A Poet Challenges AI to a Duel

As a poet and writer for my entire adult life (and lately, a student of arti), I’ve viewed Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a threat to human creativity (dare I say, human existence.)

Until today, I hadn’t sought help from artificial sources, but I was curious to see how AI would respond to one of my poems. So, for the test case, I picked an inspirational poem that’s received positive reader-responses.

 

Wait!

Wait for God

to respond.

He hears.

He turns toward His crying child.

He reaches down into your clay crib

and brings you up, high,

high,

into His bosom.

He sets you on His shoulder.

He jostles you on His knee.

And when you're comforted and quiet,

He holds you closely

and teaches you to speak,

to pray.

 

Here’s the same poem, rewritten with Artificial Intelligence (AI.)

 

Wait!

Hold in hope,

for God's reply.

He listens.

His heart turns to His tender child.

He leans down into your fragile soul

and lifts you up, soaring,

soaring,

into His warm embrace.

He carries you upon His back.

He gently sways you on His arm.

And when you're at peace and silent,

He whispers close,

teaching you to speak,

to pray.

 

As you reread both versions, ask yourself:

Is the AI version an improvement?

Does it sound poetic as you read it aloud?

Is a crying child the same as a tender child?

Which is easier to envision – a fragile soul or a clay crib?

Have you ever seen parents carry young children on their shoulders? Is that the same imagery or the same feeling a child might get when carried in a backpack?

If you jostle a young child on your knee does that equate to gently swaying a baby on your arm?

My point is that when AI took over, it instantaneously changed the imagery, lost the poetic rhythm, and produced a sugary version that failed to create anything fresh or new. Now I cannot speak for technical writings, data summaries, or prose in general, but it would seem that poets who take their work seriously have nothing to fear.

If we give our poems the time they deserve to reveal something new to us and our readers and/or if we find fresh ways to express our thoughts and feelings (neither of which AI possesses) poets, writers, musicians, artists, and human beings of all ages will, Lord willing, remain irreplaceable.

 

Mary Harwell Sayler

"Wait" (my version, not AI) was previously published in the Explorer, Letters to a Priest Anthology, and book A Gathering of Poems.

 

Reviving our Uncommonly Used Senses

 

True or not, many people, myself included, think common senses has long been declining. However, uncommon sense has seldom exceeded the norm – at least not beyond childhood when everything was new.

 

Children notice, explore, and investigate through their senses. When we were kids, we probably did too. We touched the roughness of asphalt pavement or dad’s day-old beard and felt the smoothness of a glass window or the softness of an elderly arm.

 

We noticed how the smell of air changed from before to after a storm, and we breathed in the odor of brownies baking or sweet clover on a summer day.

 

We tasted the sharp tang of a lemon and cold sweetness of ice cream, and we listened for the song of a wren or the sound of a coming train.

 

Our eyes took in everything beautiful, everything misshapen, everything out of place. Some of us even had the ability to sense the mood of a sibling, parent, or teacher, and we could readily recognize the variations of tone in a dog’s bark.

 

Lord willing, those senses remain available to most of us, assuming we choose to train ourselves to tap back into them. But, why bother?

 

Straining for imagination doesn’t add honesty or realism or provide the best way to identify with readers. However, simply paying attention to what we see, feel, taste, hear, smell, and sense will elevate our poetry – and, indeed, all genres of writing – from the common to the uncommon. Haiku, especially, requires observation, for example:

 

Heavy fog hung low,

shrouding the sky with a veil

ripped open by rain.

…

Memory flickers

like an old movie reel – off

and on or broken.

…

Longer poems can also result from paying attention:

 

Clarity

 

A moment of thankfulness intrigues me

by its rarity. What’s the problem here?

 

Sitting on the deck, I’m hardly aware

of the blue heron staring at the pond,

 

searching for some deep meaning.

Instead, I notice the sun glaring in my eyes,

 

the tin roof of the new house across the water

reflecting all around me, the pesky mosquito

 

buzzing for warmth before I slap a warning,

but then comes the dawning

 

of beauty,

of birdcall,

 

a hum of music,

a note of thankfulness.

