An Interview With Your Poem

[Angeline]

This is the interview series V.2 and it is starring EVERYONE. That's right this interview is with you and one of your poems. (It fact it can be with as many of your poems as you like, but only one at a time.) Choose a poem of yours that you like and answer some questions about it. If enough people do this we will have a (growing, I hope) archive of how we wrote what we wrote when we wrote it. Why bother? Well the answers to certain questions can be illuminating and present another opportunity for us to learn from each other.

So lets suppose you have a poem in mind. Here are the questions for you to answer about it:

When did you begin writing this poem? What made you decide to write it?

How many times have you revised the poem and how much time has passed from your first draft to now?

Do you believe the poem came from inspiration or was "received" in some way or was it just you putting the nuts and bolts of the lines together? Is there more art or craft in the poem?

How did your poem arrive at its current form? Is it a traditional form or does it follow rules you created as you worked on the poem? Did you use any particular techniques or poetic devices that you felt worked out well?

Was there anything unusual about how you wrote this poem?

How much of your poem is fact and how much fiction? Did you think about blending fact and fiction as you wrote it? Even if you consider the poem fiction, how are you in it?

Is your poem a story or something else and, if so, what?

Do you remember what you were reading when you wrote this poem? If yes, what? Did any other poets or artists or events influence your poem?

Did you write the poem for yourself or an audience? If you wrote for an audience, who are they? How do you envision your audience?

Did you share drafts of your poem with anyone else as you write? Do you find that helpful and if so how did doing so improve your poem?

How does this poem differ from other poems you've written?

What is American (or English, Canadian, Australian, or wherever you call home) about your poem?

Is your poem finished?

Will you try to publish your poem or has it been published (somewhere besides Lit) already?


If you choose to let your poem be interviewed you have to answer at least five of the above questions though you can answer them all if you like. Just post your poem and copy and paste the questions and answer them. If enough of us do this--and you can do it for more than one poem--I'll post an index of links to them here so we can easily access them.

Feel free to ask questions about the thread and discuss here, too, if you want. I'm really interested to hear your answers and I know I'm not the only one. So whether you are currently writing and/or posting here or you do so infrequently or you lurk but have poems, join in and let your poem be interviewed. It'll be fun, honest, and everyone is welcome!

I'll do one of mine in a while but if anyone else wants to get it rolling, go for it.

 

[todski28]

This is almost the exact thread I have been trying to envision since I have been writing here!!!!

 

[butters]

This is almost the exact thread I have been trying to envision since I have been writing here!!!!

it's an uber-cool idea, and one i hope many will take part in. informative, interesting, engaging...

that whole side to the why's and wherefores can be a fascinating discovery.
why not start the ball rolling? which poem would you choose?

 

[Angeline]

This is almost the exact thread I have been trying to envision since I have been writing here!!!!

it's an uber-cool idea, and one i hope many will take part in. informative, interesting, engaging...

that whole side to the why's and wherefores can be a fascinating discovery.
why not start the ball rolling? which poem would you choose?

I'm really excited about this. I found a blog recently that was doing something like this with more um well-known poets and I thought, why not here?

I'm going to try this with the poem I wrote for the Halloween challenge because so much about it is fresh in my mind, but first I have to finish making dinner and eat and stuff. And I think it may take a while to come up with my answers so it may take me till tomorrow to get it together but I hope we get a first example in here--my own or someone else's--soon.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Great idea ....... so many to chose from though, I thought the Halloween one too seeing as it gave me so much trouble!

 

[Angeline]

Great idea ....... so many to chose from though, I thought the Halloween one too seeing as it gave me so much trouble!

It wasn't my idea but as soon as I saw it I loved it and wanted to try it here. One of their questions on this blog where I discovered it is something like "Is your poem finished or abandoned?" I think I will revisit some old poems of mine again and see if I can bring them back to life. I certainly have poems that have been sitting for ten years or more and I wonder now are they finished, abandoned or what?

