A blog that covers the intricacies of poetry writing, publishing, editing, and the challenges of being an intermediate poet.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Strange In the Right Way
I consider much of my poetry to be odd, weird, strange. I try to write about unusual things in unusual ways. What the problem is is that my work is not fragmented enough in form; I use solid blocks of text, stanzas that don't break up into chaos. Nothing that's elliptical, no cut off phrases, no fill in the blanks for the readers. I would like to write in a more modern way, for example like a writer for Jubilat or Fence, but I'm apparently too tight. Maybe in the end I'm a conventional poet, who isn't trying things that's any different from James Tate or Charles Simic. If I wrote "autobiographical verse," more based in the real world, I might have more markets that would be interested in my work. But I don't, or don't do that well. Sometimes I think my writing is stuck in the middle of two poles and that makes publishing more difficult. On the other hand, I may have my "distinctive voice," as a teacher once told me, and eventually that will get me through. I wonder if anyone else struggles with the type of poetry they write and what they aspire to create (or at least would like to try).
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