A Lot of White Space

I’ve quit defining poetry! If the author says it’s a poem, it is: even if it doesn’t look or sound like anything I’d call a poem. The best definition I’ve heard is “a poem is a piece of writing with a lot of white space around it.” Works every time.

If a definition helps us recognize something, a lack of definition may deny us a common body of evidence -- no specific specimens to study. And yet, we feel comfortable thinking, writing, and debating poetics or poesy.

Much poetry remains private, read only by the poet. But each poem had its creative impulse from some inner catalyst. Should the poem be read by another or read aloud before others, the poet will stand emotionally naked. Not just bared to the skin. Bared to the very depths of the poet's soul.

And that last idea helps identify a source of much -- possibly all -- poetry. However, I think of my poetry as a commingling of soul with intellect, i.e. the mental processes. Language, the seat of intellect, is the medium by which the soul evidences itself in physical reality. John the apostle might have had the same concept with logos -- the word.

And I think that element of soul residing in a poem searches for a kindred soul and/or for a void in need of filling. So, the poem leaves its author: leaves as either exhaled breath or spoken word or radio broadcast. And no matter what the poet thinks he said, the poem now means what the readers comprehend. Poet and readers may discuss, argue, or study the work, but the poet has no authority, no edge: they both are readers.

Here’s a poem I wrote 38 years ago. If you wish to see my 2010 revisions, e-mail me and I’ll send it to you.

awiglaf@comcast.net

THE GIFT

If I could write my love for Thee,

A gift for all posterity,

Then years from now some one might read

Take heed and look to Thee.

But just as likely as the first,

It is that this will die ‘fore me,

And thus my love will never spread,

Nor reach humanity.

Or better yet, a planter I shall be

A gift for all posterity,

And plant my love in fertile soil

For children all to see.

But just as apt is it to be

That none will care or see.

But while I ponder all my plans

A loving Father urges me

To do His bidding—“Live for Me!

Then all you touch will know

My love, through you they’ll know My gift

In you, the Lord they’ll see.

December 7, 1972

Wrong kind of drift!

Today I’m a lazy-river-drifter. More ground-zero, if you get my drift. I did enter my novel in a 1st Novel contest.

For the past week or so, I’ve read more than I’ve written. About January I set a goal to write a new poem each week. Friday I actually completed, well, started and completed, an Easter poem entitled “At the Tomb.” I’d like to share it, but I think contests want unpublished works. And they consider a blog posting as publication.

I’ve read the latest Clive Cussler novels, The Wrecker and Silent Seas. Both are on the Times top sellers. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure novels, try Cussler.

Yesterday I finally bought a book I’d been eying for a month - If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus by Philip Gulley. He’s a Quaker and quite laid-back. Also not nearly as fundamentalist as many people I know.

If you’ve been enjoying my postings, spread the word. If you have some compositions you’d like to share, include them in a comment.

Since I heard some favorable responses to “Never Again,” I’ll include another vignette in this post.

Tomorrow I’ll delve into reading poetry. Unless you’re a poet and your feet show it -- they’re Longfellows, poems don’t have to rhyme. I need to find some inspiration for this week's poem.

WHAT’S THAT AGAIN?

I don’t need Art Linkletter to tell me kids say the darnedest things. My own kids taught me that. For example, when I’m the only adult in the house with my five year old David and the telephone rings, I know to yell, “DO NOT ANSWER THAT PHONE! JUST LET IT RING!” The reason I learned that is David once told some caller--who, so far as I know, never called back--what I was doing.

Not only do kids say the darnedest things, they ask some really good questions. As a teacher, I think kids ought to be encouraged to ask questions. As a parent, I think they ought to learn self-control.

Now I can handle things like “Where does the sun go at night?” And I can even handle those with answers I don’t know, such as, “Daddy, why are carrots yellow and peas green?” I just use a side-stepping technique like, “Maria, don’t talk with food in your mouth.”

But you know, kids also ask questions that have no answers. Questions that not only leave me confused, but also wondering how I can explain to the child that there is no way to give an answer. I just have to sit there looking dumb.

One morning when Maria was in the first grade and David was four, the three of us were sitting at the bar eating our oatmeal. Maria on my right, David on my left.

“Daddy,” Maria said, setting her spoon down and leaning over on my arm, “do you want to hear me count to one hundred by fives?”

“I sure do, Baby,” I told her as I took a sip of my orange juice. “Let me hear you.”

“Five, ten, fifteen, twenty,” she went, sing-songy and sure of herself all the way to one hundred without a miss. “Wasn’t that good!” she asked, looking at me with beaming brown eyes.

“That was just great!” I told her with true pride, and I gave her a hug and a kiss.

David, who had stopped eating as soon as Maria began to count, hung on my left arm watching Maria with total concentration. Then, as I was about to resume my breakfast with a big slug of coffee, David tugged my sleeve and asked, “Daddy, can you count to four by five’s?”

I froze! My coffee cup stopped motionless halfway to my mouth while my mind spun in a rapid-search mode. I came up with nothing and quit. After a moment, I regained control and turned to David, setting my coffee down, “No, Buddy-boy, I can’t.”