 

[champagne1982]

When did you begin writing this poem? What made you decide to write it?
I wrote With The Devil after reading the book Shake Hands With The Devil and talking with an online friend about his time served in the Peace Corps. General Dallaire was in the news after being discovered on a park bench in a state of near-alcohol poisoning-coma. It's pitiful that a leader and a bit of a political "personality" had to decline so far before some real changes in the way the Canadian Forces helped treat rather than continuing sweep our servicemen and women with PTSD under the proverbial carpet. The friend I spoke of earlier happened to have arrived in Rwanda about 2 days before the killing started and managed to survive only by buying his way into the zone held by the Canadian UN Mission troops. We wept together as he told me how the gutters honestly did run with blood and how the flies didn't need to bite the living as there was so much else for them to feed on. As a poet HOW COULD I NOT WRITE A POEM?

How many times have you revised the poem and how much time has passed from your first draft to now?
The poem was posted here on Literotica quite soon after I finished it. I can't remember if I had it workshopped here or not but once I conquered the formatting issues (that seem to still be there) I posted it.

Do you believe the poem came from inspiration or was "received" in some way or was it just you putting the nuts and bolts of the lines together? Is there more art or craft in the poem?
Well, once I started writing, I found I had so much to write about. I was in outrage, disbelief and sorrow. In fact every time I read that piece I wind up in tears - yes, even now. It was definitely inspired, received and crafted. Does that explain it? The whole writing of it took me less than an hour. Tweaking the formatting and deciding what to include or cut away took me a few days as I had to let it cool off and then return fresh. In fact, I'll bet there are people posting here now who remember my discussion and working of this poem better than I do.

How did your poem arrive at its current form? Is it a traditional form or does it follow rules you created as you worked on the poem? Did you use any particular techniques or poetic devices that you felt worked out well? Was there anything unusual about how you wrote this poem?
It's a poem that uses the margin justifications of a page to move the reader's eyes down, across and through the poem so that there seems to be a three-in-one effect. If you stay left adjusted, then you read a different poem than if you were to read only the lines that "bleed" down the centre or the right of the page.

How much of your poem is fact and how much fiction? Did you think about blending fact and fiction as you wrote it? Even if you consider the poem fiction, how are you in it?
I decided to include the intro and that to have the lines staggered as they are would help with the jumble of history and current events going on. As I mentioned, I was in a highly emotional state when I wrote this piece. I looked online and viewed some actual footage of youth with machetes attacking a man who was drawing attention away from his running family, I had just spoken with a friend who had been there, I related to the military side of this as I still had many friends in active service. I don't think I could have expressed my anger at the world in general without the prologue paragraph. And I decided to leave off the general's attempted suicide except to have the haunting, "Stay, Romeo. Stay." theme repeated.

Is your poem a story or something else and, if so, what?
It's my own commentary about how the media seemed to be exploiting an enormous tragedy to kick at the wounded dog of the Canadian military forces. We'd had Somalia bite us in the ass, budget cuts, cancellations of equipment replacement programs and the continuing over-stretching of resources in order to meet commitments made by politicians whose only motivation is to do the "popular" thing and not what's right. Whew... stepping off my soap box, now.

Do you remember what you were reading when you wrote this poem? If yes, what? Did any other poets or artists or events influence your poem?
LOL yes, tis the inspiration of the poem itself.

Did you write the poem for yourself or an audience? If you wrote for an audience, who are they? How do you envision your audience?
I wrote it as a purgative sort of thing. My feelings had to go somewhere so they were squeezed into this poem. I wrote this for the people like me, those who feel helpless to influence the stream of events but who have to scream curses into their pillow in case they choke on them.

Did you share drafts of your poem with anyone else as you write? Do you find that helpful and if so how did doing so improve your poem?
A few people helped me steer the formatting and also had a hand in de-personalizing the content. There was a lot of "I" in the poem at first and it really needed to be objective. It helped the poem pack a more powerful punch and thanks again to you who helped.

