It's always a strange feeling to be the only rhyming poet in a room full of poets. Where are those who love metered verse, lyrical turns of phrase, and accessible images depicted in writer's ink? Well ...
The Clockwork Alchemy Convention, which celebrates all things Steampunk, is always a great venue for my work, and for those who appreciate it for what it is: a secretive balancing of so many things.
I have written prose a few times, and I gave free verse a go. The one felt a bit too much like pretty essay writing than I was happy with, and with the other it too easy to get lost going nowhere in particular.
My muse was decidedly unhappy with either of those approaches, and only begrudgingly chimed in, but I needed to investigate both forms of writing for myself to see if there was anything there for me.
As it turned out, they did help me to stretch and grow, and some of what I learned still abides in my work to this day. Yes, I can write prose and free verse, but they epically failed to keep me for very long.
Thus, my shared, public readings, where I bob about in a sea of prose and free verse, is a lot like being invited by an acquaintance to a big party where I don't know anyone, and am awkwardly out of sync.
I like to think that Emily Dickinson may have felt likewise. In my opinion, judging by two of her poems, They Shut Me Up In Prose, and her sentiments in I Dwell In Possibility, it is quite possibly so.
Many have tried to explain her away as someone simply decrying her place in life; that of a woman living in a man's world. I don't buy it. Emily Dickinson has spoken her mind both eloquently and clearly.
As it is, I do not care for free verse, which I liken to unfinished diary entries. The only skill involved appears to be that of being able to let words flow on their own; babbling on without purpose but to babble.
And, I encounter prose quite often when I read the Opinion page of a newspaper, and in other forms of narrative writing. I have heard prose read well, and enjoyed it nuances, but it is all too loose for me.
Give me structure, and rules, and an obligation to hide all of my ardent deliberateness beneath the words that I so carefully choose so that only the images and ideas are obvious. Give me my own muse!
So there, I have had my honest say about it, and I am ever so very happy that I did not know about Ginsberg , or Laurence Ferlinghetti, until it was too late for me to be too ardently indoctrinated by them.
The Clockwork Alchemy Convention, which celebrates all things Steampunk, is always a great venue for my work, and for those who appreciate it for what it is: a secretive balancing of so many things.
I have written prose a few times, and I gave free verse a go. The one felt a bit too much like pretty essay writing than I was happy with, and with the other it too easy to get lost going nowhere in particular.
My muse was decidedly unhappy with either of those approaches, and only begrudgingly chimed in, but I needed to investigate both forms of writing for myself to see if there was anything there for me.
As it turned out, they did help me to stretch and grow, and some of what I learned still abides in my work to this day. Yes, I can write prose and free verse, but they epically failed to keep me for very long.
Thus, my shared, public readings, where I bob about in a sea of prose and free verse, is a lot like being invited by an acquaintance to a big party where I don't know anyone, and am awkwardly out of sync.
I like to think that Emily Dickinson may have felt likewise. In my opinion, judging by two of her poems, They Shut Me Up In Prose, and her sentiments in I Dwell In Possibility, it is quite possibly so.
Many have tried to explain her away as someone simply decrying her place in life; that of a woman living in a man's world. I don't buy it. Emily Dickinson has spoken her mind both eloquently and clearly.
As it is, I do not care for free verse, which I liken to unfinished diary entries. The only skill involved appears to be that of being able to let words flow on their own; babbling on without purpose but to babble.
And, I encounter prose quite often when I read the Opinion page of a newspaper, and in other forms of narrative writing. I have heard prose read well, and enjoyed it nuances, but it is all too loose for me.
Give me structure, and rules, and an obligation to hide all of my ardent deliberateness beneath the words that I so carefully choose so that only the images and ideas are obvious. Give me my own muse!
So there, I have had my honest say about it, and I am ever so very happy that I did not know about Ginsberg , or Laurence Ferlinghetti, until it was too late for me to be too ardently indoctrinated by them.
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