 

Mary Harwell Sayler

from poetry book

A Gathering of Poems

 

 

Most of my favorite poets are close observers, such as those discussed in the previous posts linked below. Their brilliant descriptions and fresh figurative language make us want to read their poetry again and again:

 

Mary Oliver

Wendell Berry

T.S. Eliot

Rainer Maria Rilke

Charles Wright

Pattiann Rogers

 

If you’ve discovered poets whose poems ignite your enthusiasm for observation, or reawaken your senses, let us know in the Comments below. Thanks.

…

The Arts have much in common

 

A composer composes a tune or score of music.

An artist considers the composition of a sketch or painting.

A writer writes in a composition notebook.

A poet composes a poem.

And, if we hope to be the best possible poet, writer, artist, or musician, we might need composure to compose ourselves!

The Thesaurus inherent in Word software offers these synonyms for "compose": 

• Invent
• Create
• Unite
• Combine
• Make 

In each of the arts mentioned, our work consists of the following factors we can connect, make something of, or combine in inventive ways:

 

Composition – A particular arrangement of notes, syllables, objects, or words can be boring, pleasing, or, preferably, breath-taking.

 

Line – A line of musical notes, a line of poetry, a line drawn on canvas or paper provides coherence to the work as a whole. The direction of those lines affects the artwork too. For example, a visual artist might draw a diagonal line to depict dynamic movement, a vertical line to show stability, or a horizontal line to evoke calmness.

 

Rhythm – The tempo, beat, or pace of a piece of music is generally obvious to our ears, but the musicality of a poem or the flow of lines and shapes in a painting have rhythm too – rhythm as vital as a person’s pulse.

 

Tone – The sound of music and the attitude suggested by a poem or painting heightens the tone of voice, while contrasts of light and dark add tonal value. With these elements at play, the work might come across as calm, lively, moody, maudlin, or an explosion of anger, grief, or joy.

 

Color – Colorful words in poetry occur best as strong nouns that readers can envision and active verbs that set those pictures into motion. In a painting, one color or hue highlights, complements, or contrasts with another. In music, jazz is often called “the blues.”

 

Texture – Since texture adds layers of interest and/or roughs up an otherwise smooth surface, we likely hear it in music with a change of tempo or a change of the tension between harmony and discord. For more about texture in art and poetry, see the last blogpost, “How can a poem have texture?” 

 

Theme – Each of the arts addresses or expresses topics that will be interesting or relevant to most people – subjects such as birth, death, faith, hope, love, infinity, and everything in between. Often, creative people have life themes recurring in their work. In mine, the same basic themes keep coming up: “God is good and can be trusted to work things out for our good” and “Everyone on earth needs to be treated with respect."

 

Techniques – Sometimes artistic people prefer to play by ear or wing it, rather than learning the technical tools at their disposal. For poetry or other forms of writing, a good grasp of grammar and a wealth of words will help, whereas visual artists need to know the effects of brushes, surfaces, and other utensils, and, musicians, lyricists, and composers need to know how to read music. These tools take only a little time to learn but a lifetime to utilize and open up more opportunities.

 

Similarly, a poet needs to know how to read a poem and an artist to read a piece of art in order to fully experience, enjoy, and learn from the work of someone else. All of us need to study our favorite forms or genres, of course, but studying works you never thought you’d attempt yourself can be especially insightful and delightful.

 

Most likely, other similarities occur in the arts, and if you have some to add, please do in the Comments section on this page. Thanks. And, regardless of your artistic interests, don't forget to experiment, practice, play, and have fun.

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer, and maybe-someday artist

 

…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can a poem have texture?

 

When I think of texture, I think of cable-knit wool sweaters, beach sand, seashells, pine needles, corduroy – all touchable and recognizable by our fingertips. Obviously, we can’t do that with poetry, so how can we give our poems texture?

A definition might help. According to poets who know about such matters, texture can include figurative language (metaphor, simile, etc.) and rhyme or rhythm (musicality.)

To give you an example, let’s look at the well-textured opening of this famous poem that most of us studied in high school but didn’t have a clue about what it mean until now:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T. S. ELIOT

 

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent….

