Writing from the Unconscious

[dr_mabeuse]

How hard to you have to think about your poetry?
Do you ever find that if you have to stop and think about finding the right words, then the poem's ruined?

I guess it's the difference betwen the poem that bursts full-grown onto paper, like Athena from Zeuss' head, andthe one you have to hammer and cobble together.

I knew I had lost it when I found myself stopping to think about things. I can still squeeze out some poetry every so often, but it's week and sickly stuff, and you can see where it's nailed together and where words have been stuffed into inappropriate spots.

On the other hand every so often a piece of nonsense will burst fully formed into my head and occupy me for hours. Too silly to write down, usually meaningless, but with that kind of sompelling aural richness that just makes it fun to mentally suck on, ,like hard candy.

Tell me, Doctor, do I need help?

Can good poetry ever be "thought" out? Or does it just have to come bubbling out?

---dr.M.

 

[WickedEve]

I like to let it bubble out and then go back and put some thought into it. Those poems usually turn out the best.

 

[Angeline]

I like to let it bubble out and then go back and put some thought into it. Those poems usually turn out the best.

What she said. Sorry for the incessant jazz comparisons, but for me writing a poem is like riffing--once I start I just keep going, letting it twist and turn as it may. I've trained myself to not stop and agonize, and have found that after some practice it gets pretty easy. I get in a zone where the writing just pours out very quickly. When I'm done I go back and edit; I spend much more time on that than on the initial writing.

The other thing I may spend lots of time on is thinking about my subject before I write. Sometimes I'll spend weeks or more (sometimes much more, lol) with thoughts rattling around my head before they coalesce in a poem.

And re: thinking it through--if I'm writing and find myself having to stop over and over to think through what I want to say, I stop. I put the poem aside for a day or even longer.

 

[Rybka]

How hard to you have to think about your poetry?
Do you ever find that if you have to stop and think about finding the right words, then the poem's ruined?

I guess it's the difference betwen the poem that bursts full-grown onto paper, like Athena from Zeuss' head, andthe one you have to hammer and cobble together.

I knew I had lost it when I found myself stopping to think about things. I can still squeeze out some poetry every so often, but it's week and sickly stuff, and you can see where it's nailed together and where words have been stuffed into inappropriate spots.

On the other hand every so often a piece of nonsense will burst fully formed into my head and occupy me for hours. Too silly to write down, usually meaningless, but with that kind of sompelling aural richness that just makes it fun to mentally suck on, ,like hard candy.

Tell me, Doctor, do I need help?

Can good poetry ever be "thought" out? Or does it just have to come bubbling out?

Dear dr.M., Rhymed or structured poetry must almost always be "thought out". "Free verse" can just "flow", but most of us are not accomplished enough to do it. "Practice makes perfect" is a well known aphorism, and while "perfect" is impossible, practice may help you/us improve in all forms of poetry.

Abigail Van Fish

 

[Angeline]

Dear Abby

There's no one method, eh? Some thought occurs subconsciously. And then there's editing. Who is to say whether any one approach works better than another--the trick is to find the one that works for you. And yes, practice diligently. And the ol' doc there strikes me as a pretty solid thinker.

Miss Unmanners

 

[Rybka]

Re: Dear Unmannered

There's no one method, eh? Some thought occurs subconsciously. And then there's editing. Who is to say whether any one approach works better than another--the trick is to find the one that works for you. And yes, practice diligently. And the ol' doc there strikes me as a pretty solid thinker.

Miss Unmanners

Why do you always misinterpret what I say? Where do I talk about "one method"? Where did I say that there is only one approach that everyone should use? I give freedom to everyone to do whatever satisfies them. Just please don't think that writing by formula/or not will automatically insure a work worth reading. If you spend too much time criticizing others, then your own work may suffer. Hopefully that is not the case for either of us.

Regards, Rybka

 

[Angeline]

Why do you always misinterpret what I say? Where do I talk about "one method"? Where did I say that there is only one approach that everyone should use? I give freedom to everyone to do whatever satisfies them. Just please don't think that writing by formula/or not will automatically insure a work worth reading. If you spend too much time criticizing others, then your own work may suffer. Hopefully that is not the case for either of us.

