Process notes

04
Jun
2017

Process Notes: Wrestling My Father in the After

75º ~ the aftermath of a satisfying 20-minute downpour, the drip-drop sounds of trees shedding water

I hesitate to post, as the work of today’s draft imitates that of the last father sonnet in many ways. Yes, the sonnet appears to be the frame for this content, and again it was necessary because of the painful nature of the truth-telling, because of the need to address these truths in small measures. While these poems expose my father’s imperfections, they also expose me as an imperfect daughter. As someone born with the need to be “practically perfect in every way” (and with the required big ego as well), I’m always pushing up against my need to be liked. Yet, in writing these poems, part of my “tell the truth” mantra must include how I portray myself.

As you might have guessed, these poems have a lot to do with harms done, and I find myself wrestling with ideas of placing blame and of forgiveness. The content of the poems comes both from real life and from reading about the idea of forgiveness. In this way, I hope the poems open up from being personal to being public, if you will.

Today, I didn’t need to read much from others, and I didn’t need a word bank (as I haven’t for this type of poem). Instead, I needed to write a lot of really crappy lines in my journal. Crappy not for what they had to say but for how they said it. I stumbled on an image that resonated, but couldn’t get it to fit. I heard my squirmy internal editor say, “Stop forcing it. You’re done writing father poems. No one wants to read them anyway. You’re just whining.” So, I turned the page and tried to write a poem that would, perhaps, explain who my father was in my rounded details. Sure, I got eight semi-decent lines out of it, but they were lifeless.

I turned the page and thought some more about the whole situation, about where the pain resided & why. Then, I wrote:

What bothers me most, Father, is the silence
surrounding your sins, the way we were made to pretend

And then, I had my way in. Turns out, that image from earlier, the one I couldn’t get to fit, fell right into place by the fourth line. I’d say “magic, presto” but that’s not how I’m feeling. It was harder than that. I dug & I scraped to find the truth, gravitating to couplets and finding my instinctual internal rhymes (mostly slant). Then, I got to about 12 lines and realized I was nearly there, yes, working in the sonnet form. I went back and tweaked, condensed some so I’d have a bit more room at the end to get where I needed to go. Rest assured the only things deleted in the condensing were the overwritten bits (dear me, I love those adjectives! and still fall prey to over-explanation). Working in the sonnet form forced me to think in ways I don’t normally think about the purpose of the draft, of what I wanted to leave the reader with at the end. Of course, I think of this when working in free verse, but it’s a less focused thinking. Perhaps I’ve more to learn from this tried & true form; perhaps I’ve more father-daughter truth to explore within its frame.

Yet, there’s a weight to all of this. So why do it? Why bring up painful memories that hurt me and my remaining family? That’ something I’m wrestling with as well.

 

Posted by Sandy Longhorn
25
May
2017

Process Notes: Petition ~ after Malinda Markham

73º ~ bright sun, but the house so well-shaded that it remains on the verge of chilly most mornings like this

This morning’s desk time was a bit hither & thither. I did not do such a clear job of setting my goal before bed last night and repeating it this morning. I let emails distract for a bit, and truth be told, let a few emails, a text, and a phone call interrupt in the last few hours, but still, I have a new draft.

No father poem today, although I did start a really terrible, forced draft about the death of the father of one of my best friends, a sudden death that happened about 6 months prior to my dad’s well-forecasted dying. I was even counting beats, but the poem petered out after the first burst of energy, and I dithered. I decided I would simply word gather from a favorite book, and I wouldn’t make it a goal to write a poem. Given that I’m freshly back to drafting, I wanted to let myself off the hook for churning out a draft. Instead, I would just sink into the words.

I’ve said this before, but for me it bears repeating. When I want inspiration to jumpstart my writing, I must go back to a book / poet I’ve already grown to love, a trusted source. Of all those books on the to-read shelves I mentioned yesterday, a very few will make it to that inspirational stack. This does not mean that I won’t find poems to enjoy and admire in most of them. I will; however, inspiration requires a much deeper connection fostered over many re-readings for me.

Today, I turned to Malinda Markham, a poet gone from us far too young, and her 2nd (and last book) Having Cut the Sparrow’s Heart. To word gather, I read a poem slowly, usually starting at the beginning of the book, and revel in all the reasons I am inspired by it. Then, I steal 4 – 5 words and smatter them across a blank page in my journal. I intentionally separate words from an individual poem. I do this for multiple poems until the arrangement of the words on my journal page begins to suggest connections (I circle and arrow) and lines begin to form. Here’s a picture of what today’s page looks like.

Usually, I need about twice this number of words, so that there is very little white space left. Yet, today, I was inspired by a specific poem of Markham’s, “Petition,” and my word gathering had already suggested my own direction. Markham’s poem ends, “On the day I am narrow as glass, / you be the sun do not let me grow cold.” I heard “On the days I am heavy leaden, / bid me swallow the chemical thorn” and began to draft. No, I don’t suffer from the same kind of debilitating depression as Markham did, but I do take an SNRI for a milder case of depression and anxiety. The idea of an antidepressant as a “chemical thorn” meant to “wake” the speaker is the heart of the poem.

Today’s draft is back in my comfort zone of free verse with plenty of intense imagery & sound and no shackles of pentameter. Okay, the shackles serve their purpose, I admit, but it was great fun to simply let the lines expand and contract organically while I measured pace and sound with white space and end-stopped versus enjambed lines only.

It’s interesting that the father poems seem to be rooted in the plain speech of my first book, and of my youth, while this new poem today reverts to the lyricism and conversational baroque of my third book. Content drives form? Yes.

Posted by Sandy Longhorn