"At the sound of the chimes that sing through the fog"
The rhyme makes mightier the word. . .and resounds across the world
Poetry is not my jam. At least that’s what I’ve always told myself.
It’s not for lack of imagination. I’ve always admired how a good poem leaves space. How, often, the most expressive parts are words left unsaid. Sometimes silence speaks volumes.
Poetry can crack open the heart, laying bare the poet’s tenderest feelings in hopes of touching the hearts of others. It can open us to ourselves.
How often I’ve put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) to tap out something profound!
Or clever. Or dark. Or witty.
And here, a little ditty:
My Silly Sonnet I may’ve written a verse or two, mostly when feeling blue. But it’s to the word, not the rhyme, I’ve always been true. Quelle surprise, then, when submitting verse That anyone thought mine was better than worse. Have published a few, though couplets they’re not While pushing through doubt: ought not, not ought When narrating stories, to take up my pen To weave in with poésie, again and again Judge not my gifts with rhyme schemes and forms To which this clumsy sonnet barely conforms I must summon my Muse to better my craft But in truth, all I need's a stronger life raft To swing through emotions, from joyful to sad This poetic endeavor falls short; it's that bad.
This bit of frippery proves I am no Shakespeare.
But what Shakespeare achieved with rhyme! His gift to make plays on words that might deftly turn flattery into insult rings down centuries.
A poet has the power to make sense of a world filled with nonsense.
Makes me wonder, what if I could do that?
Souvenirs from school
In college, as a French major, I was obsessed with the nineteenth-century French Impressionist poets whose rhymes intended to shape sense out of the nonsense of modernity: Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé.
Almost fifty years later, I pull out my old, dog-eared college textbook, Découverte du Poème, (which I might translate as, Investigating the Poem), that introduced me to the very French practice of explication de texte, a method of literary criticism involving a detailed analysis of rhyme pattern, words, tone, sounds, and sensations.
Not just for analysis, it helps us slow down and look under, around and behind the words to their very sounds. It is a practice that reminds me that poetry is best read aloud.
I find my old college notes on Charles Baudelaire’s, “La Cloche fêlée,” or “The Cracked Bell,” a selection from his famous collection, Les Fleurs du mal. The opening stanza reads, “It is bitter and sweet on winter nights/To listen by the fire that smokes and flutters/To distant memories that rise up slowly/At the sound of the chimes that sing in the fog.”
I conjure from memory carillon chimes ringing, unbroken, over Chautauqua Lake from its famous Miller Bell Tower. That bell tower, dedicated in 1885, first rang out not so long after Baudelaire’s poetic evocation of bells tolling time’s passage on fog-drenched nights.
That sends me back further in memory to the first time I ever heard carillon bells ring out when, as a little girl, my family would drive from Cincinnati to Dayton, Ohio, to hear bell concerts at Carillon Historical Park, which in turn reminds me of a recital in sixth grade where we performed a choral reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Bells.”
“The bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells. . .” The echo of our voices brings me back around to my earliest exposure to poetry. Memory is funny that way.
But Baudelaire. I have not, myself, heard these chimes ring out of a foggy winter’s evening. But re-reading his opening puts me in that frame of mind, evoking the sensation of sitting by the fire, listening as the chimes sing out.
In a turn, the poet speaks of sending his own voice out into the night where it comes out cracked, like his soul. And though he tries to fill the air with his song, he hears in it only a croak, a feeble death rattle.
What song do I sing into the night? My feeble attempts to paint pictures, scenes containing a similar paucity of words might show “my soul is cracked” no less than Baudelaire’s. I fear, like him, my voice too seems but “a feeble croak.”
And yet, cracking open my poetic soul is just the thing that’s come over me of late.
I’m set on incorporating poetry into my ancestor memoir-in-progress by weaving it into the prose of memoir and mystery, science and history, to channel misery and wizardry, trickery and victory.
The challenge is daunting. I ask myself, what the hell am I even thinking?!
I’m thinking I will need to make writing poetry my jam.
Retreat, retreat, retreat!
I will be attending a poetry retreat at the end of September at a centuries’ old, hundred-acre, restored farm-turned-retreat center in Maryland’s beautiful Catoctin Mountains, Zigbone Farm Retreat.
I have stayed at Zigbone before, but always in pursuit of prose craft: this will be my first poetry retreat. It follows on a fabulous course I took last summer in the persona poem, taught by a former Boston Poet Laureate, Danielle Legros Georges.
The persona poem is like a dramatic monologue. The one I have channeled, in my grandmother’s voice, came to me from a writing prompt: Write a poem in the voice of a family member or ancestor.
Sophie stepped forward, unspooling the details of a traumatic incident she was never able to share with anyone in her lifetime. Her soul, cracked. Her voice, a croak.
Even in channeling her story, I could tell she was filled with shame. At the end, it was like her silence around this incident left her voiceless. And now, well over a century later, she has released that memory to me.
It is up to me to lift up her voice.
So I am planning to workshop this poem, crafted from the story that came through, over the course of our five-day retreat.
Ann Quinn, our fearless leader for the Zigbone retreat, holds an MFA in poetry, and has nearly a decade of teaching under her belt. Her poetry has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
In her bio, Ann notes she is “especially interested in working with developing poets with their own rich life experiences.”
An invitation.
Developing poets
Interesting how that phrase can be read in a couple of ways:
Poets under development. That would be me!
Working to develop poets. Ann describes this as “[...] the joy of seeing a poem come to the world through one of my student’s hands.”
Personally, I’d describe the process of bringing a poem into the world more as torture.
I am curious. What are the techniques, the tools, the tips a teacher brings to the notebook? It is no easy task to open up so profoundly. Not the dashing down of a silly sonnet, an easy rhyme, or simply summoning one’s poetic Muses.
I am nervous. Some of us “developing poets” have been working on manuscripts. Ann has invited us to share, read aloud, and critique each other’s work. She has also generously offered one-on-one meeting with her. Feedback and, I hope, feed forward.
Taking it seriously. I am eager to learn. And anxious the improve. It is an invitation to lean in to the new.
An invitation to you
To all the poets who toil to shape words-and-time-and-space-and-emotion into new patterns, I am curious:
When did you first realize you wanted to write poetry?
Does writing poetry come easily to you?
What is that feeling, when you are in the flow?
How gives you the courage to continue when flow is gone?
Whose words most inspire you?
What advice do you have for developing poets?
I look forward to your sharing in the comments below.