Poetic Progression

A couple weeks ago, I set a stretch goal for my writing, in the sense that it was a stretch to think that I could keep up with the routine's requirements for more than three days in a row, but also because the more I stretched for it, the more poetically limber I felt. And yes, I haven't successfully followed that plan to the letter, but I have written about six drafts of poems since I made that pledge, which is a stupendous increase on my recent production of poems. Holding an English Lit degree instead of a Mathematics degree, I can't be sure of the exact increase, but I would say that a figure of 1,000,000% sounds about right.

It has been a stimulating exercise. I've been finding myself wrestling with the question of inserting metaphors in a poem, which has been striking me as contrived and problematic. Should a poem be a metaphor, or should it focus on music and images?

I don't think there is a right answer to the question, necessarily, but I am interested by this change in my own approach to poetry. I was an English major; I used to love loading my poems with what felt to me like clever little intellectual references. Now, I tend to dislike those poems, or at least the pieces that feel artificial.

Metaphors are not inherently bad. In the poems I've written lately, I've used a lot of references to and images of teeth to reflect an internal emotion, in part because teeth have been on my mind ever since I finally went to the dentist to face up to a long plan of necessary dental work. There's clearly a metaphor in there somewhere. But I'm feeling more and more that the metaphors are the weaker points of my poems, and maybe that is just me. Maybe metaphors are pretentious and contrived, or maybe I'm just not very good at them.

I think this question of metaphors relates to another change I noticed when I compared an old poem from my college days--that I still like fairly well--with a poem I wrote a couple of days ago. I'll post those here so you can see what I'm talking about.

The first poem I wrote about a party one night in Missoula, full of conflicting emotions and drama, very much internal to my own experience at the time. Hell, I don't even remember what all the references are about now, although I know I was a little lovesick over a crush who was interested in a friend of mine. The second poem was written in fragments as I traveled across town to Ocean Beach to meet a friend for coffee, and made notes in a notebook as I went. The latter is a draft, and is subject to change, but the core of it is there.

Turn

Autumn begins to turn.
Golden leaves turn damp and brown,
trampled underfoot on the sidewalk.
The approach of splatting raindrops,
which smear on windshields like summer bugs,
thoughts brought forth and swept away,
scratches the itch and empties the airway,
filling it with a sharp, cold lack.
And the trees, those exhaling limbs,
are exposed to gray as those
fading green leaves dangle uselessly,
quivering.
And it is in just another martyrdom
to a weepy-eyed romance,
another elaborately painted heart,
that he starts to feel empty and tired,
like writing poems of loyalty
and visiting the receding autumn river banks,
skipping rocks into the flow of midnight,
coming back to a party distorted across the room
like a Picasso painting post-pre-Cubist,
with a girl confessing her sickness to a boy,
a boy kissing a boy who did or didn’t,
a boy who doesn’t want to love
swinging with the girl he doesn’t want,
and still the cause not back for hours.
A lifting above himself and all uncertainties,
an emptying of all resonant being.

Beach Sketches

i. Prelude

You forget the cold, a fog-kissed wind,
until you walk out the door.

A soggy, pulpy day
with expectation washed through the gutter;
an orange molders in the street
with a waterlogged Penny's ad
and a plastic-eyed pigeon.

Palm trees on Dolores quiver.

Some days you don't hear music.

Half an orange peel
and a banana skin
are piled in a corner of a stairwell.
Fruitful city.

Dolores Park almost empty
as you rattle past,
save for two dreadlocked smokers
perched atop a bench,
and a giant game of pickup dodgeball.

ii. Arrival

The waves foment
in the Sunset,
where the clouds have melted
into a watery golden afternoon,
brisk and bright.

The waves burn white and loud,
with a fringe of purple spray,
high as the headlands
north of the Bridge.

iii. Sketches

He sits on the cliffside,
a natural ledge of pockmarked rock,
lichen and water,
cupping coffee in his hands,
watching sunset roll in with the tide,
jeans and a weathered-green jacket,
sun setting his hair aglow.

The man in ratty sneakers,
white jeans rolled up to his knees,
grey softball shirt with red sleeves,
walks in surf, in the dissipating waves,
tosses a frisbee high in the air,
pirouettes, runs to catch it
as the frisbee falls,
hits, rolls through the hard-packed sand
at the water's edge
as the sun pours molten gold through the waves.

The man with scraggly blond beard
and long matted hair, a green newsie hat,
cigar and a bottle of champagne,
sits cross-legged in the sand,
nods affably and says,
"It doesn't get better than this."


While both poems have some indulgences, and both have metaphors, I feel that the second poem is more objective, less about my interpretation of things and more of an actual depiction of reality, although every poem is an interpretation at some level.

Anyway, I just find the difference interesting.