Poetic journal'ism

[CharleyH]

I posted a similar question on AH, but it interests me and so I thought to share here.

Do you journal? How do you journal? I find that when I journal, I come at it from a writers perspective, and sometimes a poem gets mixed into it. I love being alone in a cafe' for example, and just listening to everything around me as it happens. Even if with someone, I will later recount in my journal, the very sound of a salt shaker being slammed on a counter, the salt flitting up, and forming down. It is the stuff that poems can be made of, and are at times.

Do you journal? And when you do do you write sporadic lines? Stanzas? Perhaps a view that is not poetic, but one you return to later? Maybe even full conversations?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Unfortunately, I don't have the discipline it takes to keep something with even a resemblance of a journal. Esporadically, I might write a paragraph or two on a loose piece of paper, or on the margin of a book, or on a paper napkin, but usually they stray away from reality before the end of the first line.

This, for example, was written on a café, where there was an exhibition of ancient and exotic porcelain pieces. The one closer to me was a 17th-century Japanese tea cup, and I started by describing the painting on it:

Ko-Imari

Pale moonlight creeps, obscures the fallen mask over the embroidered straw mats. And the bamboos in the wind, and the chrysanthemums in the garden, and the herons in the weir, they all moan with him, foretelling his doom. Around him, all the gaudy idols and winged dragons fall. And the geisha, transparent porcelain like the eggshell of a hummingbird, entangles herself within a labyrinth like dragons did on sorrowful days. Her slit eyes, oriental pearls dissolved in water, mingle in scintillation with the glitter of the stars.

He brings closure, silences her lips under his fingertip, and she withers as he says, "Crying will do nothing. All I ask of you is not to betray me before my body lies cold beneath". And letting his head fall down onto the straw mat, he stays. She, in a heron's cry, raises her arms up above and implores Heaven for him.

In the morning the neighbours come on tiptoes to steal a look between the bamboos, and they all see the geisha, squatted by the dead man, waving him with an ivory fan.​

 

[bluerains]

I channel

oft times...I should journal but..sometimes its too fast to write down..and sometimes its not in a language I relate too..does that matter!!!..

 

[CharleyH]

Unfortunately, I don't have the discipline it takes to keep something with even a resemblance of a journal. Esporadically, I might write a paragraph or two on a loose piece of paper, or on the margin of a book, or on a paper napkin, but usually they stray away from reality before the end of the first line.

This, for example, was written on a café, where there was an exhibition of ancient and exotic porcelain pieces. The one closer to me was a 17th-century Japanese tea cup, and I started by describing the painting on it:

Ko-Imari

Pale moonlight creeps, obscures the fallen mask over the embroidered straw mats. And the bamboos in the wind, and the chrysanthemums in the garden, and the herons in the weir, they all moan with him, foretelling his doom. Around him, all the gaudy idols and winged dragons fall. And the geisha, transparent porcelain like the eggshell of a hummingbird, entangles herself within a labyrinth like dragons did on sorrowful days. Her slit eyes, oriental pearls dissolved in water, mingle in scintillation with the glitter of the stars.

He brings closure, silences her lips under his fingertip, and she withers as he says, "Crying will do nothing. All I ask of you is not to betray me before my body lies cold beneath". And letting his head fall down onto the straw mat, he stays. She, in a heron's cry, raises her arms up above and implores Heaven for him.

In the morning the neighbours come on tiptoes to steal a look between the bamboos, and they all see the geisha, squatted by the dead man, waving him with an ivory fan.​

Well, beautiful description as always, Lauren. How do you translate such a detailed description into a poem? Or do you let it go by the forgotten of a napkin? Wipe your mouth, and toss it on the plate?

 

[CharleyH]

oft times...I should journal but..sometimes its too fast to write down..and sometimes its not in a language I relate too..does that matter!!!..

LOL - Sometimes the nuances of a language you don't know, and your thoughts about what WTF, can have all the significance in the world - BELIEVE ME! lol

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Well, beautiful description as always, Lauren. How do you translate such a detailed description into a poem?

I don't need to. It is what it is. If it was written as prose, I will not break lines to make it appear more poetic to others. I just call it prose-poetry

 

[CharleyH]

I don't need to. It is what it is. If it was written as prose, I will not break lines to make it appear more poetic to others. I just call it prose-poetry

lol - always a good excuse. Do you write about life or fantasy in a poem? What is poetic then? For others in your opinion?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Do you write about life or fantasy in a poem?

Life without fantasy has no poetry, and fantasy is always born from life.

What is poetic then? For others in your opinion?

Oh, when I mentioned "for others", I was only referring to line breaks. Some people seem to need them in order to call something a poem.

 

[bogusbrig]

I usually keep a note book in my back pocket that I use for sketching, prose and poetry or whatever else springs to mind, even a mobile scrap book. I have dozens I have filled over the years, most go unused but when stuck I do leaf through them and often find a line, commetn or observation that gets me out of a jam.

A book worth looking at is Travels In The Drifting Dawn by Kenneth White, which is a book of notes interspersed with poetry about his travels. A good read.

 

[Angeline]

I have never journaled. I have always poemed instead.

 

[WickedEve]

I have never journaled. I have always poemed instead.

I'm surprised. You seem like you'd do great keeping a journal. I've tried at different points in my life but it doesn't work. I think I just mentioned something about that yesterday on a thread. I put some journal worthy stuff into poems and keep those memories that way.

