…Poetry arrived [late]*
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from
winter or a river
I don’t know how or
when…
Pablo Neruda
*my addition to the
line
For
most of my life I have been a visual artist and didn’t know that I had an
undeveloped ‘muscle of poetry’ in me. My
writing days haven’t varied much from those in the studio. I arrange blocks of consecutive days without
any commitments or appointments.
I’m
up around 8 a.m. and get to my desk, 9-ish.
I flip through emails, flag a few, check a few sites, skim/read a bit of
The Guardian and look through an architectural design site. The latter leftover from a different
life.
I
breakfast in the studio and make notes while I eat, small phrases, (I eat those
too) reminders to change the title or the format or, or… notes are endless, not
limited to breakfast or locale. When I
get around to it, I transcribe them to a running doc. They get stored by date and
saved in folders by years. Where is that
bit about silver? Ctrl+F — always a thrill.
The
first bit in the morning is a sorting and deciding what, if anything, is
calling to me. When I began writing poetry, I’d get so excited by getting
something down that I wanted to show it to someone, immediately, at least by
email. I’m ever grateful to those
practiced and patient poets who were on the receiving end of my
enthusiasm.
I’ve
learned to sit with a poem now, and can equate it with painting. Some canvases are done in one sitting, most
take many many sessions and some — years.
My
main work time is spent revising; moving lines about, verifying that a word means
what I think it means, researching to see if the bird really lives in the
altitude of my poem, mountains, and (I’m speaking literally here) if it’s
endangered. I work, often overwork, the
same two or three poems for several days, then leave them alone for a week or
so, unless one of them calls out with a new line, a new slant. Having let them rest, when I return it’s
easier to see if I’ve written mere verse or if there’s potential for an actual
poem.
What
starts me off on a new poem is typically something I’ve seen. Something that lights
up dots of connection to whatever I’ve been thinking about, for example; the disintegrating
environment has had a significant place in both my painting and writing, particularly
in relationship to birds.
I
write in longhand on a thin lined paper attached to a clipboard. I gather those handwritten beginnings into
sheet protectors along with first drafts in Word. For the present, my most satisfying poems are
short ones. I think that after I’ve said what I wanted to say, or let the poem
go where it wanted to go, what else could I add. If I do write a long poem it often ends up
reading as two separate pieces.
Times
when I can’t get anything working, I look for possible homes for my poems. Also, I keep a list of them and record where
I’ve submitted each one, color coded — love Excel.
I
get hungry around 2:00 at which point I can’t concentrate. I find lunch, whatever’s there that doesn’t
take any time, hopefully leftovers. I actually
hate leftovers, wish I could be a breatharian, not bother with the interruption. But I eat and check messages.
I
still haven’t spoken to anyone. And, I
work in silence.
I
continue until around 4:00 then knock off to have a cup of tea with a neighbor. If no one’s around for tea I read, poetry or
about poetry, for an hour or so. Maybe I’ll
remember that the laundry I put in at breakfast has to go into the dryer.
As
an artist, I needed a studio to do the type of work I did but even with
a designated room full of a writer’s paraphernalia, I write everywhere. The time frames aren’t regimented. They expand and contract daily, seasonally. I seldom work at night, but it has happened. I rarely liked painting commissions and
that’s carried over. So far, I don’t
enjoy writing poems on a theme.
Also
carried over from my painting practice is the habit of never a day without a
line.
Coincidentally
I had a teacher tell me to just write lines. It’s the equivalent of getting the paint on
the canvas. Made sense. I wrote a poem about that.
Rose Maloukis is
a poet and visual artist, with a BFA
from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. She was born and grew up in the
United States but has dual citizenship and resides in Montreal. Her poetry appears in a limited-edition
bilingual artist’s book, From the Middle
~ Sonoritiés du Coeur, which is held in the collection of both the national
and provincial libraries. She was short-listed
for the 2015 Montreal International Poetry Prize and two poems were published
in Matrix Magazine, Issue #105. A
winning Second Place poem has been published in Geist’s 2018 Spring Issue #108.
Her chapbook, Cloud Game with Plums
is forthcoming from above/ground press.
Thanks rob for all your efforts. I've had a great response.
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