Lately I’ve been thinking about the completeness of poems.
This is largely because I have trouble knowing at what point the poem ends and
the repetitive poetic rambling begins. I was reading some Czeslaw Milosz lately
and came across this poem:
When The Moon
When the moon rises and women in flowery dresses are
strolling,
I am struck by their eyes, eyelashes, and the whole
arrangement of the world.
It seems to me that from such a strong mutual attraction
The ultimate truth should issue at last.
Very short, but also complete. I’m afraid that if I were the
one writing it I would want to keep going just because it was so short, or
build it up to the point where I would be saying the same thing four or five
different times, but when I read it through, I can see that nothing needs to be
added to it. It is thorough, deep, and complete. It works. But how do I know
that?
I have observed that most, if not all, literary poems seem
to have two layers going on. There’s the thought, and then there’s the
illustration for that thought. I’ve seen it over and over again in my poems and
in the poems I’m reading. Is that all that constitutes a complete poem, or is
there something more?
i think you're on to something here. i've only done a little poetry for a consistent period of time—about a semester's worth for my "writing of" and "advanced writing of" classes. But it seems to me like "completeness" is a big thing for the poem. Having a sense of completeness, i think, will keep our poems from becoming contrived. For me, the undercurrent to completeness is understatement; the two seems close kin, somehow.
ReplyDeleteMore generally, i tend to circle around a point multiple times, just in talking with people i'm close to. So i can definitely relate in running this risk in my writing too.
Hmm hopefully others have more concrete, practical advice for ya!
I don't have a lot of advice to give on completeness, since I'm absolutely terrible with ending poems. But I think that if I let my poems end with something akin to hope, they seem to wrap up better than if I just leave them hanging, waiting in a state between dreaming and awake, and they're not quite sure which place is the true reality. And I really have problems finding out where to wake the poem up so that it can see the metaphorical, and stereotypical, beams of light.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, it helps me to see the poem as a story, and in my mind, stories can be just as short as the blink of an eye and the fading image that projects itself on the eyelid. As long as it is an image to ponder, I think the poem is complete.
I've never thought of poems in terms of completeness before, but now that you bring it up, I'm very intrigued. I should start by saying I'm not much of a poet; it's just not my genre. But of the poetry I have written, my pieces written for a class always seem long and drawn-out. Even at that, my critique advice is usually that there's not enough there, but I cringe at the thought of making those poems any longer.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the few poems I've written because I felt like I had something to say turned out relatively short. Ironically enough, it's those shorter poems that don't feel like there's something lacking. All that to say that I think completeness can come at any length; for me, I know a poem is finished when I feel it (although I usually don't start out with all that much to say). Another strategy I've used on my super long poems is to completely start over (painful, I know). Even if I didn't keep the overhauled version, it usually brought up a new idea that needed to find its way into the original to bring that sense of closure.
I think the difference between the poems you're reading and the ones you're trying to write might have to do with the environment in which they are written. Our writing for capstone is in a pressurized vaccuum. Although a person might feel pressured writing poetry with a deadline for publication, chances are they have had more time to work with their material, or there has been more space for inspiration. Sometimes it's difficult to command ourselves to create when there is no inspiration. I think there is a relationship with writing pieces that we have not yet been given the opportunity to develop. We don't let ourselves marinate in it for a few years like many authors do.
ReplyDelete"Such is the fickle nature of my poetry" - I sympathize with you, Ms. Amanda! I admire your attempt to tackle poetry when I know you feel easier with a short story. Remind yourself that what you are reading is professional, published poetry. You are a student learning how to replicate masterpieces in your own voice, which is a very daunting task! What always helps me is imitation. We learned this over and over again in classes like Writing Style and Writing Fiction. Perhaps take that (beautiful) poem that you inserted and try out a different theme and tie in the same types of layers. That may inspire you to write something in your own direction.
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only one having this problem. I think "completeness" of a poem takes a long time to happen, more time than we have this quad, or maybe more time than we're willing/able to take this quad to do it. Some authors spend years and years working on the same poem, and even after it's published, I'm sure they may still never feel it is truly complete.
ReplyDelete....I know that I for sure have a long ways to go before mine reach any level of completion, anyway. I will say I'm looking forward to when capstone is over. I enjoy it, but it's a lot of work!
DeleteI like how you described the layers of a poem--the goings on and then the real idea behind it all. One of the things I love about some of my favorite poems is that I am able to find something new (a new dimension, feeling, image, etc) every time I read them. I hadn't really thought about it directly before, but I think that's probably due to the layering going on.
ReplyDeleteWell, I wouldn't know what to tell you in regards to your poems. I'm terrible at writing and understanding poems. However, you aren't alone in wondering when enough is enough. I think it can definitely pertain to prose as well as poetry. Though, for prose, I find it's always difficult to figure out where to start. You need to begin far enough in to where it doesn't take too long to get to the point of the story, but you can't take away all of the tension by starting too far into the action. I always wonder where to end my stories. Usually, I just decide that I can't write anymore, so that must be where I should end. But that poem that you showed us "When the Moon," that's really great. I doubt I would've been able to write something that short either. I would think that it definitely needs something more.
ReplyDeleteI feel like so many poems are never finished. At least when I read and write, I feel as though I can look at one line from a poem and that could be an offshoot into another poem and so on and so forth until you have this beautiful webbed thing of connecting branches. That's probably an awful way to look at it though.
ReplyDeleteI think a poem is complete when you decide its complete. If it is communicating the emotion and the deepness that you mean to imply, then its done. You can always unravel and rework anything at some point...sometimes the satisfaction comes with just knowing what you want and going for it.
This is a mystery for me, too. When I put just a thought into my poem, it is too ungrounded and telly, and when I put in just an image, I miss the thought. I am trying to learn to combine them, but it usually happens in a messy mix, not a neatly-combined-in-one sort of layered effect. I do think a good blending of the image and the thought makes for the best poems, though... maybe we'll find that practice makes perfect?
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing. I love Czeslaw Milosz!
ReplyDeleteI think you're right on with the two layers--the thought and then the illustration of the thought. To my mind, this is because 1) a good poem comes out of real life in some way or another--rarely is it constructed in a vacuum, but is spurred by something and 2) the physical and abstract worlds are tied together on earth and especially in us, and it is we who work out both God's physical and spiritual creation in our humanness, and in our poetry. So I think it makes sense that poems talk in both abstract and concrete terms.