I mentioned in my DIY Guide pt 2 that I was having trouble turning some of my OU poetry submissions into the poems I really wanted them to be. In the spirit of sharing, I’m going to post some examples, and see if discussing the problems I have helps me to solve them.
I suppose I’d better post the original poems before I explain why I don’t like them, hadn’t I?
Limpets
The beach hut rolled back on the tide at night.
Lain down, the carpet was ridged like the sea.
Cabbages, shrubs yielding hard grapes stayed anchored,
whilst floorboards - now rafts - were dragged away.
Lain down on the carpet ridged like the sea,
I dreamt. I pressed my cheek to the white painted wood,
whilst floorboards, now rafts, were dragged away,
wind churning coarse sand, chipped limpet shells, beach glass.
I dreamt of pressing my cheek to the warm rocks;
the groynes were the blades of a water wheel,
churning coarse sand. Chipped limpet shells, beach glass,
they scratched my palms, burrowing under
the groynes, to hide from the blades of the water wheel.
Cabbages, shrubs yielding hard grapes stayed anchored;
they scratched my palms, burrowing under.
The beach hut rolled back on the tide at night.
Lug Worms
Tangled, frayed threads rub against others’ ridges;
uglier earthworms, with armoured flanks,
plucked from their mucus-lined, narrow retreats.
Bristle worms burrow round u-shaped bends;
uglier earthworms. With armoured flanks,
he sifts for sediment cast off, discarded;
the bristle worm’s burrow. Round u-shaped bends
he sucks down, swallows, strains gallons -
sifts through sediment. He casts off, discards,
with swipes from a heavy spade, the sand
he sucks down, swallows. He strains gallons of sediment
scooping out handfuls of coarse sand
with swipes from a heavy spade. The sand
abandoned in heaps across the beach.
Scooping out handfuls of coarse sand,
he pinches and pulls the worm from its burrow
abandoned in heaps across the beach.
Plucked from their mucus-lined, narrow retreats
pinched and pulled from their burrows
our tangled, frayed threads rub against others’ ridges.
Having just read these through, I can feel my claws coming out, but as a constructive self critic, I’m going to pause to explain what I do like about these poems. Hopefully I’ll manage to preserve that bit when the rest gets stripped away.
Although I submitted these poems for my course, they were poems I really wanted to write, and I became very absorbed in them as I was writing them. They’re about Hastings. I like to think that the scenes I’m attempting to describe could be quite original, if I could do them justice. I managed to remember a lot of details to flesh out the poems.
You may have guessed that I was obliged to write formal poems for my course, (in this case, pantoums). Having been given that information, I’m sure a lot of people would advise me to throw these poems in the bin. After all, they were just exercises.
Except that most of the process of composing them wasn’t mechanical at all. I’m convinced there are good poems hidden inside these clunky pantoums, but there’s a lot of work to be done. Bullet points?
1. The phrasing is ugly. I must have hated the end-stopped lines, because I’ve made an effort to break up the lines in different ways. The obviousness of this effort has made the poem even uglier. Is there anything wrong with ugliness per se? It makes the voice sound confident – almost booming - where it ought to be uneasy.
2. I could justify making these poems pantoums if I really wanted to – it aids the circular feeling of Limpets and the ambiguity in Lug Worms. But a looser pattern of repeated lines could have done the same job – there is no way that all of those lines needed to be repeated.
3. This is the one that makes me scream. In Lug Worms, I’ve done that thing where it looks like I can’t choose between two words. ‘Pinches and pulls’, ‘tangled, frayed’, ‘casts off, discards’… When other people do this, I find it cringe-worthy, so realising I’ve slipped into it myself is arghhhh. Agonising.
This is my plan. First, I’m going to take a thick, black pen, and draw a line through all those unnecessary words. Then I’m going to highlight the phrases that really do need to be repeated. Then I’m going to re-write the poems in as close an approximation of my real life voice as I can manage. Here goes… (spoiler alert: I ended up keeping the second poem as a pantoum).
Limpets
Our beach house rode up on the tide at night,
lain down, the coarse carpet ridged in stiff peaks,
cabbages, shrubs sprouting hard grapes had stayed
anchored. Inside, I press my cheek to the white, painted wood,
willing spring high tide up, over coarse sand,
chipped limpet shells, beach glass, to rock
my half fluid flesh in rhythm. Rush,
retract, over coarse sand, whilst shrubs stay anchored.
Groynes are like waterwheel blades
churning beach glass, chipped limpet shells.
Our beach house rides back, set down
on warm rocks I have pressed my cheek to.
Lug Worms
Frayed threads rub up against others’ ridges;
pricklier earthworms
plucked from their narrow retreats,
bristle worms burrowing round u-shaped bends;
pricklier earthworms.
The man sifts for sediment cast off;
the bristle worm’s burrow, round u-shaped bends
he sucks down, strains
sediment. The man casts off
with an iron spade, sand
the worm sucks down. He strains sediment
shifting coarse sand
with an iron spade. The sand
abandoned in heaps across the beach.
Scooping out handfuls of coarse sand,
he pulls the worm from its burrow
abandoned in heaps across the beach.
Plucked from their narrow retreats
pulled from our burrows
our frayed threads rub up against others’ ridges.
I'm feeling a lot better about these now, although I'll probably make a few more cosmetic changes to smooth out the rhythm in some lines.
The pantoum form was too 'heavy' for Beach House. For a poem that is supposedly carried away on the tide, it felt too weighty, so I ditched it, enabling me to move the line breaks more freely and soften the voice.
The pantoum structure turned out to be too integral to Lug Worms for me to remove it, so I've done everything else I can to make the poem less plodding. I've cut all the unnecessary language, purposefully leaving some lines much shorter than others, and shortened the stanzas.
I'm a little bit happier with these poems now, I feel I've stripped away some of the exercise-ness of them.
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