Deep Analysis of 2 Poems

Below is a recent exchange I had by e-mail. My answers are interspersed. The poems themselves are not in front of you. I'm hoping the analysis is still inlightening to curious writer searching for such discussion or improving her voice.-----

Chrissy: I enjoyed reading your poems very much and like them a lot! Both are very creative, moving, vivid, appealing to senses and feelings, though sad but not despaired or completely depressing, i.e. with sense of hope and recovery. Both used interesting analogies and comparisons. However, they are different. I think "Ode to Sadness" is more abstract and romantic, and "Her Ghost" is more domestic and practical. I sense maybe "Her Ghost" was written at a later time than "Ode to Sadness", when you were a little more recovered from your sadness but still think of and miss her now and then, more so at certain moments of a day than others, especially at dinner time, etc. I like both. But, if I have to pick, maybe I like "Ode to Sadness" even better, as, to me, it's more interesting and with more emotional intensity. What do you say?

There are many things I like in the two poems. For "Ode to Sadness", six three-lined stanzas In !st stanza, it's interesting you set the tone here and take sadness as your friend and use the mud-bath to elephant analogy. But, I'm very curious about how you thought about this when you wrote it.

Rich: I’d like to grow at poetry so I don’t have to wait around for inspiration (just “being me”) and being able to write from other people’s or a hypothetical person’s view point, but until then, I write just as I feel. “Wallowing” is a kind of common phrase for me, especially in self-talk, “although like an elephant” is not particularly how I generally put it or visualize it. It could be a pig, or other, wallowing critter, I suppose. But I didn’t like visualizing a pig, which connotes dirtiness more than I wanted. So that never came to mind. I’ve seen wallowing elephants more than once on PBS, so it jumped to mind as a good metaphor (at least, okay), including the needing of the messiness and kind of lazy relaxation and taking the assertive action to assuage a longstanding, hopeless irritation. Elephants are big like sadness is big.

Chrissy: 2nd and 3rd stanzas are very important ones, as they make us feel your sad feelings. I like your pick "pillow". One key word promotes so much associations and truly invokes readers' feelings. A picture's worth a thousand words. "Wrap it around my face and breathe in her perfume", such a vivid image, successfully bring readers to your position and feel what you feel.

Rich: Yeah, I love it, too. But it does kind of clash with the preceding elephant image, probably the main problems with the poem. Still, I feel this poem is among my biggest creative triumphs.

Chrissy: It must be sad and miserable beyond words for a surviving lover or spouse tossing in bed endlessly during those initial sleepless nights. It expressed how much you missed her more effectively than words could. 2nd stanza uses image and 3rd summarizes it in words, both convey the sad sad feelings. I really like the image and think it's such a success.

Rich: It’s not as though my wife and I never clashed. We did in some areas; love kind of fades into an acceptable living arrangement, complete with obvious positives and unspoken negatives. Surprising, no, shocking, to me, in having suffered through her dying, is how change, especially very sudden change to whole life style, etc. is so very difficult for humans to go through—high on the stress-meter. A relationship breaking up is difficult the same way. But the focus of this poem properly remains how the emotion of feeling sad actually helps humans cope; even helps us to face our inevitably tragic futures. (I don’t intend that little statement to be a downer, just factual.)

Chrissy: The 4th stanza, I kinda like the analogy, but not really clear if it's fog or a seducing woman who leads you to a dark place (without sun) and played you, and like very much to hear from you about your thoughts on this.

Rich: I think I’ve taken poetic license to stray and explore some tentative thoughts, not necessarily truths for all time. Certainly, your mind is not as clear as it was (foggy) when sadness strikes. Then I’ve personified sadness--like a student of poetry, but hope it comes across as seamless--and I made "her" (i.e., sadness) a surrogate intimate entity. Intimacy can have traits other than purely sexual, and is important in a successful relationship between mates. To me, physical touching is important. Here, I attempt to tenderly show it.

Chrissy: For 5th stanza, I love all these comparisons. Very interesting thoughts!

Rich: Thank you.

Chrissy: For 6th stanza, as I mentioned before, I like your inner strength of seeing hope, thus making it a positive end ....

