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[Corndog]

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Very Personal Stuff!

“I never write about personal experiences or people close to me.  It's because I've found that, no matter what, nobody will ever read the poem the way I want them to, and that's because the subject matter is so personal.”

The comments above were written by a very competent poet responding on a recent thread of mine here on LM. I have heard these sentiments before by other poets. It concerns me somewhat, this idea, as quite a lot of my stuff has biographical or experience based connections.

A very well known Scottish poet George Mackay Brown wrote this wonderful poem:–

Hamnavoe

My father passed with his penny letters
Through closes opening and shutting like legends
When barbarous with gulls
Hamnavoe's morning broke

On the salt and tar steps. Herring boats,
Puffing red sails, the tillers
Of cold horizons, leaned
Down the gull-gaunt tide

And threw dark nets on sudden silver harvests.
A stallion at the sweet fountain
Dredged water, and touched
Fire from steel-kissed cobbles.

Hard on noon four bearded merchants
Past the pipe-spitting pier-head strolled,
Holy with greed, chanting
Their slow grave jargon.

A tinker keen like a tartan gull
At cuithe-hung doors. A crofter lass
Trudged through the lavish dung
In a dream of corn-stalks and milk.

In the Arctic Whaler three blue elbows fell,
Regular as waves, from beards spumy with porter,
Till the amber day ebbed out
To its black dregs.

The boats drove furrows homeward, like ploughmen
In blizzards of gulls. Gaelic fisher-girls
Flashed knife and dirge
Over drifts of herring.

And boys with penny wands lured gleams
From tangled veins of the flood. Houses went blind
Up one steep close, for a
Grief by the shrouded nets.

The kirk, in a gale of psalms, went heaving through
A tumult of roofs, freighted for heaven. And lovers
Unblessed by steeples lay under
The buttered bannock of the moon.

He quenched his lantern, leaving the last door.
Because of his gay poverty that kept
my seapink innocence
From the worm and black wind;

And because, under equality's sun,
All things wear now to a common soiling,
In the fire of images
Gladly I put my hand
To save that day for him.

This poem illustrates the author’s distinctive voice and is a poem for his Father, who was once the town’s postman. Obviously this poem is elegiac - so obviously biographical, but so much more is expressed in the poem. The community, the environment, even the culture of the Orkneys.

One of the first poems I memorised was Lord Byron’s ‘She walks in Beauty’ –

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The poem was inspired by actual events in Byron’s life. Once, while at a ball, Byron happened upon a beautiful woman as she walked by. That woman was Byron’s cousin by marriage, Mrs. John Wilmot, and the next morning the poem was written. She was in mourning, wearing a black dress set with spangles, which would explain the opening lines.

So why do people have difficulty writing of - or about personal experience? Many modern poets From Frank O’Hara to Bukowski with his –for real- rooming house lyricism, use the everyday in their poetry:
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

By Frank O’Hara


O’Hara states:
“What is happening to me, allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems. I don’t think my experiences are clarified or made beautiful for myself or anyone else, they are just there in whatever form I can find them.” He goes on to say, "My formal 'stance' is found at the crossroads where what I know and can't get meets what is left of that I know and can bear without hatred." He then says, "It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time."

So he definitely wasn’t shy in using personal experience in his work.

Charles Bukowski, I’m sure we all know, uses everyday experience in his poetry, largely an autobiographical narrative. His novels also are based largely on biographical detail:

my old man, by charles bukowski

16 years old
during the depression
I’d come home drunk
and all my clothing–
shorts, shirts, stockings–
suitcase, and pages of
short stories
would be thrown out on the
front lawn and about the
street.
my mother would be
waiting behind a tree:
“Henry, Henry, don’t
go in . . .he’ll
kill you, he’s read
your stories . . .”
“I can whip his
ass . . .”
“Henry, please take
this . . .and
find yourself a room.”
but it worried him
that I might not
finish high school
so I’d be back
again.
one evening he walked in
with the pages of
one of my short stories
(which I had never submitted
to him)
and he said, “this is
a great short story.”
I said, “o.k.,”
and he handed it to me
and I read it.
it was a story about
a rich man
who had a fight with
his wife and had
gone out into the night
for a cup of coffee
and had observed
the waitress and the spoons
and forks and the
salt and pepper shakers
and the neon sign
in the window
and then had gone back
to his stable
to see and touch his
favorite horse
who then
kicked him in the head
and killed him.
somehow
the story held
meaning for him
though
when I had written it
I had no idea
of what I was
writing about.
so I told him,
“o.k., old man, you can
have it.”
and he took it
and walked out
and closed the door.
I guess that’s
as close
as we ever got.
from: “Love Is A Dog From Hell” 1977

You don’t get more personal than that! So what is it that proves so difficult with poets using personal experience in their poetry? I found this fascinating article while writing this piece:


robert peake. com 'A crisis of the personal in poetry. (Sorry it wont let me post a link!)

