How to Write a Long Poem #8 - Title, first line, last line - getting from Point A to Z

 

A structural approach to poetry making - getting from Point A to Point Z

Three essentials –

 

Know where you’re coming from

Know where you’re going

Know what you’re about

 

There is a sense in which these are three ‘impossibles’ of poetry, particularly of an extended meditation in the form of a poem. I mean that if you really very definitely know where you’re coming from, where you’re going and what you’re about, then there might not be much of a poem to make, there might not be enough room to explore, to find your way.  One may argue that poetry ‘works’ precisely when these things are unsettled.

So, at best, these categories of knowledge are necessarily provisional in the case of a poem. It might be better to say – to ‘have some idea’ of where you’re coming from, where you’re going, and what you’re about … but to remain open to what you discover on the journey. Poet and reader need to have this in common then – to be present to the words so as to find one’s way.

 

With all these caveats, let’s say then that these are the key impossibles with which – in method – poems need to deal.

 

Know where you’re coming from

Know where you’re going

Know what you’re about

 

These essentials fit nicely with three very – perhaps most? – important parts of any poem (except for instance a haiku or senryu) – the first line, the last line and the title of a poem …of course they needn’t fit so neatly like this … because the poem, like a story, can begin in media res (in the thick of the action) … and the cadence on which the poem closes might not be its true destination…  likewise, a title can be a curve ball and can throw the reader off the scent … nevertheless these are good guardrails. In the case of a haiku we could say that the most important parts of the poem are the first line, the second line and the last line.  

 

So – working with the essential impossibles for a poem that is not a haiku (and that is longer than a haiku), let’s try a mix and match exercise.

The principle here is that choosing parts from a pile can be less stressful than starting from scratch. That's because you'll always have already begun.

 

Below are three piles of words – a pile of titles, a pile of first lines and a pile of last lines. Your job is to choose anything you like from these piles in order to give yourself a title a first line and a last line … and then, you just have to join the dots to get between the first line and the last. What kind of a journey will that be?

 

A pile of titles

 

at the drop of a hat

 

the advantages of flight

 

taking the year apart

 

my life as an ant

 

ten years inside a ping pong ball

 

the bush

 

here we are on earth

 

come out of the picture

 

the elephant gets out of the room

 

the uses of last light

 

 

 

A pile of first lines

 

climbing down out of the tree

 

every place is the wrong place

 

ten is the magic number

 

we made a fire of sticks

 

it’s only a loss on paper

 

when you’ve gone too far

 

it was the best of times and worst

 

on day one of the clouds

 

this was a sign before it was seen

 

who was it made the promise?

 

it’s good when nothing happens

 

 

 

 

A pile of last lines

 

just so that we’ll believe

 

forever fighting the real

 

and a march fly finds me, so I jog along

 

I came back just for the book

 

there is no place like home

 

the rest is silence

 

and so I take my leave

 

as foreign as anyone here

 

it all just happened now

 

and turns in its own time

 

 

Don’t worry if your poem starts off on the small side. (And of course everything suggested above in fact applies as well to a short poem (except probably not to a haiku!).  But short poems can turn into longer poems, simply by joining more dots, by taking the words and ideas you have for a walk. Sometimes you just need to let the poem have a little chat with itself in order to find out where it would really like to go.

 

And of course you should feel free to mix these words up in any way you like (so what was offered as a last line can become title, what was a tile could be a first line, and so on.)

 

Feel free to post your efforts to the group if you’re happy to have them discussed.

Feel free to alter any of the words to suit yourself. Feel free to juggle the positions of the fragments. Feel free to make a poem – of any length – out of these bits and pieces, ordered whichever way you like.  

 

The trick is to line up these parts and work out – what first line can immediately follow which title. And then how do you get from first line to last. (In the next post, I’ll make more suggestions about topics or themes.)

 

When you’ve got your poem drafted from the exercise, don’t forget you can always top it up with an epigraph. An epigraph is a kind of a free kick for the writer (not only the poet!) because it gives you a chance to make your reader connect the dots between your work and someone else’s…

 

Anyway, that’s enough instruction now. Please give it a crack!

And if this 'piles method' works for you, then the logical next step is - make your own piles, forget about them for a while, then come back to them as stranger. Like planting a crop, forgetting it, getting a lovely surprise when it ripens.