Rich: Yeah, some people interpret me as a gloomy guy, and I wanted to not end up there.

Chrissy: ... despite the fact that you still feel sad sometimes. Same as in 1st stanza, I'm curious about exactly how you take sadness, your attitude in general toward sadness. You call it your friend, you like it, need it or cannot help being with it?

Rich: I think I accept sadness as a necessary seemingly-evil thing, like, say, taking a poop. That is completely natural, normal, proves your getting well-nourished, and yet it is taken so negative by our society. I want to sell sadness as normal. My Aunt treats everything in public, social situations as having to be happy and have a happy ending. Then, she can't accept awful things, e.g., she can't talk about them or even allow others to. For example, recently she couldn't face telling me that her daughter was dying of cancer (I finally visited my cousin in her last miserable days). I like balance. I love life and the life force we have. But I don’t deny the “negative.” In a Buddhist sort of view, death (after a good, full life) is actually a good thing. I’m doing something similarly, but with a not quite as socially negatively-charged subject.

Chrissy: I think Ode is a very good choice of poem form for your topic. I wonder what's your definition of ode? From what I learned in my Creative Writing class, it has no fixed rules or format.

Rich: I couldn’t figure out a decent, all encompassing title by excising a few words from the poem, so “Ode …” helps me a lot. It implies, “Let’s analyze sadness”, but avoids people skipping reading the poem if I had just named it “Sadness.” The latter is perfectly logical, but pre-charges the discussion with negativity. Ode is more neutral and has the possibility for being positive subject matter.

Chrissy: Is that [i.e., no fixed form or format] what you think, too? You had six three-lined stanzas for your ode, was it your choice? For any particular reasons?
Rich: It’s just how it popped out of my brain—of, course, there were rewrites, to pare it down to the essentials. It could be a one very-long stanza poem, but I’m a lousy reader, and like a lot of white space. Stanzas help to break it up into bite sized chunks.. You will also note, I strive for clarity in the view I’m presenting. I’m an engineer. No artful mysteries added if I can avoid it. That’s just me. There’s room in the world for phantasmagorical writing, but it’s not where I want to be for my own work, so far.

Chrissy: Anyway, I like to hear your thoughts or anything you want say or explain about your poem. Oh, I'm too slow. I only talked about one poem and it's this late again. Alright, next time. The good thing is I don't need to get up so early taking kids to school. My daughter's 0 period, starting at 7am, is killing me, as I'm not an early person.

Rich: The ghost poem is much more difficult because it bumps up against fictional things, and needs to blend them optimally with reality to get across what I’m trying to. It’s a less important and less successful poem in my opinion, too, but there’s a place for what it touches on. Kevin Arnold work-shopped it at last year's Gold Rush Writers Conference and likes it a lot, but wished I had explained: Was the ghost a continuation of my wife—and in what sense—or was the ghost something separate, spawned by my wife’s death? Perhaps another way to say it, should I call the ghost an “it” or should I call it a “her,” meaning my wife’s "soul," perhaps a white sheeted floating thing, a Casper-the-Ghost with my wife's personality or a changed personality for having "crossed over." Kind of deep, but the way I did it begs that line of questioning. Another way to state it: I’m an engineer, okay? Never in my adult life did I believe in ghosts, angels, gods, such things. Is the ghost poems saying that now I do believe? And Kevin felt I should clarify that and why or why not. But more recently he said that poem in particular sticks in his mind. Quite a compliment.

Chrissy: TGI Friday!

Rich: Having bored you to death, I say have a good week. Hey, longer is okay, too! I need to get to work on Ode To Happiness. --the end--

A Poetry Award

Jan,

A minor award, but if I don’t brag about my life, who else will? I wrote an ode to Chocolate Ice Cream. I think I haven’t work-shopped it with our group, but I did with Edie’s group. (“Very sensuous,” someone commented.) I have read it at a few open mikes including the Mokelumne Hill Gold Rush Conference, with laughs in all the right places. I had it printed in WritersTalk, last year’s “poetry” (May 2008) edition, and it won 1st (poetry) prize for the WritersTalk Challenge for that six-months. $40 richer for it and I nice little plaque on my wall.