Read that verse aloud to get the full impact of its texture and beauty. Then read aloud this bare-bones version, picked clean of the good stuff:

Let us go,        

When evening is spread against sky

Like a patient on a table;

Let us go, through streets,

The retreats

Of nights in hotels

And restaurants:

Streets

Of intent….

See? Hear? Poems need more than flat sentences and totally understandable statements. They need texture – something to alert or even disturb the wandering mind.

This week, I’ve been reading a wonderful book, Painting Abstracts, by Rolina van Vliet. She talks about visual art, of course, but her definition, “What is texture?” helped me to understand more in relation to poetry:

“By texture we mean all the effects which disturb and penetrate the smooth… surface. It is the varied layers we use to construct our work…. It is how we vary the surface area using irregularities, emphases, rhythms, height, differences or roughness. Texture is a very strong artistic element….”

The author-artist goes on to list some of the things texture can accomplish:

• activates imagination, creativity and expression
• initiates experimentation and discovery
• stimulates the discovery of one’s own imagery, our artistic vocabulary
• lead to unexpected, interesting and surprising effects
• ensures variation, contrast, emphasis and dynamics

and more – always more as you revise your poems, play with lines, and experiment with the sounds and meanings of words.

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer

 

…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Haiku Helps

 

Reading and writing haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems help us to see more detail and say more in fewer words. Why should this matter to poets and writers?

 

Brevity

 

Many of the poems posted on the Internet go on and on, like a first draft that was never read aloud, reconsidered, or revised. With just a little more wait-time allowed after writing and just a little more listening time allowed to evaluate the sound echoes, rhythm, and musicality, each poem can go from “okay” to “good” or “good” to “well-done.”

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems remind us to be brief.

 

Clarity

 

Lengthy poems often have overlapping pictures with no clear focus. This can happen by mixing metaphors, but also because the poem has no clear direction. That’s fine in a first draft, but after letting a poem sit for a while before coming back to revise, poets are more apt to see what they and the poem are trying to say.

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems call on the clarity of a well-taken photograph or an artist’s quick sketch.

 

Beauty

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems frequently rely on a beautiful sight or insight (preferably both!)

 

This awareness of a fleeting thought, moment, or scene causes us to welcome the unexpected, be alert for the exquisite, be attentive to the profound, and be appreciative of our environment.

 

Other Features

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems are so transportable! They encourage us to keep a notebook handy.

 

These little forms help us to break free of rhymes that quickly close down thought, originality, and natural-sounding language. Also, by focusing on rhyming words, we might overlook other poetic factors, waiting to reveal themselves.

 

When we give ourselves and our poems over to the traditional 5/7/5 syllables in the three lines of haiku or senryu, we begin to think in form. If we prefer 2/4/2 or 3/4/3 or other syllabic count, that works too. Regardless, we’ll eventually be apt to count out those syllables on our fingers, activating kinetic memory, exercising creativity, and becoming more aware of the poetic moments in our lives.

 

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer

 

…

 

 

 

The power of meaning-filled words

 

This morning as I looked through a book on painting with oil pastels, I was reminded of an old school lesson on vision: i.e., The rods of the eye distinguish light from dark, whereas the cones assess hues of color.

 

Reading about rods and cones brought to mind the fourth verse of the twenty-third Psalm:

 

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.”

 

Wow! This newly considered meaning of “rods” resulted in the following senryu, which I wrote down quickly before I forgot!

 

The rods of the eye
distinguish light from darkness.
God’s rods comfort me.

©Mary Harwell Sayler

 

In this instance, the added connotations produced a poem, but this process can work backwards too. For example, as you read through poems you have already written, consider each word and any additional meanings they might have. Then, as you revise, use the most interesting connotations to add new depth and fresh insight to your poetry.

 

 

…

 

 

 

 

Throwing a wrench in rhyme

 

The expression, “throwing a wrench into the works,” typically refers to the effort to prevent a plan or keep something from working properly. In poetry, that wrenching can occur in wrenched rhymes.

True rhymes not only have echoing syllables at the end of each rhyming word, they have the same emphasis or syllabic stress. For instance, round/found echo the sound and also the accent. 

