Five Things All Poets Need

Occasionally, I'm going to post some poetry lessons, rough notes that will try to deal with the art and help artists develop the attitudes and skills poets need in order to grow. Here's the first one, which covers in no particular order, five things that all poets need.

1: A pencil with a good eraser.
You're going to make a lot of mistakes and are going to get far more things wrong than you do right. So you don't want to commit yourself to the words you write until you're certain they're the best you're capable of. Write in pencil. The marks on the page don't have the permanence of ink; they almost invite you to erase them.
Take advantage of that invitation.
Some poets like to save all of their drafts, so that they can compare them and make decisions by choosing among all of the possibilities. They pore over various versions of their work as though they were panning for gold in the Colorado River. If you're comfortable working that way, go ahead but my own experience has been once I intuitively decide something isn't right, then for better or worse, it can never be right; I can't go back to it.
Besides, by the time I get something together enough to call it a first draft, it's been pretty well worked over. I consider what I have on the page to be notes and worksheets until it comes together and begins to appeal to me.
However you work, be aware that if you intend to write good poems, you're going to have to write many, many drafts and go through a ton of changes on the page.

2: Paper that can be carried around.
A reporter's notebook always makes a good choice. These pads are about six inches long and three inches wide. They fit well into a pocket and are manageable enough to be held in one hand while you write in them with the other. They were made for journalists, who do a lot of interviewing on the fly, in less than ideal conditions; if you've ever had to write something on a subway or a bus, then you know how important a notebook in a manageable size can be.
Why am I emphasizing this? The poet Andre Codrescu once said that a poet leaves his house in the morning and over coffee some thing, thought or image occurs to him so he writes it down. As he goes through the day, other things occur to him. He records all of them and when he gets home in the evening, he goes over it and has himself a poem. (by the way, people represented by the personal pronoun she do all the same things.)
I'd correct Codrescu in one respect: when he goes through the material after he gets home, he has maybe a draft — rarely a finished poem. That's not to say that magic doesn't happen but it is very rare.
Students often want to use tape recorders instead of a notebook. I keep one in my car and occasionally recite into it as I drive but usually the words I record just die there on the tape. The writer, comedian and TV personality Steve Allen used to dictate into a hand held recorder as he drove, but he could get away with working that way; he had a secretary who transcribed the tapes for him.

3: Curiosity.
If you don't have a strong curiosity about everything you see, hear, think or imagine, then your ability to write poems is going to suffer. If you can watch kids play a game without wondering what the rules are, or if you can hear an unfamiliar word without wondering what it means, then it's questionable whether you're going to write anything that will intrigue a reader. You have to be concerned with the unknown and driven to know something about everything — even if what you know is wrong.
When you people watch, do you invent biographies of the people you're watching? When you meet someone at a party or some other sort of gathering, are you genuinely interested in learning who that person is or are you more interested in yourself and the impression you're making?
Unless you're truly curious about other people and are able to focus on them, you're probably not going to be able to write convincing stuff.

4: The ability to get lost in your own head.
I know, this topic seems to contradict number three above, but think about it; it is perfectly possible to be fully devoted to your own imagination and still be genuinely interested in other people. It is also imperative. As the great country rock singer David Allen Coe wrote, "You like to live in the city. I like to live in my head."
Here is a secret about poetry: the source of great poetry is not out there in the world. Instead, it is in the poet's interpretation of what is out there in the world. The city might be the source of raw material and inspiration but to become poetry that material has to be filtered through the artist's sensibility and perceptual apparatus. Poetry, then, is a blend of the external and the internal. Wordsworth's definition of poetry applies here: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, recollected in tranquility."
Most poets, especially lyric poets, like to quote the first clause of that definition. They forget that the second clause is at least equally important. Powerful feelings are fine but to put those feelings through your own sensibility makes them a unique reflection of who you are.
And that is what counts.