I list it on my recent list of “published” articles on my web-site at http://www.writerichly.blogspot.com/. I presume you’re all curious so I include the poem below. – Rich

[So, below, here on my blogspot.blog, I only include the first 20% of the work. If you want more, you can get it by putting in a comment/response on this blog. In fact, thank you in advance for doing that. It’s a pretty good poem, IMHO. In the contest judges’ opinions , too, apparently.]

Cold Temptation
Richard A. Burns

For months I hardly know you exist, thank God.
One day, I slip up. I get a glimpse of your come-hither package at the store;
I allow it into my cart, a small sin in the scheme of things, I tell myself,
But this is the beginning of my fall.

I hide you in a cold, icy place for a day, maybe, a week.
All the while you bide your time,
Tapping your impatient fingers, waiting for me … for tonight.
You play possum, you naughty thing.

... [etc., etc.]

There is more; just ask. -rb

Publishing Cycle

Here's an e-mail I wrote to a friend about the foibles of publishing my novel, Sagebrush at Seven Trout Creek:

Hey, Mac,

These days, you write fiction because you love writing or you think you tell great stories. Getting it published by a reputable house is very iffy unless you're an established commodity like, say, a Grisham, a Clancy, or a Mary Higgins Clark. (Many women's books are what I call "precious" and are boring (no action or conflict). Another large group have strongly religious (Christian) views and sold mainly in Christian bookstores or web-sites. To me, these don't count, but they still make money. I don't consider them literature at all, but I suppose it's dangerous to group all such books into this "unreadable" category. They would say the same about what I write.)

Many people are going the self-publish route, which is getting easier and easier. I want a real publisher because publishing/marketing your own book means visiting hundreds of bookstores for little promotional chats all over the country. Even worse, these days people, especially men, do not read fiction nearly as much as 30 years ago.

I have two agents asking for a query letter The "Query" is a somewhat formalized request for them to read one's first 20 pages. If they're not very impressed with the query letter or the first 20 pages, they write you a rejection letter. When I spoke with both of them at a writers conference in September, I got scared that I needed the work trimmed down a lot, say, 95,000 words down to 65,000 words. So I'm still doing that, even before sending out the query letter. Unless you're just a plain genius, it ain't easy.

I can rewrite and polish something to death. My wife always complained of that about me. On the other hand, my writing has improved vastly from conferences, books, my critique group, my articles in our newsletter, and my laborious/rigorous rewriting process.

I ought to put out the query letters today, realizing there will likely be a four-week (or more) delay before an answer comes, and my first 20 pages is pretty well set (prepared to be sent), anyway In other words, I should poop or get off the pot, as Gary Labelle used to say.

If either one accepts, I send them the whole manuscript, probably e-mail MS Word attachment, double-spaced, by their specific format rules. If either one thinks it's pretty good or very good, we'd shake hands on the deal (no advances for fiction), and he'd assign my work to an editor. That professional editor would ask for small tweaks, corrections, questions about character's motivations not being clear, etc. I'm easy, so I'd change those things that would make sense. If his company still thinks it will make money, which is always the big question in commercial writing, they would give it the green light and publish it. I'd probably still be on the hook for a whole bunch of book signings at bookstores, but at least I would know it's legitimate, somebody in the industry thinks it has promise, it would get book reviews, and be easily available on Amazon and at chain bookstores.

If I fail to get interest, I'll wallpaper my living room with rejection letters. After I cry a lot, I might self-published, just to have it all in one place, under one cover. Then try my hand at marketing at local talks and signings. I'm very tempted to self publish a volume of poetry. I've had several people request that of me, which bolsters my confidence a lot. After a two month rest, I'd start structuring my next novel, which is about launching one of our (Silicon Valley) technical products on a Space Shuttle mission in 1988, and the reader will find out the protagonist designer's products caused it to explode. Recall that disastrous launch Reagan witnessed back then.

As Mark Twain said, I would have written a shorter letter if I had the time.