I hope not, too. And it's just a discussion, rybka--voicing opinions. I certainly don't mean to be critical or put words in your mouth--I'm just raising ideas that come to me after I read something. I'm not the enemy by a long shot, but if you want to talk about it further in pm or email I'd rather go there and not hijack the thread.

 

[OT]

Shampoo poetry

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Lather is the muse inspired part -- I get the urge to write about this or that and often start with a catchy title or (seemingly) profound phrase or two. The first draft requires a good deal of thinking although I try not to think too much about details and focus more on the general structure.

Rinse is the editing process. Usually that means throwing a lot of stuff away. In the lather stage a lot of crap hits the page. If its a metered/rhymed piece, the initial lather stage is close but tends to have "easy rhymes" and the meter is usually less than perfect. Free verse is usually riddled with cliche's.

Often as part of the editing, I find a new favorite phrase or a tangential idea that throws me back into lather-land.

The infinte loops repeats until I'm sick of it or stalled.

So to answer your question, I think a lot while writing. But then I've always thought of myself as more of word smith than "poet", leaning more towards clever or interesting pieces that sometimes become poetry.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Re: Writing from the Unconscious

Dear dr.M., Rhymed or structured poetry must almost always be "thought out". "Free verse" can just "flow", but most of us are not accomplished enough to do it. "Practice makes perfect" is a well known aphorism, and while "perfect" is impossible, practice may help you/us improve in all forms of poetry.

Abigail Van Fish

You're aware of the legend surrounding the composition of Coleridge's "Kublia Khan" (from which I have the temerity to lift my sig lines)?

If not,m the story is that CVoleridge had just polished of a bottle of Laudanum (alcoholic tincture of Opium) in his cottage in the Lake Dictrict and was taking a nap. The entire poem came to him in one vision, entire and complete, and he sprang up and satrted writing feverishly.

Unfortunately he was interupted my a man bringing the post. Coleridge got rid of him as quickly as he politely could, but when he turned back to the paper, the rest of the poemn was gone from his head, never to be recaptured.

That's why this absolutely gorgeous, drippingly sensual extended sexual metaphor is incomplete.

I still claim that reciting what there is of Kublai Khan is the sexiest thing a human being can do with its mouth, cunnilingus included.

---dr.M.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What she said. Sorry for the incessant jazz comparisons, but for me writing a poem is like riffing--once I start I just keep going, letting it twist and turn as it may. I've trained myself to not stop and agonize, and have found that after some practice it gets pretty easy. I get in a zone where the writing just pours out very quickly. When I'm done I go back and edit; I spend much more time on that than on the initial writing.

I feel kind of stupid being here, because the truth is, I can't write poetry at all anymore. I've just lost it. I'm too self-conscious about it, to damned "literary". It all comes out stillborn, dead on arrival, the life edited out of it, at best facile and clever, but it never sings anymore. I always like the stuff that sings, the stuff that tastes good to say, even if it doesn't mean very much.

Anyhow, that's not why I stopped by here.

You are of course aware, Angeline, that what you say is pure Kerouac theory. What he wanted to be more than anything else was a musician with words, able to get up and improvise for as long as he wanted, and he really was superb at it. "Mexico City Blues" was I don't know how many choruses, but it was all extempore.

He was of course derided for this, and in fact, it probably works better in theory than in practice. But his best efforts must be heard, they can't be read, and they are pretty damned superb. What's cool is that you can hear him thinking musically, rearing back, his breath control, his phrasing (he studied Sinatra a lot), his nonsense words.

"Howl" is usually credited as being the first example of jazz-influenced poetry, and maybe it is the best, but Ginsburg learned from Kerouac.

Really, when you hear Kerouac slur out "I'd rather be thin than famous" in his joyous drunken jam session with Steve Allen (yes, Steve Allen. Probably no one else would have had the imagination to accompany Kerouac in something like this, and to share a bottle of cheap port with him during the session too) you can hear how he wanted it to work, and it works great.

Kerouac's desire to be a poetic instrument in jazz was immediately misunderstood, and we were treated to the dubious pleasure of poetry "accompanied" by jazz groups, which finally became a self-parody of coolness.

In all unfairness, it should be mentioned that, contrary to his own dicta never, ever to edit, revise or change what he'd written in his creative bursts, he actually revised quite a bit, at least in his prose.