Actually the above is a great blog for loads of features based around poetry. So……. Anyone gonna put me right on this one? Personally, I doubt it.



 

[Ġakbu]

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In a way, all writing is autobiographical. However, all writing is also not at all linked to the writer per se - in what way?

The French critic Maurice Blanchot (quite mad) said that the essential solitude (understand what you will with that) is that of the work, not of the artist or reader. The writer cannot master the work. There are two hands, and one is being controlled by the pen, and the other is stopping the pen controlling the hand: the only ability of the writer is to interrupt the writing. In this manner, it becomes difficult to think of writing as an instrument with which to influence society. There is no essence which the writer can grasp; the work escapes comprehension, cognitive appropriation and classification; there is instead a phenomenology of reading. There is no form or content—so not even the merging of the two: they simply aren’t there. He negates both reader and writer. ‘He who writes the work is set aside; he who has written it, is dismissed.’ That quotation illustrates how he challenges the assumed chronology: it is not first the writer, then the work; the writer becomes a writer after the work is written: both are created at the same time – but as the writing is finished, ‘he [the writer] is dismissed’. The important thing is that the work is. The writer and reader’s solitude only partakes of something that is a nothingness of being.

Now, that may sound like hogwash. Unapplied, it is purely theoretical. I've summarized his ideas here because it relates to his: the egocentricity of writing. It is a question of balance, and, more importantly, philosophy: will the art be fought for, or will the artist fight himself? It is like that pianist, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who almost never acknowledged the audience's applause - why? Because he is just a medium for the art - it is the music that 'deserves' the applause.

In essence, I'm saying that it's irrelevant if a poem, a painting, a novel is based on your father's death or the death of an imaginary father - it is irrelevant to the poem itself, it is relevant to the writer and the reader who interact with the fact of that particular death. One of the most famous poems about a dying father is Dylan's villanelle - the reason why it is so popular and is often considered his best (it isn't) is because of the universal nature it undertook, due in part to the intense magnificence of his funereal rhetoric. Most people interpret the poem as a rallying cry against death, but the biographical detail behind the poem is that Dylan's father was a fiery atheist, and at the end, his usual fervour was sagging, and Dylan hated seeing his once 'proud' father wilting into weakness. But the poem transcended, so that's that. What comes from the personal becomes - upon reading - universal. Is that not why King Lear, for example, is so loved - apart from its poetics - not because it was personal or not personal, but because it transcended the setting of the play: there must be undertones of Shakespeare in the play, of the personal Shakespeare, but they are diluted, whatever they are. Character in writing, if it ever arises, usually comes through in what the writer concerns himself with more than is usual for a certain number of other people - be it in imagery or theme.

I've never had a problem with people writing about their personal lives or experiences. I've always had a problem with personal lives and experiences being presented in writing though! I mean that when they come before the writing itself, the writing becomes sidelined. I'm not referring to your piece in particular Roger.  Of course, writing in an immediate first person is as much an obstacle as writing in an exiled third - it's the quality of writing that matters.

The problem with the personal is when it becomes a diary. Well, some people enjoy learning that Oprah has discovered her lost half-sister, some don't. It's the absorption into another's personal routine, the saying of that which is fatuous - but as I said, that's the misuse of life in relation to art.

There are so many great elegies in art, and elegies are always personal. They connect with emotions, and perhaps thoughts, that are found in all of mankind.

Another interesting conundrum would be personal symbolism/imagery: isn't that personal too, when instead of theme, you have personal symbolism/imagery? But the latter is much more often rejected than the former.

Personally speaking, I'm very interested in detachedness, austerity, spareness - but I don't distinguish really when I read something, as to whether it's personal or not. I prefer reading sexlessly as it were: never mind the issues and so on, first the text, then those for added layering.

p.s. I think this would be better placed in the debating forum

 

[Nick]

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Very Personal Stuff!

“I never write about personal experiences or people close to me.  It's because I've found that, no matter what, nobody will ever read the poem the way I want them to, and that's because the subject matter is so personal.”

The comments above were written by a very competent poet responding on a recent thread of mine here on LM. I have heard these sentiments before by other poets. It concerns me somewhat, this idea, as quite a lot of my stuff has biographical or experience based connections.

A very well known Scottish poet George Mackay Brown wrote this wonderful poem:–

Hamnavoe

My father passed with his penny letters
Through closes opening and shutting like legends
When barbarous with gulls
Hamnavoe's morning broke

On the salt and tar steps. Herring boats,
Puffing red sails, the tillers
Of cold horizons, leaned
Down the gull-gaunt tide

And threw dark nets on sudden silver harvests.
A stallion at the sweet fountain
Dredged water, and touched
Fire from steel-kissed cobbles.

Hard on noon four bearded merchants
Past the pipe-spitting pier-head strolled,
Holy with greed, chanting
Their slow grave jargon.

A tinker keen like a tartan gull
At cuithe-hung doors. A crofter lass
Trudged through the lavish dung
In a dream of corn-stalks and milk.