Conversely, singing/bring wrenches the true rhyme of sing/bring, whereas rhyming/wing emphasizes the differences in syllables – i.e., RHYming/ WING.

Wrenches can also occur by forcing the poem’s syntax (i.e., normal sentence structure or word sequence) in order to make a rhyme. For an example of such violence to the English language:

Wrenched syntax puts words in a position weird
when a poet tries to make lines rhyme-adhered.

Or to say it the regular way:

Wrenched syntax pushes words around just so they’ll rhyme – even if the phrase or sentence now makes less sense!

That said, you might want to wrench your words and rhymes on purpose for the sake of humor.

For more on rhymes, see the prior post “Good Times to Write in Rhymes.” 

For more help on writing or revising poems in general, my former poetry correspondence course is available in this updated paperback, A Poet’s Guide to Writing Poetry.

For a lively way to enjoy poetry and learn more about its many forms and terminology, The ABC's of Poetry: A Dictionary for Children and for Fun is now available in hardback.

 

©2021, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet-writer, book author in all genres, including A Gathering of Poems

 

…

Playing by Ear: the sounds of poetry

Have you or someone you know ever heard a song for the first time then played the melody on a piano or other instrument without any sheet music. That ability to “play by ear” usually denotes musical giftedness, which occurs among poets too. 

Often, musically inclined poets play with melodies they’ve heard in school, which leads them to a head-start in poetry as they skillfully write rhythmic, rhyming verses to the amazement of teachers, friends, and family. Unfortunately, those “gifted” ones might never try to develop their “poetic ear,” while those who lack that natural ability think they can’t write poetry at all. Wrong and wrong!

If you’re a “natural” at writing poems, these links to prior posts can help you expand your options as you write and revise:

Unlocking clockwork rhyme

Enjambment and rhyme placement tone down jangling rhymes  

Using alliteration for sound echoes and for fun

Revising for Sound and Sense

For the “naturally gifted” poet and also those who don’t think they are (or ever will be!) a poet, learn to play by ear as you read aloud poems by other poets or listen to recordings such as these favorites:

Caedmon Poetry Collection: A Century of Poets Reading Their Work, CD

Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath (Book and 3Audio CDs)

Poetry On Record: 98 Poets ReadTheir Work (1888-2006)
 

You can find recordings by contemporary poets too, such as this one by Mary Oliver, whose words coaxed me back to writing poetry after a gap of many years:

At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver

If you prefer listening to poems read on the Internet, check out these sites:

Poetry Archive

poets.org | Academy of American Poets

Children's Poetry Archive - Listen to the world's best children's poetry read out loud.

Listen | Poetry Foundation

And, for a variety of poetry forms and techniques to play with, listen to, experiment with, and enjoy, the user-friendly paperback (and former course) A Poet's Guide to Writing Poetry can help you to develop an ear for poetry and/or fine-tune your natural ability to play by ear.

                                                                                                           

©2021, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet-writer, all genres

 

Is it a minipoem or first line?

In the previous post “Poetry Revision:Less can bring more to a poem,” we read “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, who originally addressed his Parisian subject in a long poem he didn’t particularly like. After letting those lines sit for many months, he condensed thirty into three, creating an exquisite minipoem that almost everyone loves. (I do so much, it prefaces my poetry book Faces in a Crowd.)

So here’s the question: 

How do we know the size and shape of a poem? 

or

How do we identify our lines as a minipoem complete in itself or as the first line of a longer piece?

Sometimes we can’t tell! Sometimes we might need to toss the poem aside for days, months, or years, and later come back with a fresh eye and clear feelings about whether we even like the poem or not.

This week, for instance, the following lines came to me:

 

When I’m gone
will you walk alone
in the rain?

 

As you see from the line-breaks, I initially heard those lines as a minipoem, and I liked the thought, the image, and the echoes of sound apparent from the start.

But then, I started wondering? Is that poem finished? Has it said all it needed to say? And so, I started playing with the lines a bit more with these results:

 

When I’m gone will you walk alone in the rain?

