Poetry Notes

Image Spokes

K.V.  Skene When asked whether one of his books had been written to make a statement or to have a certain theme, Al Purdy replied, “You just write poems and collect them.”1 I suspect that is the way many poetry books originate. The poems’ sequence and their grouping

Whence a Poem (2)

After trapping a first draft in my computer, the rest, for me, is repeated, long, and even frustrating rewriting—or should I say “dewriting”: rewriting to determine what I really want to say. I think of Irving Layton’s words: “The poet is searching in the ashes of his past

Whence a Poem (1)

As a writer, I am fascinated by a process that defies logic. Where do the poems come from? How do the lines take actual shape on the page? The answers startle. Some explanations derive from my own experience of the Muse, some from reading how other Canadian poets have created.

Closure

All poems have closure, if only by virtue of stopping. Sometimes, even just simply running out of words conveys a secondary meaning of the term. The Collins English Dictionary describes it thus: “If someone achieves closure, they succeed in accepting something bad that has happened to them.” That can be

A Poet on Poets

Don Gutteridge I always find it illuminating to hear what poets think of other poets. With more than 40 poetry collections to his credit, Don Gutteridge has gone a step further with what he calls his “personal and idiosyncratic” slim volume Masters of the Craft (Hidden Brook Press, 2021). It

On Humility

Creative Nonfiction Even poets can lose perspective. On a small dais at the back of the restaurant, the host for the poetry reading adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses against the glare of the spotlight and raises his note of introduction. As the room lights dim, the patrons settle. A wooden chair

Ekphrasis

The Challenge To translate a painting into a poem—the visual into the verbal—usually begins with assembling a description of the canvas’ various parts. But if it ends there, touching only the surface, the poem feels flat, even mechanical. To my mind, the poet has a greater responsibility: to

Liftoff

As soon as my toddler grandson was able to walk steadily, he loved watching the washing machine cycle. As it sloshed suds from side to side, he would swing his hips in rhythm. A steady beat can set most small children dancing, a visceral appeal that extends up the years

Memorization

When I was in high school more than 60 years ago, memorization was part of our English Literature course. We might be assigned a soliloquy or sonnet from Shakespeare or a traditional British poem we studied in class. Not only had we to learn it by heart, but also to

Guest Note

Marvyne Jenoff ~ On Poetry Decades ago I was asked for my definition of poetry. What I came up with, and I stand by it to this day, is that poetry consists of music and implication. “Music” because the sounds are very important to me: rhythm, assonance, even how the words

Commerce

How often have we been tempted by insufficient recognition, family pressures, or sheer economic desperation to throw in the literary towel and try to write for cash? “I’ll copy the latest bestseller, or crank out a Harlequin Romance, or whip up a hundred and fifty pages of bleak adolescent

Art

As Erica Jong once said in an interview with Karen Burke, “You must view yourself as a perpetual beginner, someone still searching for your own kind of truth... You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before.” No doubt experimental

Never Alone

As writers we appear to create apart, by ourselves. Yet we are never alone. Our body of work is like one ongoing Poem. That Poem may be our pet, or long-term lover, or even spouse, depending on how passionate or uncomfortable we feel at a given moment. That Poem is

A Thrill

In recent years, I have enjoyed reading the online poetry journal Juniper. I recommend it to all who delight in fine writing. Founded in Toronto in 2017 by Lisa Young and published every February, June, and October, it “seeks poems that bring the reader back to themselves and leave them

Discovering Form (3)

Beyond Amorphous Previously, I used the word “amorphous” to describe my first drafts. Free verse does not pour words into a metre-and-rhyme mould, and lacks a measurable pattern. However, it does achieve form in the other ways it handles line: for example, by choosing to enjamb or end-stop; by grouping

Discovering Form (2)

Four-Line Stanzas and Pairs In contrast to free verse and triads, for me, a four-line stanza is very different: square-cornered, balanced, confident. Especially if written in metre and end rhyme, each four-line unit feels solid, complete in itself, a kind of concrete building block. Each helps move the poem along

Discovering Form (1)

Why Triads? What is it about a defined, rather than organic, shape that attracts? In terms of the number of lines,  triads aren’t new. A Handbook to Literature1 describes how 17th century poet Robert Herrick composed in tercets (three lines, all with the same end rhyme). In the same

A Little More Gauze

(Silly Stuff) Of course, nothing compares with the pleasures of writing when it is going well: light verse skating ephemeral arabesques onto solid white, or the ever-stirring subterranean pool of more serious poems in flow. But some days are definitely not a pleasure. After six hours wrestling to get out

2022 Posts

A List Arranged in Chronological Order To find a particular post, use the Search function along the top of the web page. About: Welcome to Poetry Notes. How this blog began. Review Excerpt: Line and Detail, Heidi Greco, Practical Anxiety (Inanna Publications, 2018) Review: M. Travis Lane, The Witch of

New URL

As of February 1, 2023, the new URL for my personal website Meet Susan Ioannou will have become https://www.susanio.ca/sumeet.html

Endorphins and Poetry

In poetry workshops, I’ve often found myself commenting, “Writing keeps me sane.” According to the Cleveland Clinic, being in a creative state of mind releases endorphins, the “feel-good” chemicals that “attach to your brain’s reward centers (opioid receptors) and carry signals across your nervous system”. They “help relieve

Hello Again

With apologies for a long absence owing to illness, Poetry Notes is back with more, occasional thoughts on the art.

Poet’s Progress: Or Not?

Recently, I read an analysis of another’s poetic development. How much did my own writing change, I wondered, over past decades? When a youthful lyric “I” felt too narrow after the birth of two children, my focus did broaden to simple domestic narratives about family, friends, and neighbourhood. By

Writing on the Edge

Trying to find a balance between the autobiographically personal and deeper reader value, between the immediate concrete detail and the philosophical inference.

The Integrity of the Line

In free verse, ideally each line feels like a rung in an asymmetrical ladder, moving from there to here. It is integral to the structure, not merely a casual spillover from a sentence above. Even if not grammatically self-contained, nor end-stopped, each line is essential to advance an idea, image,