How does this poem differ from other poems you've written?
It's not different, really. I think I write my morals into most of my non-erotic poetry and now that you all know I've been in the armed forces, I think you can see some of those sentiments hiding in my earlier poems.

What is American (or English, Canadian, Australian, or wherever you call home) about your poem?
Pretty much everything screams Canadian, don't you think?

Is your poem finished?
It's as finished as I want to make it be. No poem is ever "finished" but I really don't have the energy to look at revising this piece. To do so, may make me dream again.

Will you try to publish your poem or has it been published (somewhere besides Lit) already?
This is one that will stay here, maybe someone will find it, years from now and use it as a footnote in a history essay, but I doubt it, and that's fine.

 

[Angeline]

Champ that is awesome. Thank you. I remember the poem and have a better understanding now of why you formatted it the way you did. It really does convey this careening emotion and chaos.

 

[champagne1982]

Champ that is awesome. Thank you. I remember the poem and have a better understanding now of why you formatted it the way you did. It really does convey this careening emotion and chaos.

Thank you, this thread is going to be awesome and so I thought I'd help it along on it's awesomenessily journey.

It's funny how a bit of background shines a new light on something we had all worked out in our head, nu? I have no idea why I picked that poem to interview, but it's always been my shy little brother hiding a way down there on the list of my poems and now seemed like a good time to dust it off a bit.

 

[Angeline]

The Old Order of Things

When did you begin writing this poem? What made you decide to write it?

I started working on the poem around October 26th for the Halloween challenge.

How many times have you revised the poem and how much time has passed from your first draft to now?

I revised quite a bit as I was writing it over the course of three days. I've since revised it a bit more so the most recent version is a little different from the one posted here.

Do you believe the poem came from inspiration or was "received" in some way or was it just you putting the nuts and bolts of the lines together? Is there more art or craft in the poem?

I think the poem is mostly craft. I do believe in inspiration and most of the time I write a first draft of a poem in a half hour or less with the lines just pouring out, but this one was built in three separate pieces that I then pulled apart and reworked so the poem would feel more homogenous. It sure felt like more craft than art as I was working on it.


How did your poem arrive at its current form? Is it a traditional form or does it follow rules you created as you worked on the poem? Did you use any particular techniques or poetic devices that you felt worked out well?

I used a cheesy joke about Beethoven to try to lighten the tone somewhat. I also used the word "copse" because it is easy to misread it as "corpse" and I was looking for ways to infuse the poem with the idea of death without using too many cliches.

The title is part of a quote from the Bible (New Testament). “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Was there anything unusual about how you wrote this poem?

It was unusual for me to take so much time and to not see the idea of the whole poem before I started writing.

How much of your poem is fact and how much fiction? Did you think about blending fact and fiction as you wrote it? Even if you consider the poem fiction, how are you in it?

Colleville-Sur-Mer is a real place in France where American soldiers who died in the Normandy Invasion are buried. And Kiev and Lwow (now called Lviv) are places where Jews were massacred, where there are mass graves near the towns. Many Brave Men Are Asleep in the Deep is a song that my father used to sing to me in a deep bass voice and it always kind of scared me, the idea of it. And the last part is about my father's funeral and ends with a childhood memory. So none of the poem is really fiction.

Is your poem a story or something else and, if so, what?

It has narrative elements but it is not really a story, more a meditation on a subject. I was trying to write around the subject without being too personal but still moving from a very broad to a very specific perspective. It is also very much a poem about my father who was Jewish and a WW2 vet who was in the Normandy Invasion, on Omaha Beach.

Do you remember what you were reading when you wrote this poem? If yes, what? Did any other poets or artists or events influence your poem?

I had just finished a book called The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn, about his search for the story of what happened to his grandfather's brother and his family, Polish Jews who were murdered between 1942 and 1944. It really affected me not only because it's an incredibly moving story, but also because my own grandfather lost most of his family the same way. So that was a huge influence.