Will you retrace our steps again, or wander home,
hoping for the comfort of a warm fire and a shawl?

Is this all our memories will ever own –
a slow walk in the rain?

That version is okay, but I’m not sure what it’s saying. More important, I don’t love it. So I tried again:

 

When I’m gone
will you walk alone in the rain?

Will you retrace our steps again,
or wander home,
hoping for the comfort
of a warm fire and a shawl?

Is this all our memories
will own – a slow walk in the rain
heading nowhere we’ve not known?

That version says more, but it doesn’t particularly resonate with my life and experiences. So now I’m wondering if it resonates more with readers? 

What do you think – first version, last, the one in between, or something else entirely?

I'm honestly interested in your response. Do you see, though, how there’s no “right answer” to such questions we face as poets and readers? I suspect some of you will connect more with the last version of my example, even though I don’t. My preference remains with those first lines that came to me as my husband and I pondered taking a walk in the rain – until it thundered!

 

Mary Harwell Sayler, ©2020

 

…

 

What draws you to write poems?

As a kid, I used to draw faces. The similarities and dissimilarities between us make a fascinating mix we could observe forever and still find something unique. Now, as a poet-writer in all genres, I seldom draw anything, but I continue to be drawn to people and the human and spiritual natures that connect us and yet differ too.

Take, for example, the general, skeletal outline we share. Some bones seem shortened, some elongated, some sturdy, some rather frail. Regardless, we each have a skeleton wrapped in us.

Or take our eyes. Some seem as open to fresh air as windows on an afternoon in Spring, while others seem unfathomable or (shudder) unlit. Nevertheless, we're each meant to have eyes.

And what about our poetic interests? Children like to experiment, play, and discover, but people who lose those qualities of wonder may be less apt to investigate new territories or develop creativity.

To be honest, I didn’t think about any of those things before writing “Adult Coloring Book.” Instead, the poem rose to the surface for me to write down and, only later, invite me to explore my ongoing interest in “you,” “them,” and (my favorite) “us.”


Adult Coloring Book

The people in these poems are void
of pigment – transparent but for bones
of chalk, Swiss cheese, or granite.

Sometimes they look at us with eyes
cat-colored by the sun but never sky
or tree bark or lumps of unlit coal.

Their hands weave lace from sea foam
and sew dandelions around our souls.

They stitch together words in folds
of scripture, ready to read us, ready
to color us whole.

By Mary Harwell Sayler, ©2017, from poetry book Lost in Faith

Lost in Faith



…

Poems of PRAISE!

The Psalms provide wonderful examples of ways to praise, pray, thank God – and also to complain and lament! A study of those timeless poems shows almost all of the lamentations in Psalms as beginning with a concern but ending with praise or thanksgiving. That uplift at the end exemplifies a strong faith in God, despite hard or scary circumstances, and also shows how the poured-out-heart of a poet must remain completely honest and wholly vulnerable.

Unlike the “made poem” of the sonnet and other traditional verse, this type of poetry writing relies on prayer and spontaneity. For example, a startling phrase or insight may suddenly come to mind and need to be written down in a spirit of obedience, rather than the usual intent on creativity. Once those words have been recorded on paper or computer, the rest of the poem will often follow freely.

You might call such poems short meditations, but as a lifelong lover of the Bible, I consider these types of poems as contemporary psalms and prayer-poems. At least, that’s how I would describe the poetry in my book PRAISE! which Cladach Publishing released this March.

To give you an example, the word ruah appears hundreds of times in the Bible and, depending on its context, means wind, an animating force, or the Holy Spirit. That thought brought to mind God’s Breath, which soon brought forth other thoughts in this poem:

Praise God the Breath of Life –

Who breathed me awake
at birth,

Who breathes on me now
in my sleep,

Who keeps my lungs filled
with Holy Spirit Ruah,

and takes my breath away.

by Mary Harwell Sayler, from PRAISE!

For about a year, the opening lines or thoughts for praise poems came to me with the rest of the lines usually following fairly quickly, eventually leading to their collection in the print book PRAISE!

Like the biblical psalms, these poems came without titles. Rather than labeling them numerically, as editors did in later years for the Psalms, I saw the first line as the poem’s title.