5: A willingness to look stupid.
When I go back and read stuff I've published, even if it's just a month or so later, I wonder what the hell I was suffering from to let it go out in that shape. My own work sometimes embarrasses me. Consdier also that if you publish i9n a magazine you haven't seen before, you can be a touch taken aback when you realize what a piece of crap you've associated yourself with. Well, you've got to really enjoy looking like an idiot because it's going to happen to you. For example, you can be in a social setting and tell someone you're a poet. the comeback question is alost always, "Oh, have I read anything you've written?"
Chances are the person hasn't read a poem since she was in the ninth grade, but you'll still name places you've published and each time, she'll hsake her head and say, "No, never heard of it." This conversation can go on till you pretend to see someone you absolutely have to say hello to over in a corner and slink away. The weird thing is you won't think that maybe that person will want to glance at a few magazines before she gathers with artists; you'll think it's your problem. So get used to looking and feeling stupid.
Here's what to do about it: If your old stuff embarrasses you, actually that's a good thing. It means you're getting better and are not as easily pleased as you used to be. If you publish in a terrible magazine, well, you have just raised the quality level of tha magazine. Congratulations. And if other people have never heard of you or your work, well, they probably haven't heard of Billy Collins, either. Besides, recognition isn't the motive. If you want to be recognized, get on a reality show.

Buddy Holly

I've been listening to a lot of Buddy Holly over the past few days and if the experience has taught me any one thing, it's that there is no time. Sure, the records were made fifty years ago, on primitive technology, but they're still as current as any roots release. The passage of the decades has done nothing to age them.
Holly blended folk, country, rhythm & blues and rock into a new sound that was as unique as it was his very own. Lots of people have tried over the years but nobody else has been able to do what he did.
When I told her what I'd been listening to, a friend refered to the music as oldies but I challenged her on that one. An oldie is a forgotten song that pops up out of nowhere, causing you to remember -- usually with a touch of embarassment -- what you were doing when you last heard it. Then you wish it would go away again. Hall & Oates records are oldies. Paul Revere and the Raiders are oldies. As wonderful as it was on first hearing, Love's music is oldies also. Buddy Holly, though, is eternal. His songs have never been away, have never been out of the world's consciousness.
He sells so well in England that Paul McCartney bought his publishing company just to get his hands on those copyrights. All over Europe and America, his music is continually reissued -- a new package was just released this month -- and he has never been out of print.
Both bar bands and big stars still play his songs and, my guess is, they always will.
Check him out if he's new to you. You'll be glad you did.
If you're going to give him a listen, though, you ought to be aware that there are really two Buddy Hollys: the one who recorded for Decca and the one who recorded for Brunswick.
The Decca records, his earliest, were made in Nashville, overseen by house producer Owen Bradley who, frankly, did not get this eightteen year old kid from Texas who had the unmitigated gall to try to tell him how his records should sound. Refusing to let the kid use his own band, Bradley brought in session musicians and put Holly's songs through the early fifties Nashville country sound machine and Holly was almost suffocated by the restrictions on his creativity. After Decca dropped him, he began recording with his band, the Crickets, in Clovis, New Mexico, in an Norman Petty's independent studio. He had total control over these records and instantly came into his own as a creative artist. He was nineteen at the time. Petty sold the masters to Brunswick Records, where Holly and the Crickets piled up a string of hits that continued even after Holly's death at the age of twenty-two in a plane crash. If you want to see the difference control, creativity and taste makes, Holly's first hit, "That'll be the Day" was cut twice, once for Decca and later, the nhit version, for Brunswick. Both versions are in print. Seek them out and listen to the difference. You'll be amazed.
I've been listening to Buddy Holly all my life and will probably continue to do so. I recommend you do, too.

I'm available for classes, workshops and online instruction in the writing of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. I also have openings for a few additional editing clients. If you feel you're close to your writing goal, but need a little extra to get where you need to be, maybe a good teacher or editor is what you need. May I modestly recommend myself? Email me for more information.