also excited to share what I’ve learned about versecraft with my compatriots.

        This conference is another opportunity for attendees to cross-pollinate in terms of writing and illustrating for children, but personally, I’m also really, really ready to stop, breathe, and admire all the good things blooming around us.

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          The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Octopi

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          Today, it’s pouring intermittently.

          The sky is gunmetal gray and the birds are damp and thoughtful.

          In the pink hanging geranium on our porch, two house finch eggs in the nest of six have hatched. The mother bird, now accustomed to our comings and goings, doesn’t fly off in a panic every times we pass by—an act that has startled us as consistently as our activity has startled her.

          All of us has our own business on our minds.

          I can see the geranium from my desk, which abuts the front windows that face the road. Our window boxes hold pots of weakening pansies, a leggy plant formerly unfamiliar to me that blooms tiny purple flowers that scatter and make a mess, and colorful early spring lettuces.

          I have the windows open as I write this post. It’s pouring softly, which soothes my sense of urgency. I have so much work to do—but the rain gently hushes my anxiety. I pause to let my senses overtake my brain. A neighborhood car splashes by and I picture puddle-jumping in plastic red boots as a child.

          Rainy days were just as enlightening as sunny ones back then.

          For what else is rain but nourishment? What is an egg but the promise of new life? And what is birdsong but that house finch doing her job well—without apology, without ambition, and with an expert joy that is our native state of being, if we allow for it?

          A garbage truck rumbles past with its interrupting growl and stink. Next, my beloved tuxedo cat, Oreo, shows up from somewhere else in the house. He purrs enormously and begins making biscuits on the throws on the armchair beside my desk. He’ll settle into a nose-whistling nap before I finish writing my next paragraph.

          I notice that every time the rain slows and the sky brightens, even slightly, the birds start singing again. What does that say about the nature of things?

          A time for rain. A time for sun. A time to reflect. A time to sing. Is there a constant? It might be Oreo, my good and loving companion, along with enough silence and space to keep on writing.

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