Did you write the poem for yourself or an audience? If you wrote for an audience, who are they? How do you envision your audience?

I wrote it mostly for me but I do hope that whoever reads it is willing to maybe look up a few things they may not know immediately in order to understand it better. I'm a dedicated reader myself so I guess I hope readers will be that way, too.

Did you share drafts of your poem with anyone else as you write? Do you find that helpful and if so how did doing so improve your poem?

Nope. I usually read my poems at least to eagleyez for feedback but this one was not shared until posted.

How does this poem differ from other poems you've written?

It was different to write three separate short poems and turn them into one. I don't think I've ever done that before.

What is American (or English, Canadian, Australian, or wherever you call home) about your poem?

Aside from the reference to Colleville-Sur-Mer I'm not sure it comes across as being of especially any culture unless my voice is distinctly American, which it may be.

Is your poem finished?

No. It still needs some work.

Will you try to publish your poem or has it been published (somewhere besides Lit) already?

Yup. Not sure where yet though!

 

[todski28]

it's an uber-cool idea, and one i hope many will take part in. informative, interesting, engaging...

that whole side to the why's and wherefores can be a fascinating discovery.
why not start the ball rolling? which poem would you choose?

I don't think I have anything worth interviewing yet. I'm still learning and experimenting with words and sounds. I am pushing the 6 month mark of writing though

 

[greenmountaineer]

Luc Left at Dawn to Save Jerusalem.


When did you begin writing this poem? What made you decide to write it?

I do remember it was in the doldrums of winter last year when I was experiencing some medical issues that have since improved: below zero Fahrenheit at night, not much above during the day, and the lungs felt like they lined with cayenne pepper. It seemed like good therapy at the time LOL.

I've always been intrigued how we get often a vanilla version of history in school, particularly with respect to war and political power. Certainly, there are moral imperatives to war. Champ's and Angie's poems illustrate that painful truth, and my son, a career military officer, is about to assume command of a naval destroyer. However, so much about war is immoral inasmuch as it often is initiated by the few who stand to benefit or lose power, and they will use good common people as pawns towards that end.

How many times have you revised the poem and how much time has passed from your first draft to now?

While I do spend a lot of time editing most of my poems, I don't remember spending as much time on one poem as I did with this one. The process took a little more than a week and my guess-timate would about 60 hours. As I wrote above, it was good therapy.

How did your poem arrive at its current form? Is it a traditional form or does it follow rules you created as you worked on the poem? Did you use any particular techniques or poetic devices that you felt worked out well?

I wanted to write a poem in blank verse. That made the editing process very long. I tried to focus on syntax, varying sentence length and using different forms of punctuation in an attempt to make the poem appear more like how the narrator might actually be talking to herself. Doing that in iambic pentameter, or any formatted poetry for that matter, seems like an oxymoron, but I think I came pretty close. Of course, that's for the reader to judge, but I'm pretty satisfied with it.

How much of your poem is fact and how much fiction? Did you think about blending fact and fiction as you wrote it? Even if you consider the poem fiction, how are you in it?

Marie and Luc are fictional. Charlemagne, Heloise, and Abelbard are important figures in French lore, and, of course, the nine Crusades were very real. "Deus Vult" (God wills it) was the rallying cry of the 2nd Crusade, if I recall correctly.

My disgust at using religion as a basis to kill for self-interest is the part of me that's in it.

Do you remember what you were reading when you wrote this poem? If yes, what? Did any other poets or artists or events influence your poem?

I was re-reading Frost, who I think was a master at blank verse. I was specifically reading "Death of the Hired Man" and was intrigued how he combined dialogue with the rest of the poem.

How does this poem differ from other poems you've written?

It doesn't differ much. For about the last year and a half, I've been dabbling in formatted poetry (Six months ago, I would have guessed a pantoum to be some kind of exotic pancake and ghazal the syrup you put on it!). I joined Lit to challenge myself in different ways, so it makes sense. I also think it's added a synergy to poems I write in free verse.