With apologies for this sudden-onset acute logorrhea,

---dr.M.

 

[Angeline]

Jazz and the Beats

I know much more about Kerouac and his sense of the jazz/poetry connection now than I did when I started writing poetry in earnest about a year ago (after a long hiatus). Your comments reminded me of this quote I found recently:

This technique is perhaps best exemplified in Ginsberg's classic poem 'Howl', which was to Beat poetry what Kerouac's 'On the Road' was to Beat prose. "I depended on the word 'who' to keep the beat, a base to keep measure, return to and take off again onto another streak of invention," Ginsberg said in a 1959 essay about his approach to poetry. The verbal technique of 'Howl' can easily be compared to a Charlie Parker song, in which Parker plays a series of improvisational phrases upon the same theme, pausing for breath and starting another. But Ginsberg said, "Lester Young, actually, is what I was thinking about... 'Howl' is all "Lester Leaps In." And I got that from Kerouac. Or paid attention to it on account of Kerouac, surely--he made me listen to it".

--mike janssen Jazz and the Beat Generation

I've always heard music in poetry, but my formal literary training was English and mostly pre-20th century, so it was a revelation for me to consciously think about "writing jazz." Kerouac understood something elemental about the inherent musicality of language though. IMHO one can hear the best poetry sing (whether the rhythm plays out in jazzy free verse or in more sedate traditional forms, which can advance with the precision of Bach).

 

[Cloudbrst9]

[delete]

 

[Angeline]

In all truth, as far as any of us knows, we also have no idea of where consciousness sprang from, its natural abode. It seems, like energy, to be matter-less. Are we therefore matter-less ourselves, and by extension, that the only thing that matters to us is to Be as an expression of Being being expressed?

Sorry, I'm not supposed to drink, but my S.O. is gone, and the bottle called out to me. Please forgive and ignore this post unless it tickles your innards.

Whew! Actually, I have thought about these things--I suppose many have in one way or another--but could you pour me a drink before I think about it again?

 

[Cloudbrst9]

[delete]

 

[Rybka]

Conscious, sub-conscious, unconscious, self-conscious: May I say that all may just be perceptions?

Perceptions by what?

Is it possible to know who, what or why we are? What we do know is that we are...

Only if you insist on defining yourself as Descartes did. What about animals? Do they only exist because we think of them. Maybe we are only stray thoughts in a greater mind?

In all truth, as far as any of us knows, we also have no idea of where consciousness sprang from, its natural abode. It seems, like energy, to be matter-less...

Or totally matter. Perhaps it is an inescapable consequence of a certain level of organic complexity?

Are we therefore matter-less ourselves, and by extension, that the only thing that matters to us is to Be as an expression of Being being expressed?

Or that we are totally matter and the only purpose of life is to go forth and multiply, i.e. expand the prevalence of our DNA?

 

[Cloudbrst9]

[delete]

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Re: Writing from the Unconscious

Dear dr.M., Rhymed or structured poetry must almost always be "thought out". "Free verse" can just "flow", but most of us are not accomplished enough to do it. "Practice makes perfect" is a well known aphorism, and while "perfect" is impossible, practice may help you/us improve in all forms of poetry.

Abigail Van Fish

Gee. I must confess that I actually meant these questions as topics for discussion. I didn't really believe anyone would have the temerity to try and answer them. And so dogmatically too.

I think most people who visist the poetry board must consider themselves failrly sensitive to the nuance and subtlety of language, and my antennae are telling me that I've just been cut with the Sword of Self- Assumed Authority.

Is that a "gauntlet" I "see" on the "floor" my dear, or are you just so "eager" to shake hands?

---dr.M.

 

[Rybka]

Re: Re: Re: Writing from the Unconscious

Gee. I must confess that I actually meant these questions as topics for discussion. I didn't really believe anyone would have the temerity to try and answer them. And so dogmatically too.

I think most people who visist the poetry board must consider themselves failrly sensitive to the nuance and subtlety of language, and my antennae are telling me that I've just been cut with the Sword of Self- Assumed Authority.

Is that a "gauntlet" I "see" on the "floor" my dear, or are you just so "eager" to shake hands?

---dr.M.