“OK,” he said and went back to his oatmeal.

All that day I wanted to tell everyone I saw how David had stumped me. And slowly, as I told and retold the story, I realized I had the answer to one of my questions: “Can I ask God something He can’t answer?” If I had God’s intellect and wisdom, then He could answer anything I asked. But I have finite knowledge; so to Him, some of my questions are just like David’s “Can you count to four by fives?”

For some odd reason, I also feel that when I ask God one of my unanswerable questions, He wants to call to one of His angels, “Guess what that Andrew just asked me.” I think God really likes to hear my voice.

Shorth, not length

Another evolution in my writing was terseness.

I dislike wordy books, lectures, and sermons; as a non-soporific professor, I use as few words as possible! To quote Dr. Suess, “Shorth is better than length.”

Dr. Charlie Moorman taught his USM grad students this rewrite formula. 1. if a clause can be said in a phrase, do so. 2. if a phrase can be said with a word do so. 3. if you can omit the word and retain the meaning, do so.

As a writer I strive to 1) recreate my thoughts on paper and 2) use as few words as possible. (103 wds)

The above was originally 126 words. You might, of course, have loved those omitted words! (Now I’m up to 118.)

I use Michelangelo’s sculpting to illustrate the rewrite process. He starts with a huge block of marble in which he sees his statue: the writer begins with a rough draft in which he sees his thesis. Michelangelo then picks up chisel and mallet to chip away everything that doesn’t belong on his statue: the writer eliminates clauses, phrases, words that do not advance his thesis. Michelangelo polishes his David or Pieta: the writer makes this rhythms and diction communicate the thesis. (¶ originally 96: revised 81)

Of course Michelangelo did not have to create his hunk of marble, but he did need to find the slab that contained his entire concept. And the rough draft must contain the entire concept.

The major drawback of terseness is time and a love of meaningless words and phrases: the verb to be, there, it, this, for example. The major advantage of terseness is a much clearer understanding of ones thesis, the raison d’etre of composing. (275)

***

Of course Michelangelo did not create the marble, but he did find the slab that contained his entire concept. And the rough draft must contain the entire thesis.

Time and a love of meaningless words -- the verb to be, there, it, this, for example -- defeat terseness. But, its major advantage is a much clearer understanding of one’s thesis, the raison d’etre of composing. (262)

Word count excludes parenthetic elements.

Here’s the shortest poem I’ve written.

PURPOSE

Faith is given to the faithless,

Given by the love of God,

Used by us to do His will,

To take the paths that Jesus trod.

An evolving writer

Hey! You’re back!

What kind of writer am I?

Evolving!

My author’s voice has changed. Where once I used poetic diction in my poems and had strong tendencies toward iambs and tetrameter or ballad stanza, I’m now more comfortable in free verse and even blank verse. Occasionally, I even use rhyme.

Where once I was a closet poet, I now enter poems in contests and submit to poetry magazines. And I share with family and friends.

Once I loved adjectives and adverbs. Now I adore verbs -- and anything coming from a verb! Thus, my voice is less tentative and more robust. I don’t want beautiful words or prestigious words or intellectual words unless they are the exact words that will explode with meaning -- MY meaning -- in a reader’s mind.

Tomorrow we’ll see where this thread drifts off to.

How would describe yourself? What kind of writer (or reader) are you?

The following vignette describes a moment in 1952 with my sister.

Never Again!

I stood at my sister’s bedroom window, gazing out over the backyard now painted January gray. “Sit down on the bed with me, Andy,” Mary told me as she struggled to sit up. I glanced at her. She looked much better than she had six weeks ago when we knew she was going to die at any moment. But she was unbelievably changed from the robust teenager she’d been just four months earlier.

I sat down beside her. Mary laid her hand on my arm and asked, “What do they say about me, Andy? Do they say I’m going to die?” I straightened up like I’d been jabbed by a pin and stared at her. Here I was a sixteen-year-old boy trying to figure out how to live, sitting with his seventeen-year-old sister who was trying to figure out how to die.

“Everybody’s going to die,” I said, flopping on my back, my hands folded under my head. “That doesn’t mean anything!” Mary shot at me, fire in her eyes. “And you know it! We’ve always told each other everything; what do the doctors think will happen?”

I lifted my head to look her in the eye. “Leukemia has never been cured. There is no effective treatment. There frequently are short periods of remission, they call it, when the disease seems cured. That’s where you are now.”

“I know all that,” Mary replied. She grimaced as she forced herself into a cross-legged position. “That does not answer my question. What do doctors tell Mom and Dad to get ready for?”

“For you to die before summer gets here,” I told her. I saw the tears form in her eyes, so I got up to leave, knowing I was leaving when she really needed me. But I didn’t know what to do. Her lips were moving as I left the room, but I never heard a word she said.

Two weeks later, in early February, Mary was back in the hospital with a more acute leukemia. We prayed; we called everyone we knew to pray with us. And thank God, the crisis passed. Mary’s condition even seemed to improve. We were told, however, that a gradual deterioration could soon set in.

