From pen to word processor: bang! bang! poetry! (& more on Schuyler)

On Wednesday I wrote a first draft of a poem directly on my computer, in Word. Scratch that. I wrote a draft of two different poems. On Thursday I deleted the first poem which I saw as a warm up.

Warm-up poems--and stories--are, for me, always the same quick flow of autobiography that goes nowhere. I am initially driven and soon bored.

But the second poem? I'm hanging onto it. I'd just read The Morning of the Poem by James Schuyler. I read the collection, but reread the title poem. Published in 1976 if moves through time, memory, geography, the body, the concrete detail.

I read repeatedly to get down the rhythm and sounds and because I had to. It's a wonderful book with a siren call.

That poem was the engine for me to change my method of writing poetry. Previously I wrote every first draft in longhand. No exceptions. I had my reasons, which were perhaps effete and ultimately grounded in fear. If it ain't broke and all that.

But it was broke. My poetry of late hasn't been poetic. I've been unhappy, relieved to have gotten one book out and figuring that just might be it for me. Then Schuyler mentioned typing his poems. It sounded to me like he might be typing first drafts. I haven't delved into his life although there is probably a fair amount of information available.

Motivated by an if-Schuyler-can-do-it-so-can-I impulse I did it. It wasn't just the typewriter. Morning moves across the page like music, classical, jazz, pop. I respond to music.

My new poem is in its infancy. The siren song of rewrites is beguiling. I'm not going to stop buying my 8-1/4 x 6-7/8 pads. Every new purse must still accommodate same. But my arsenal (bang! bang! poetry) has expanded.

image from anacrespodeluna.blogspot.com/2010/03/biografi...

What's with art anyway...? A morning with N.Y.C. & James Schuyler

Just back from a doctor's appointment followed by a walk across the Park, a stop at stony holy St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue, a decision to walk more later today when it's cooler and thus a bus ride down Lex.

My left hip needs calcium but my superpowered spine grows oddly stronger each year. I'm a medical anomaly. I do Gi Quion (spelling, please) spine twists most nights before bed. My doc. says that's not relevant. She's nice, but feh.

Now home I wait for my fan to rev, something that can take five minutes after I turn it on (pensive is my fan, thoughtful, unwilling to rush into even the most cooling of gestures). Waiting, I read James Schuyler's The Morning of the Poem. This one perfectly captures an urban mix, the joy of art mitigated by the acts of the titans who bought it for us; the pleasure of looking at other people's homes; of being in other people's neighborhoods; street vendor hot dogs. There was wind today for me, too.

Back

from the Frick. The weather
cruel as Henry Clay himself.
Who put that collection together?
Duveen? I forget. It was nice
to see the masterpieces again,
covered with the strikers' blood.
What's with art anyway, that
we give it such precedence?
I love the paintings, that's for sure.
What I really loved today
was New York, its streets and
men selling flowers and hot dogs
in them. Mysterious town houses,
the gritty wind. I used to live
around here but it's changed some.
Why? That was only thirty years ago.

again: From The Morning of the Poem [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976] by James Schuyler