Is your poem finished?

I'm something just shy of a compulsive editor with respect to poems I write. In fact, I enjoy editing as much as the first posting of a poem. That said, this is one of the few poems I posted on Lit that I don't feel a need to revise.


Will you try to publish your poem or has it been published (somewhere besides Lit) already?

I got a nice rejection letter from one site, or may be it was a boilerplate template with a few words changed. I don't know. Publishing anything hasn't been much of a priority. Before I exit the planet, I'll put my work on 2 flash drives for my son and daughter and hope they're not left in a corner of the attic collecting dust.

 

[butters]

I don't think I have anything worth interviewing yet. I'm still learning and experimenting with words and sounds. I am pushing the 6 month mark of writing though

don't be soft, lad

this thread's so interesting!

 

[todski28]

don't be soft, lad

this thread's so interesting!

ahhh peer pressure how I've missed you

 

[Angeline]

ahhh peer pressure how I've missed you

The poem does not have to be finished or perfect, but post when you feel ready.

I'm loving reading what is here thus far. I do hope more people give it a try though.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

As a matter of interest and you probably aren't, my husband is a Knights Templar and a Knight of Malta *makes me a Lady of the Knight *

 

[twelveoone]

So lets suppose you have a poem in mind. Here are the questions for you to answer about it:

When did you begin writing this poem? What made you decide to write it?

How many times have you revised the poem and how much time has passed from your first draft to now?

Do you believe the poem came from inspiration or was "received" in some way or was it just you putting the nuts and bolts of the lines together? Is there more art or craft in the poem?

How did your poem arrive at its current form? Is it a traditional form or does it follow rules you created as you worked on the poem? Did you use any particular techniques or poetic devices that you felt worked out well?

Was there anything unusual about how you wrote this poem?

How much of your poem is fact and how much fiction? Did you think about blending fact and fiction as you wrote it? Even if you consider the poem fiction, how are you in it?

Is your poem a story or something else and, if so, what?

Do you remember what you were reading when you wrote this poem? If yes, what? Did any other poets or artists or events influence your poem?

Did you write the poem for yourself or an audience? If you wrote for an audience, who are they? How do you envision your audience?

Did you share drafts of your poem with anyone else as you write? Do you find that helpful and if so how did doing so improve your poem?

How does this poem differ from other poems you've written?

What is American (or English, Canadian, Australian, or wherever you call home) about your poem?

Is your poem finished?

Will you try to publish your poem or has it been published (somewhere besides Lit) already?

some of these things are threads of their own, some of these things should be asked while in composition

and two others (in composition)

is it different?

and WTF am I trying to do here?

as for this:

What made you decide to write it?
if you have an answer, you are probably not writing poetry, per se.

per se being latin for Percy

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

some of these things are threads of their own, some of these things should be asked while in composition

and two others (in composition)

is it different?

and WTF am I trying to do here?

as for this:

What made you decide to write it?
if you have an answer, you are probably not writing poetry, per se.

per se being latin for Percy

You were one of those little boys who couldn't resist kicking over that carefully constructed sandcastle weren't you?

 

[twelveoone]

You were one of those little boys who couldn't resist kicking over that carefully constructed sandcastle weren't you?

did I do yours?
but to be honest, I kicked over more of mine than anybody else's

 

[todski28]

http://www.literotica.com/p/little-boy-3

When did you begin writing this poem? What made you decide to write it?

I began and finished it on the 18th of the 9th 12013.
I had written a few pieces of poetry for my daughter so I thought about time my boy got a mention.

How many times have you revised the poem and how much time has passed from your first draft to now?

I tidied it up a bit throughout the course of the day and gave it a final look over before posting it.

Do you believe the poem came from inspiration or was "received" in some way or was it just you putting the nuts and bolts of the lines together? Is there more art or craft in the poem?