Every Saturday evening from then on, I went to the hospital to visit her. Usually it was just Mary and me talking about the usual things brothers and sisters talk about: going to school, her boyfriend, Jay, coming to visit her, getting married and having kids, Mom and Dad, the silly things her friends Penny and Marguerite did when they visited.

One Saturday evening near the end of June, Mary was lying flat on her back when I got to her room. “Will you help me roll over on my side and rub my back for me?” she asked. “OK. Your face isn’t swollen as much this week,” I told her, turning her on her side. I began to rub her back. “I won the 440 this week. Coach Batchelder says I am showing improvement.” I chatted away as I rubbed between her shoulder blades and up across her shoulders. Mary didn’t say much; she just listened to me and enjoyed the massage. “Well, it’s time to go, Sis. Here comes the nurse to run me out.” I walked over to the door. “Andy, I want you to know I love you,” Mary said in a labored voice. “Yeah,” I said, “I know. See ya next week.”

Next Saturday morning I woke to see Mom gathering laundry in my room. She heard me stir, saw my eyes open and came over to the bed. “Mary died at 3:00 this morning,” she told me, leaning over to hug, me. I grabbed my Mom’s neck and hung on and said, “Tonight I was going to tell her I loved her too.”

I’ll never miss that chance with anyone else! Never again!

I’ll continue with “What kind of Writer am I” tomorrow.

Let's drift awhile!

So, who invites you to drift with him awhile?

I could start at the beginning, like any good story. Or start at the end, like we do when listing our employment history. Or perhaps, start in the present and weave in the past when needed, as I did in my novel, Appearance & Reality.

You know my name -- Andrew Badger. I also go by Doc, Granddad, NeeNee, Dad, and The bastard. I used to go by Andy and for a while I answered to Sarge. But decades ago I thought Andrew went with Doctor better than Andy did -- more dignified. Thus, Andrew. I’ve always liked my name.

I’ve spent my entire life figuring out what I wanted to be if I grew up. I had fleeting ambitions for garbage man and cowboy, but my first serious goals were missionary or preacher: my parents received both goals warmly. Despite much preaching practice in rescue missions as a youth, I was not as fluent nor as successful as Balaam’s ass.

By the time I retired in 2004, I’d been kicked out of seminary for unChristian attitudes, been a GI over seas, been a 9th grade English teacher (9th graders and I still loath one another), a university English professor, and then a high school and community college instructor, However, halfway through my careers, I nursed intermittent dreams of writing -- being a writer. But not until last year did I dare call myself a writer. I was used to teacher/professor. But writer? What kind of writer? (I've stuck one of my sardonic poems at the bottom!)

Before I go into “What kind of Writer,” a little disclaimer: I have no magic, no expertise that will guarantee anything. I’m not a saviour, a guru, a mentor, or an expert. I’m a fellow traveler, a coconspirator in a community of learners.

I was first an academic writer in the “publish or perish” professorial mode, then I wrote many love poems and many religious poems expressing my spiritual angst, third I wrote a weekly column of vignettes for a local paper, and finally I wrote some poems without my former angst. Then in 2005, I started on my first (and only, to date) novel.

I’ll continue tomorrow with this “Who am I” drift. But check out The Fly!

Hope you’ll drift in for a spell.

THE FLY

It’s just a fly, nothing more,

Buzzing zigzag through the air,

Lighting here and taking off

To eat and breed another heir.

He’s not at all what we must be;

He doesn’t read or wash his face;

He doesn’t sing or go to work;

He merely buzzes any place.

So, smack him dead! He doesn’t know

The proper rules of a regular guy!

Let’s make him pay the final price

For living blithely as a fly.

Some words sound awful but feel great -- like the word f--k. To me, the word blog sounds awful. But I’m in high hopes that blogging is as much fun as -- well, you get the drift!

What do I hope to offer readers? Droll innuendos, wry ambiguities, perhaps a few benign malapropisms.

Mostly, I’ll offer for your enjoyment and for your comment some of my writings: some poems, some vignettes, a novel or two. And also offer my comments on your completed or in progress works.

I assume that writers are also readers -- voracious readers! I will read the label on a ketchup bottle (without comprehending a thing) if nothing else is available.

But why use the word drift in the title of this blog? Of the 19 definitions of drift offered by my dictionary (v.tr, v.intr, n.), I’m using the shortest one -- “general meaning or purport; tenor.” I don’t want to stray off course or pile up like drifted snow. I want to promote an ergonomic vocabulary ... to use a small word that can toss a ton of meaning ... to create cherry-bomb phrases ... to bathe puny letters with explosive ideas!

Lest I drift aimlessly downstream, here’s a poem I wrote for my sixth grandchild. I regret not writing a poem for the first five.

To Ava

On her first Christmas

December 25, 2009

Almost magic, she’s become a

Vital part of life to

All who know her. We are

Blessed by smiles and coos that

Evoke family and spiritual

Love that binds us and

Lifts our souls to hear the

Echos of angels’ wings.