 

[Angeline]

I'm surprised. You seem like you'd do great keeping a journal. I've tried at different points in my life but it doesn't work. I think I just mentioned something about that yesterday on a thread. I put some journal worthy stuff into poems and keep those memories that way.

Yeah, me too. The few times I tried I would go back a few days later and hate myself after I read all my whining.

I did like those girly diaries with the little locks though. My mother always used to buy them for me, but yknow how many times can you write Tom Weiss is sooooo cute, diary. I can tell the way he looked at me in math class that he really likes me.. After about two days of that...ugh.

 

[CharleyH]

I have never journaled. I have always poemed instead.

How so? (I will ask politely first. )

 

[CharleyH]

Yeah, me too. The few times I tried I would go back a few days later and hate myself after I read all my whining.

I did like those girly diaries with the little locks though. My mother always used to buy them for me, but yknow how many times can you write Tom Weiss is sooooo cute, diary. I can tell the way he looked at me in math class that he really likes me.. After about two days of that...ugh.

LOL COME ON! YOU Wicked Eve ... girly? :| How do you write your life? Is that what a journal is to you? LOL DULL? I bet it could be more I bet it could be damn pornographic! Mine is - always.

 

[bluerains]

LOL - Sometimes the nuances of a language you don't know, and your thoughts about what WTF, can have all the significance in the world - BELIEVE ME! lol

well thats a relief...what kind of journal should one write...mostly reality bites...in the mudane..coffee tea me...tv...work wtf...that my journal..with a lotta what ifs in between...go figure..

 

[annaswirls]

I always journalled. Poems happened in the middle.

I loved my journals. Nothing cutesy, just legal sized paper.
I grew attached to them, wrote to it as it were a person,
got all sad when the papers were finished.


Now I do passion poems
and write really long letters to people
until they are sick of hearin it and another unsuspecting person
takes on the burden of hearing things like


Okay I tried but I give up. How do women do it? I put polish on them yesterday and they are already chipped and look like hell! I don't get it. Do real women actually do this every day? How can that be? I don't think I was meant to be a nail polished person. I don't live the nail polished lifestyle. Damn it.

I know I know you told me before, buy fake ones. But you have to paint those too, don't you?

ta da
journaling

lol

of course, sometimes more exciting things happen in my day, or at least the fantasy spin off of life

 

[Angeline]

LOL COME ON! YOU Wicked Eve ... girly? :| How do you write your life? Is that what a journal is to you? LOL DULL? I bet it could be more I bet it could be damn pornographic! Mine is - always.

My poems are my journals. They chronicle everything from the meaningful and significant to the ridiculous moments I'd otherwise forget.

 

[The_Fool]

I drink lots and ogle women. Does that count?

 

[Angeline]

I drink lots and ogle women. Does that count?

Do you keep records? It does then, I think.

 

[The_Fool]

Do you keep records? It does then, I think.

I keep the empty bottles until it's time to take out the trash. I try to keep phone numbers, but the ladies have to be willing to part with them, of course...

 

[RhymeFairy]

I have scrap paper all over the place. It usually hits me when I am driving. The sun, a funny something I see as I ride. Just always seems to be when I am behind the wheel that inspiration strikes.

Yesterday ... I saw a chicken being pulled behind a truck I swear this chicken was 30 feet tall. It was a HOOT. Yes, bet your boots I am gonna come up with a poem about that big a-- chicken ~

winks and grins *

 

[LadyJeanne]

I've kept some kind of journal since high school. My freshman English teacher required it - an entry each week. Since then, it's been off and on, with some years being very off and others much more on. I jot down notes from my travels, impressions of a scene, a neat turn of phrase, sentences, lists, pretty much whatever I might be thinking at the time I pick up the notebook. Poetry definitely makes its way in there, sometimes to become a full poem, other times not.

I like to buy smaller, simple spiral notebooks with interesting covers. Living in the Bay Area as I do now, I have a set of 'flower children' notebooks I purchased on Haight St., all psychedelic butterflies and paisley.

 

[CharleyH]

I have scrap paper all over the place. It usually hits me when I am driving. The sun, a funny something I see as I ride. Just always seems to be when I am behind the wheel that inspiration strikes.

Yesterday ... I saw a chicken being pulled behind a truck I swear this chicken was 30 feet tall. It was a HOOT. Yes, bet your boots I am gonna come up with a poem about that big a-- chicken ~

winks and grins *

Do you stop, and admire or write? Or do you keep on driving?

 

[CharleyH]

I've kept some kind of journal since high school. My freshman English teacher required it - an entry each week. Since then, it's been off and on, with some years being very off and others much more on. I jot down notes from my travels, impressions of a scene, a neat turn of phrase, sentences, lists, pretty much whatever I might be thinking at the time I pick up the notebook. Poetry definitely makes its way in there, sometimes to become a full poem, other times not.

I like to buy smaller, simple spiral notebooks with interesting covers. Living in the Bay Area as I do now, I have a set of 'flower children' notebooks I purchased on Haight St., all psychedelic butterflies and paisley.

I love spiral notebooks, too. I like the plain burgundy or black ones. If someone was to take your journal? How much would be you in it, vs how much would be bitching?

(I bitch all the time in mine, and every once in a while a good poem or story can be made) LOL

Edit to add: bitching is not my life's work, therefore a movie bio would be bogus based on my journal!

 

[Rybka]

I used to keep a journal some years ago, but that was more therapeutic than poetic. I found journals restricted my creativity.

I now carry a notepad to jot down notes and maintain a computer file of thoughts and phrases that intrigue me for later use.