Why do you respond to the same post twice? - Have I not responded in discussion form to later posts? Even if others do not want to continue the discussion? I claim no "authority", self-assumed nor otherwise, and my statements in your quote have qualifiers in them, i.e. "almost", "most", or "may".

I throw no gauntlet, but after your attack I have no desire to offer my hand first. You sir, are the offending party!

Rybka


ps: "visist" and "failrly" are misspelled.

 

[steve porter]

writing from the unconscious

ok my turn...angelines got it right (imo)...the way i write is to let the idea gestate for awhile, then when the timing is right (youll know when) you riff with it and get it all down...the words arrre spontaneous to the moment and it will usually just flow...then of course you must fashion a form for your verse and this is where the editing comes in...just because youve strung a thought or two together doesnt mean youve finished the poem...a mistake many would be poets make...the same mistake kerouac made when he attempted to write poetry...his prose (which is far more poetic than his poetry) spills out all over the page, emcompassing many levels, looping, spinning, fanning out into various arrays of subconscious thought, and when hes at his best its a style that works well...for his prose...but come on...as a poet he was rather unaccomplished...his mexico city blues, while extemporaneous, was also a long drawn out stoned rap produced primarily under the influence of morphine and alcohol...and it shows...often one chorus would take all day to write (between the nods no doubt)...a series of gloomy thoughts and spaced out daydreams...when he cranked out his prose he was almost always ripping on meth or some other form of speed and it allowed him, along with his marvelous typing ability, to range, to muse, to start and stop or to just ramble on like a locomotive as in october in the railroad earth...but his poetry is primarily pretentious, self-conscious, and raw...he could have done with a little editing too...except for his haikus which were almost always interesting...take the time to think and edit heavily until youve got it right, even if it means that you turned your poem inside out in your revisionist frenzy...and be honest.

 

[Cloudbrst9]

Re: writing from the unconscious

[delete]

 

[The_Fool]

Shit just comes out. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Sometimes rhyming, sometimes not. I find that with those poems that with those poems I leave and come back to, the rhyme changes, the rhythm changes, my thoughts change. Thats why I have liked the spontaneous threads so well. Punch it out and post it. Not that I don't come back and polish sometimes.

 

[Maria2394]

equally problematic or not

The funny things people speak of on threads here at Lit. Its always sort of been my opinion that we are all here as maybe undefined integers in some very complex or very simple mathematical equation.
Plug in diff values, receive different thought streams and products of thought. How DNA manages to fit in, how it allows us a tangible code for structure of our bodies, and how our bio_tech_computer brains are able to run our bodies, a vessel for collected soul binding energy. Isnt life beautiful??

 

[OT]

Re: equally problematic or not

Its always sort of been my opinion that we are all here as maybe undefined integers in some very complex or very simple mathematical equation. Plug in diff values, receive different thought streams and products of thought.

I'm an imaginary number hoping to be multiplied by Pi before I get divided by zero.

 

[Maria2394]

Re: Re: equally problematic or not

I'm an imaginary number hoping to be multiplied by Pi before I get divided by zero.
[/QUOTE

imaginary number, quite difficult to visualize, I like to think of myself as the square root of 49 seven is lucky, I could be negative OR positive LOL

doesnt Rybka have a poem that relates to this? 2+2=5? I liked that one

 

[destinie21]

I like to let it bubble out and then go back and put some thought into it. Those poems usually turn out the best.

those are my sentiments exactly because when I write poem I'm usually at an emtoional extreme be it rage or joy, for me there is no in between time. I once took a poetry couse and I found it quite difficult to put my emotional tumult on a schedule in order to fufill the obligations of the class . Though never on e to give up I pressed ahead and tried to force poetry which as a result came out rather horribly SO in order to adapt I woud use a method of "found poetry" which meant I would go through stories I'd written and "find" poety there. It allowed me to capture the feeling I was trying to convey through the story with the words I already formed. It allowed for "passion" when I simply had none to give somtimes it worked but as with any other method, of course there were angry poems and aborted poems whos's red pen script lay was like blood spilled across the canvas of burned and crumpled steno pad flesh . I later used the same method when it came time to prefect poetry styles it usually worked there too but my best work still comes from bouts of rage or delight during my in between times I just coast