So, hey, Mac, keep your head down, and follow through. Golf is 85% mental. Writing commercially is 85% luck. --Rich

Help from Shoshone Indians

I'd like to make contact with Shoshone Indian(s) interested in telling short, true vignettes (stories) of how discrimination or perceived discrimination was manifested and affected your life. I am a white person (Irish descent) writing a novel set in the 1950s in Western-Shoshone Indian Reservation (Ta-Moak Band) 26 miles south of Elko, Nevada, on the west side of the Ruby Mountains. Comments don't need to be from people in that area; I'm just sharing details of my project so you know what I am about.

My objective is to improve my novel, allow for good guys and bad guys to be both white men and Indians, like real life, without becoming ridiculously stereotypical.

I'd like to get religious information, especially with regards to stories of how newe (the people -- -- the Shoshone Indian people) came on earth many generations ago and the role of animals as having special powers (like gods). Perhaps you recall any old Indian traditions handed-down that you remember grandma doing to help someone who was sick, perhaps a medicine men in the tribe, odd characters, outstanding chiefs, etc.

One of my goals is to stay realistic, have an exciting new adventure, and crafting a novel that will not be dismissed because it has unrealistic political bias. I feel I am unbiased and want to check on that. This is ranch country and people who ride horses on dirt roads as easily as driving the old pickup that needs the battery charged every morning in winter, perhaps with no electricity to their ranch or trailer.

Serious volunteers can read parts of my book and, hopefully, tell me which parts are okay and which parts make their skin crawl. Thanks for any help. I've been married in the past to a Shoshone woman and knew people on the "South Fork" Reservation quite well, but have minimal day-to-day contact with them. My nephews live there. I've harvested hay manually with them a few times, and some of my favorite people live there.

Am also curious about details of Tribal Council meetings. Please answer to this blog so I can score some "followers." Or you may choose to contact me at my e-mail: richard.a.burns@comcast.net. Thanks again for any help.

Richard A. Burns, novelist, author of unpublished novel, Sagebrush Charlie at Seven Trout Creek.

Shameless Touting of My Works

For the curious people out there, here is a listing of a few of my published poems and a couple of prizewinners:

Published in California Writers Club, South Bay Writers newsletter Writers Talk (WT)--
WT, January 2009 -- "Being a Man Is Better" -- page 12
WT, May 2008 -- "Cold Temptation" -- page 14*
WT, May 2008 -- "To Dance" -- page 14
WT, May 2008 -- "America, Don't Pass Me By" -- page 15
WT, May 2008 -- "Silence Is Golden" -- page 15
WT, May 2008 -- "How Are Things, Mr. President?" -- page 15
WT, December 2007 -- "Are You Missing Something?" -- page 15.

Anthology of Short Stories and Poetry entitled: Who Are Our Friends? and Other Works By South Bay Writers
See pg 20, "America Don't Pass Me By"
See pg 52, "Are you missing Something?"

Contest Winners
East of Eden Writers Conference, 2006 -- " TV Is Somethin’ ", Third Prize, Poetry*
WritersTalk, August 2006 Issue -- "I Wished", Second Prize (First Prize in Poetry)


Flash Fiction.
Collision -- July 2007, page 19

Short Stories, Memoire Vignettes

Grandpa's Christmas Tree -- December 2008, page 11.
The Ninth Hole – May 2007, page 17
Mark and the Storm, in The Sand Hill Review 2006

Other journalistic articles for WritersTalk newsletter –

June Recap, Tim Meyers Speaks on Writing -- July 2008, page 1
The Education of a Fiction Writer, #3, Sharpen Your Tools: Words and Phrases -- April 2008, page 4
Creating Story Plots That Sell (on Martha Alderson's talk) -- March 2008, page 5
The Education of a Fiction Writer, #1 -- January 2008, page 5
Halloween Meeting Recap, Barry Eisler Speaks – November 2007, page 4
A Talk with Bill Baldwin -- October 2007, page 4.
Notes from My Scratch-Pad [Excuses for not writing] -- October 2007, page 18.
* Prize Winner

This list is partial. I haven't found all the back issues of WritersTalk. My novel Sagebrush In Green Fields (in work) I also hope to publish SOON!