It needs to be said, is all.
When Chef Mucus makes a mincemeat
When Chef Mucus makes a mincemeat
he boils up the brain
tossing out the cartilage and
spicing up the plain-
tasting parts of my head
with cider and cinnamon
the tongue will taste just right
add a little nutmeg
and the eyes are outta sight
finish it with salt to taste
and bake for half an hour
and hope the guests the Allergys
enjoy the season’s flowers.
It is not Wednesday. In fact, it is nearly Friday, which makes this post almost two days late. Among other things, that means my promise to write daily isn’t going as well as I’d hoped. For that, I have little excuse. Nor have I an excuse for the even greater tardiness of the subject of this post. Way back in September I challenged Jeremy P—— to practice writing formal poetry. I said it would help him learn to write with the line rather than in spite of it. I said that I would write whatever he did, and then I laid it on the line: Write a villanelle," I said.
“Well, f— me!” he replied. “You might as well have asked me to f— an elephant.”
Then he added, “It’s not a real form, you know. It’s not ancient.”
Despite the vulgarity and the snobbery, he obliged, sending me a dramatic rendition of the fall of Barcelona during World War 2. He didn’t follow the assignment all that well; he played fast and loose with the idea that the first stanza’s first and third lines should in fact repeat. But it was a fair poem nonetheless. (He says he has revised it since, and that it is much better now.) Meanwhile, for several weeks I would write him, saying “I’m still working on it,” though I wasn’t, and eventually I didn’t say anything at all, hoping he might forget. And he may have: soon after my challenge, he published his first poem, then he published another, and then he was invited to write some occasional poetry for a Haiti benefit, and in less than a winter his poetic career had taken off no thanks to my lame and unnecessary “formal poems will help you write with the line” attempt at an intervention.
But even if Jeremy did forget, I didn’t. I kept his villanelle in my inbox, and every time I cleaned it of all the mail I had replied to, I felt a twinge of regret that I couldn’t archive it, too. Now, six months after he sent it, I have decided to do something about it.
A week has passed since all was still
A week has passed since all was still.
The snow and ice and bitter wind had won. But
today a blackbird returned to sing his trill,
and tonight, while walking the dog, I saw
a muskrat swimming in the creek.
A week has passed since all was still
unknown. “The nurse will call soon,”
I said. “We will know what to do.”
Today a blackbird returned to sing his trill
from the same honey locust perch he held
last year when I was clueless. Then, I couldn’t say
“A week has passed since all was still”
because despite the doctors’ cool confidence
I was frantic to find hope in confidences.
Today a blackbird returned to sing his trill
soon after her call. We were clueless.
Still, no one regrets winter’s passing.
A week has passed since all was still.
Today a blackbird returned to sing his trill.
I’ve decided that Wednesday can’t be for poetry alone—I’ve just never had that much of a head for it; instead, it’s about the arts in general. Visual arts or poetry or fiction, whatever strikes my fancy. Meanwhile, Thursday and Friday topics are still in the air, though I think Laura might have a good idea for Fridays.
Unfortunately, however, tonight is a bust; I’m exhausted and can’t think straight enough to rhyme. Instead, what I can do is ask two questions:
Monday, March 1, I will begin writing daily columns for this blog. I haven’t settled on the topics quite yet, but so far, the week looks like this:
| Day | Topic | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Education & Other Professional Things | I would like to use Mondays to write about education policy. However, there is a rather draconian ethics policy at my place of employ that may preclude or severely limit what I can say; I’ll be looking into it later this week. |
| Tuesday | Local News and Commentary | I don’t pretend that anyone cares what I think about Iowa City, but I’ll say it anyway. |
| Wednesday | Poetry | I don’t pretend that anyone cares what I think about poetry, either, but in this case I might chicken out before next Wednesday comes. I mean, what have I to say to poetry besides, “Consider using this word instead of that one.” |
| Thursday | Memoir? | Meh. I’d appreciate any other ideas you have. Really. |
| Friday | ? | I’d appreciate any ideas you have here, too. If it helps, my thinking is along the lines of Kevin Drum’s tradition of Friday Catblogging. I would say baby blogging, but how interested in that could you be? |
Two other points:
1 So long as it doesn’t conflict with the ethics policy.
2 Why becoming a better writer by editing other people’s work is difficult if not impossible is not a bad post idea. I think the answer is tied to this, but I’ll need some time to work it out.
It has taken me years to learn the value of planning ahead when writing. Even into graduate school I told myself that the structure of an argument was best when it developed organically from the source material. I wrote slowly, painstakingly, and, more often than not, futilely trying to prove my point. My essays were often clunky and, worst of all, rarely came to a conclusion at all, much less a satisfying one. Not until my last semester did a professor ask, “Do you outline before you write?” No, I didn’t, and even at the time she asked I wasn’t entirely convinced it was necessary.
Not to confuse being organized with actually having an argument; indeed, in retrospect I more often than not wrote in order to to find something to say. One must respect the creative process if one wants to be creative, and sometimes that is the way things go no matter how much structure you try to impose. My bigger problem was that I didn’t respect that process: I treated first drafts as final and vice versa, too often ending work precisely where it should have begun.
But Greg, I hear you ask, whatever did you learn in college if not how to outline? Dear, dear Reader, do not be so naïve! There is a difference between learning how to do something and learning the necessity of it! Do not forget it!