My own son was the inspiration for the actual story line, he is a crazy boy that loves being outside, playing. I don’t know about art vs craft, I think in poetry you need to be able to blend the two together.

How did your poem arrive at its current form? Is it a traditional form or does it follow rules you created as you worked on the poem? Did you use any particular techniques or poetic devices that you felt worked out well?

As is still the case with a lot of what I write, I didn’t think about it too much, just tried to run an internal rhyme scheme, I wasn’t concerned about the placement of the rhyme’s I just wanted them in there. Only other thing I wanted to do was unwind the rhyme at the end and shift into a clear suggestive message. A lot of what I do is experimentation in one way or another.


Was there anything unusual about how you wrote this poem?

Nope, I usually type an idea into my phone as I go about my days work, and slowly build on it as the day progresses.

How much of your poem is fact and how much fiction? Did you think about blending fact and fiction as you wrote it? Even if you consider the poem fiction, how are you in it?

There are elements of truth or whole truth in everything I have written so far, not sure if that is due to a lack of imagination, or a feeling that reality is a far firmer ground base for my poetry.

Is your poem a story or something else and, if so, what?

My poem is part story, part advice but mostly experimenting with sound.

Do you remember what you were reading when you wrote this poem? If yes, what? Did any other poets or artists or events influence your poem?

After reading a piece by Darkmass in eagleeyes thread not sure how many words where he had some interesting rhymes happening, then reading a Harryhill epic *Gone Down* in the would you thread. This was one of my first experiments in internal rhyme, as opposed to end rhyme.

Did you write the poem for yourself or an audience? If you wrote for an audience, who are they? How do you envision your audience?

I don’t know how to answer this, aren’t there elements of both in most writes?
I have been relying on the feedback I have gotten from the lit poets to help expand my poetry over the last six months, so whilst I wrote the piece for myself and my son, I wanted to try and entice some comments to see if I had the right ideas, or if it was back to the proverbial and rather clichéd drawing board.

Did you share drafts of your poem with anyone else as you write? Do you find that helpful and if so how did doing so improve your poem?

I have only ever shared one draft of a poem and that was for the Halloween challenge.

How does this poem differ from other poems you've written?

At the time it was one of the first pieces I had written where I tried to blend internal rhyme as smoothly as possible, so it was a trial run on a “poetic shift” in my personal development

What is American (or English, Canadian, Australian, or wherever you call home) about your poem?

I think the themes are pretty universal.

Is your poem finished?

As finished as I care to make it for now, I may dust it off a few months from now when further writing evolution has occurred, but I doubt it.

Will you try to publish your poem or has it been published (somewhere besides Lit) already?

I’m surprised lit publishes my poetry, let alone attempting to publish elsewhere.

 

[Remec]

You mean pick one of my own pieces and talk about it?

Seriously, I have no clue which one(s) I would choose. Anyone want to pick something for me?

 

[Angeline]

You mean pick one of my own pieces and talk about it?

Seriously, I have no clue which one(s) I would choose. Anyone want to pick something for me?

I would love to hear about the poem you wrote for the summer challenge. It's a great poem. That's my pick but mebbe you want to wait and get a few opinions.

 

[butters]

I would love to hear about the poem you wrote for the summer challenge. It's a great poem. That's my pick but mebbe you want to wait and get a few opinions.

*seconded*

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

You mean pick one of my own pieces and talk about it?

Seriously, I have no clue which one(s) I would choose. Anyone want to pick something for me?

I have the same trepidation.....and even if prompted, my poems are so shallow it'd be a waste of all our time.

edited to add that I do, however, find this thread fascinating.

 

[Angeline]

I have the same trepidation.....and even if prompted, my poems are so shallow it'd be a waste of all our time.

edited to add that I do, however, find this thread fascinating.

I don't find your poems shallow but I often think my own are. Besides what did you say to me in some thread? I believe it was "cluck, cluck."