Since I’m writing this the day before Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent – I’ll give you an example of the title as first line in this time-appropriate poem.

The day holds its people

to star words and crystal
globes, to apron strings
and past experiences,
to present predicaments
and verdicts of guilt.

Who so bound
can stand?

Oh, praise! Oh,
praise the Son
of Man!

Praise Christ,
Who bound
to the cross
for our sins,
willingly died.

Praise our Lord
Who cuts us free
with the sword
thrust into His side.

by Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2017, and included in PRAISE! – the book of contemporary psalms and prayer-poems published by Cladach Publishing


PRAISE! paperback


…

5 kinds of poetry

In critiquing books and batches of poems, I often find some confusion about the type of poems a poet aims to write. That’s important to know, not as you write a poem, but as you revise since you need to keep a specific readership in mind – assuming you want your poems to be published in a journal, anthology, e-zine, or anywhere other than your own blog or website.

Even if you do self-publish, you’ll encounter far less disappointing responses from readers if you give them and your overall purpose some serious thought. For example, do you want to perform your poems on a stage, perhaps accompanied by music? Do you want your work included in a well-established poetry journal? Or do you hope your poems will uplift people spiritually or speak to them on an emotional level?

Your answers to the above questions should help you to narrow your focus on one of these common kinds of poems:

• Performance Poetry
• Greeting Card Verse
• Confessional Poems
• Contemporary Psalms
• Literary Poetry

Each of those types of poems has a different purpose and audience, but also a different style with differing techniques that make the poem work - or not! For example:

Performance Poetry – As the name suggests, this type of poetry is meant to be performed in front of a live audience, typically with music to accompany your recitation since success often rests on the rhythm. Such poems may be chanted or semi-sung as you would do in performing rap lyrics, though the beat might not be quite as strong.

Regardless, if you aspire to performing the poems you write, your subject matter must interest your intended audience. For a couple of extreme examples, a nightclub setting will require a totally different topic for each poem than, say, a Bible-based or liturgical poem performed in a church or synagogue.

In either case – or somewhere in-between – the poem can rhyme or not, but too much rhyme can be deafening while too little might not be heard without a strong beat to accentuate the rhyming words.

If you have someone to video tape your performance ahead of time, great! Without that feedback to learn from, however, you do well to grab your hairbrush and perform in front of a mirror until what you see and hear gives you a performance you’d welcome from someone else!

Greeting Card Verse – Short, rhyming poems with two to ten lines that acknowledge grief or celebrate a happy special occasion fall into this category. The key here is to be sincere in saying what you wish someone would say to you in similar circumstances. If the results speak to or for most people in a fresh way, you might approach the publisher of greeting cards with some samples of your work.

Confessional Poems – Because of the unique circumstances or people involved in this type of poem, a confessional poem nicely flows into conversational free verse but needs fresh insights or comparisons to lift the lines out of a diary and into a poem others will identify with and want to read. Honesty prevails as does language appropriate for your intended readers.

These poems can become psalms if they seek and speak to God instead of yourself or someone else.

Contemporary Psalms – Laments, praise poems, prayer-poems, cries, and thanksgiving to God form the heart, soul, and spirit of psalms written for readers today. These poems can be any length and work best in a sincere, conversational tone with little or no rhyme. In other words, the poem needs to be what you truly think and feel before closing on the remembrance that God is with you and aware of you and your concern.

Since I felt a need to count blessings and focus on the diverse causes of praise in my life, I’ve been writing and blogging Praise Poems, some of which began as laments or confessionals, but all of which end on an uplifting note – for me and, Lord willing, for you.

Literary Poetry – All of the above have the potential to be of literary quality! But how does that happen? One way is to use a traditional form of metered or syllabic verse, both of which you can search out in previous posts on this blog.

No matter what form you use, though, the inclusion of such traits as imagery, alliteration, internal rhyme, or other technique is vital to the success of a poem. Each of those factors and many other options are discussed in the Christian Poet’s Guide to Writing Poetry – the e-book version of the reader-friendly poetry home study course I revised with Christians in mind to assure you that the examples used to illustrate various poetic traits or forms will consistently be G-rated.

by Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2016

...

Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching

If you would love to be in a crowd of poets where each literary artist gives you a woman's perspective on writing, revising, publishing, and teaching poetry, this is it!

This is the book I wish I’d had when I began sending my poems to potential publishers – the book I wish I’d had before leading my first writing workshop or teaching poetic forms to a class of third graders or doing poetry readings. This book might have eased my search for role models and lessened my remorse over having to learn to market myself. This is the book that might have given me a realistic view of publishing to offset the assumptions made when I earned $35 for a single poem the first time a publisher accepted my work for publication over 30 years ago! Since then I’ve received many writer’s copies but almost no cash, eventually learning the hard way many of the helpful experiences and information you'll find in this book.

Published by McFarland, who kindly gave me a copy to review, Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching presents 59 essays from an eclectic group of poets offering diverse approaches to poetry related to one of these general categories:

Part I
Our Writing Life – A Collective Voice

Part II
We Who Pass It On – Tips on Teaching

Part III
The Next Step – Publishing Our Poetry

Part IV
Just for Us – Essential Wisdom

To begin at the beginning, renowned poet Molly Peacock gives a word of advice in the Foreword that took me years of looking back to see! She said: “Noticing – the act of simple observation – lies at the foundation of lyric poetry. It is the precision of noticing that leads to the leaps of metaphor that thrill the readers of the art.”

Or, to say it another way: Neither a heightened imagination nor a high I.Q. mark a poet who writes with precision and freshness. However, the work of a poet who simply notices everything is apt to be brilliant!

For centuries though, the shine of a poet has typically spotlighted men who write, and so, as Editors Carol Smallwood, Collen S. Harris and Cynthia Brackett-Vincent explain in the Introduction, “It follows, then, that women poets may have a more difficult time thinking of themselves as ‘serious poets’ and have a more difficult time feeling comfortable promoting themselves as poets.”

That’s certainly been true for me. And yet, with the exception of my first-store-bought-book of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the work of women poets often discouraged me in my early years of writing more than poetry by men! With too few female artists being anthologized or discussed in literature classes, I saw women poet-peers as wordy workers of words apt to go on and on in confessionals, suicidal thoughts, or exploration of their own body parts. Since none of that interested me, I filled my bookshelves with poetry from Auden to Yates with a little Zen thrown in until I gleefully discovered Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon, Pattianne Rogers, Jorie Graham, Anna Akhmatova, and Denise Levertov as other-centered poets with whom I enjoyed keeping company and learning about the world at large.

I pray our peer base of female poets addressing universal subjects will widen as we read this highly recommended book and consider such topics as “The Fine Art of Revision,” “In Praise of the Chapbook,” “Writing Prompts,” and “Give ‘Em the Beat: Tips on Teaching Meter,” which also shows you how to revise a rhythmic poem to fit a metered form.

Also in the first two sections, one of my favorite chapters, “Fishing Lines, Dream Hieroglyphics: How to Begin a Poem,” provides “Twelve Ways to Jump Start a Poem,” with suggestions ranging from browsing a dictionary (which Billy Collins has reportedly done) to listening to music (which T.S. Eliot was known to do.) For me, observing nature (which Mary Oliver does) jumpstarted at least two book of poems and intense Bible study another.

To keep learning and improving our poetry, the works of other poets can continue to inform and inspire us, hopefully, throughout our long poetic lives. I also want to support poetry in the arts, but after buying hundreds of poetry books, chapbooks, and anthologies, I decided to support my habit by requesting review copies from traditional publishers whose work I already know I like. Studying those books and seeing what works and what does not cannot help but help my own poetry, and I like the idea of helping other poets as you’ll be encouraged to do in the essay on “How – and Why – to Write Book Reviews.”

I've merely highlighted a few of my Favs here, but in Women on Poetry, you can expect to find a wealth of preferences and practices by over 40 poets whose ideas on writing, revising, publishing, and teaching will guide you and your poetic writing life.


© 2014, Mary Sayler


Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching, paperback



Or call the order line for McFarland – 800-253-2187.
…