Friday, July 1, 2016

Poetry Friday: In the style of Kay Ryan

     Our last "in the style of" challenge was e.e. cummings, a poet of invented words and experimental forms, a writer who easily charms me, and often transports me. This time, our poet model is Kay Ryan, U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, who says in this Paris Review interview:

     "Prose is practical language. Conversation is practical language. Let them handle the usefulness jobs. But of course, poetry has its balms. It makes us less lonely by one. It makes us have more room inside ourselves. But it’s paralyzing to think of usefulness and poetry in the same breath."

     And yet, I find it amusing that when I read Kay Ryan's poetry, she seems to be playing with this idea of usefulness. Her poems are often skirmishes with well-worn phrases---she calls herself "a rehabilitator of clichés"---and she deploys flatly-voiced "advice" so wryly you have to read her poems over to see where the joke is. It's like she's saying: why, here's a good (useful) idea---whatever the haha hell that is. 

In the same interview, in fact, she says:

 "what interests me is so remote and fine that I have to blow it way up cartoonishly just to get it up to visible range."

Yes. I see that. And I found reading the entire Paris Review interview a pleasure and a learning experience and very welcoming. Climbing inside a poem of hers, in order to "echo" it, however, was damn hard. 


The first fear
being drowning, the
ship’s first shape
was a raft, which
was hard to unflatten
after that didn’t
happen.

There is slant, internal rhyme there---unflatten and happen---and repetition of words---first fear, first shape---and of course, that arresting phrase "the first fear being drowning."  Okay, I could work with that. Or so I thought.

To begin, I tried to riff off that opening phrase, and immediately foundered on the rocks of "drowning." Every kind of "-ing" that meant death seemed to already be a form of drowning---asphyxiating, choking, strangling---because breathing is the foundation of life, and anything that stops it is death. So...drowning seemed the plainest, most Ryan-like word to use, and death, obviously was the "first fear" and I had no interest in writing about second or third ones, and yet---I couldn't use her opening exactly, could I? She had laid her planks so precisely that if I did, I didn't know where I would stop copying and start riffing, and I might just end up with the same poem, word for word. Upon reading---and re-reading---her poem, it just didn't seem like it could be written any other way. (Read it here, now, and see if you agree.)

Then, thank goodness, I recalled the part of the interview in which Ryan talks about her time working with prisoners at San Quentin.  She says:

"I’m rather shocked to look back at the way I thought of the prisoners at that time—as people with a lot of experience. Just because they’re killers and robbers and whatnot doesn’t mean they’ve had a lot of experience. It doesn’t take very long to kill somebody."

Well, I thought, the same could be true of my foundering effort: it doesn't take very long to kill a draft, either. Especially when the well-experienced Ryan has drowned every word you could possibly use. Haha. 

That did it. I decided to go another way to echo this poem: fear of emotional death, or to put it plainly, shame, or fear of failing. 

This is a very long lead up to a very short poem. But echoing Kay Ryan will do that to you. No wonder she chooses to only write poetry. It is usefully sharp and murderous. 


"It doesn't take very long to kill somebody"

The first fear
being shaming, 
the poet’s first line
was a circle, which 
was hard to deflate
after that didn’t 
take. It’s cumbersome 
to have to scrub one’s blood
from words, so hard to
hide later, 
drubbing one’s thumb
into a nose—
making things
more lovable.

---Sara Lewis Holmes, all rights reserved

My Poetry Sisters each chose other Kay Ryan poems to "echo"---and pulled the challenge off much better than I did. Go see:




Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabatha Yeatts




14 comments:

  1. WHOA. You did a lot of deep work here -- and the horrible thing about the San Quentin guys? She's right. I came away from teaching for the State with this idea that the kids who'd been there - involved in drive bys and gang violence - often didn't know anything. Were afraid that trees might spontaneously fall on them, if they grew crooked. Were afraid of cats. Squirrels. Didn't quite know where certain foods came from. They had no experience of the larger world at all, but they knew their neighborhoods like the whorls in their fingertips.

    Irony. It really doesn't take long for someone to kill someone. But it can take an even shorter time than that for a spirit to die...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Were afraid that trees might spontaneously fall on them, if they grew crooked. Were afraid of cats. Squirrels. Didn't quite know where certain foods came from."

      You are right. I knew this---a bit---and still I can't quite grasp the world that leaves these kids with so little experience to stand upon. What are we DOING?

      Delete
  2. OK, is this very different from the one in our Google doc? Because I briefly read that one a few days ago and then got called away to something before commenting, I think. But now, reading this, it feels sharper and deeper and more connected to me. But I don't know if that's the second reading, a revision, or the witty leadup to the poem itself. "Well, I thought, the same could be true of my foundering effort: it doesn't take very long to kill a draft, either. Especially when the well-experienced Ryan has drowned every word you could possibly use. Haha."

    I love the idea of the poet's first line being a circle. Oh, how we love to write around something instead of getting to the guts of it immediately. This is wonderful, Sara!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did revise it, a bit. But mostly, I think it might be the leadup to the poem helping you out, which is a bit of a cheat since the poem is supposed to stand on its own, but...I kind of wanted to write about the process of trying to get in Kay Ryan's head. I didn't explore that fully, either, but it's such a remarkable thing, getting to know a poet by climbing inside one of her poems.

      Delete
  3. Wow. I am thinking about scrubbing one's blood from words...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I don't know exactly where that phrase came from, but I'm thinking on it too...

      Delete
  4. Sara, I really appreciate this scholarship and the link to the interview with Kay. I love reading that "what interests me is so remote and fine that I have to blow it way up cartoonishly just to get it up to visible range." This is also how to blow a cliche apart, too. And I REALLY enjoyed your roundabout take on the sinking of a ship!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Heidi. This was harder than I thought it might be. Picking a short mentor text doesn't leave much room for error.

      Delete
  5. "It’s cumbersome
    to have to scrub one’s blood
    from words, so hard to
    hide later, "

    I love this poem. And the explication that came before. I never got to Google Docs this month, so every poem has been a surprise. I don't think you're off the mark at all, and think you echoed Ryan quite well. Lovely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Tricia. Surprise is good. I do love seeing poems in advance, and commenting, but sometimes...yes...surprise is the best. :)

      Delete
  6. Thanks for the long lead-up. It helped me to appreciate how you changed the shape of your ship as you were building it -- from bodily to emotional death.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes I just write poetry. Other times, I like writing about HOW I write poetry. I like reading both approaches on other people's blogs, so...

      Delete
  7. Thank you so much for The Paris Review interview. I had not read that before. It's rich. Kay Ryan is a fantastic mentor text....you've really got me thinking. I want to do what YOU did. I want to go start riffing some Ryan. Have a great week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you riff as long as you like! Feel free to come back and post a link if you do....

      Delete

R-E-S-P-E-C-T (or you will be deleted)

You can receive followup comments to this conversation by checking the "notify me" box below the comment window.