In the Arctic Whaler three blue elbows fell,
Regular as waves, from beards spumy with porter,
Till the amber day ebbed out
To its black dregs.

The boats drove furrows homeward, like ploughmen
In blizzards of gulls. Gaelic fisher-girls
Flashed knife and dirge
Over drifts of herring.

And boys with penny wands lured gleams
From tangled veins of the flood. Houses went blind
Up one steep close, for a
Grief by the shrouded nets.

The kirk, in a gale of psalms, went heaving through
A tumult of roofs, freighted for heaven. And lovers
Unblessed by steeples lay under
The buttered bannock of the moon.

He quenched his lantern, leaving the last door.
Because of his gay poverty that kept
my seapink innocence
From the worm and black wind;

And because, under equality's sun,
All things wear now to a common soiling,
In the fire of images
Gladly I put my hand
To save that day for him.

This poem illustrates the author’s distinctive voice and is a poem for his Father, who was once the town’s postman. Obviously this poem is elegiac - so obviously biographical, but so much more is expressed in the poem. The community, the environment, even the culture of the Orkneys.

One of the first poems I memorised was Lord Byron’s ‘She walks in Beauty’ –

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The poem was inspired by actual events in Byron’s life. Once, while at a ball, Byron happened upon a beautiful woman as she walked by. That woman was Byron’s cousin by marriage, Mrs. John Wilmot, and the next morning the poem was written. She was in mourning, wearing a black dress set with spangles, which would explain the opening lines.

So why do people have difficulty writing of - or about personal experience? Many modern poets From Frank O’Hara to Bukowski with his –for real- rooming house lyricism, use the everyday in their poetry:
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

By Frank O’Hara


O’Hara states:
“What is happening to me, allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems. I don’t think my experiences are clarified or made beautiful for myself or anyone else, they are just there in whatever form I can find them.” He goes on to say, "My formal 'stance' is found at the crossroads where what I know and can't get meets what is left of that I know and can bear without hatred." He then says, "It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time."

So he definitely wasn’t shy in using personal experience in his work.

Charles Bukowski, I’m sure we all know, uses everyday experience in his poetry, largely an autobiographical narrative. His novels also are based largely on biographical detail:

my old man, by charles bukowski

16 years old
during the depression
I’d come home drunk
and all my clothing–
shorts, shirts, stockings–
suitcase, and pages of
short stories
would be thrown out on the
front lawn and about the
street.
my mother would be
waiting behind a tree:
“Henry, Henry, don’t
go in . . .he’ll
kill you, he’s read
your stories . . .”
“I can whip his
ass . . .”
“Henry, please take
this . . .and
find yourself a room.”
but it worried him
that I might not
finish high school
so I’d be back
again.
one evening he walked in
with the pages of
one of my short stories
(which I had never submitted
to him)
and he said, “this is
a great short story.”
I said, “o.k.,”
and he handed it to me
and I read it.
it was a story about
a rich man
who had a fight with
his wife and had
gone out into the night
for a cup of coffee
and had observed
the waitress and the spoons
and forks and the
salt and pepper shakers
and the neon sign
in the window
and then had gone back
to his stable
to see and touch his
favorite horse
who then
kicked him in the head
and killed him.
somehow
the story held
meaning for him
though
when I had written it
I had no idea
of what I was
writing about.
so I told him,
“o.k., old man, you can
have it.”
and he took it
and walked out
and closed the door.
I guess that’s
as close
as we ever got.
from: “Love Is A Dog From Hell” 1977

You don’t get more personal than that! So what is it that proves so difficult with poets using personal experience in their poetry? I found this fascinating article while writing this piece:


robert peake. com 'A crisis of the personal in poetry. (Sorry it wont let me post a link!)

Actually the above is a great blog for loads of features based around poetry. So……. Anyone gonna put me right on this one? Personally, I doubt it.



 

You go, girl!

Get down wit yer bad self, y'all.

And welcome to the South 40.

[Sana]

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Roger, all I write is personal. I must lack the ability to make things up, so I recycle my experiences, thoughts, and reflections then use them for poetry/essays.


It is OKAY to be a confessional badass poet. Acutally autobiographical work is more authentic and turns my reader appetite on!

[Nick]

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robert peake. com
worth the trip

[Corndog]

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Thanks Ġakbu for a most interesting reply. I know the Dylan Thomas poem and I thought 'Do not Go Gently...' was raging against death..... But I guess the interpretation is the readers....

I think the most important part in using personal experience is the way you present the information. You kinda filter it and create a partition to self. The experience is the catalyst for the poem.  It is the experience you wish to SHARE with the reader, that is the essence of writing, not the biographical instance. If you can recreate the emotion through sensory portrayal, imagery and poetic techniques, you meet your goal.

There is a whole field of 'Confessional Poetry' by Sexton and others that manage to separate the experience and the 'personal' dynamic and write excellent poetry... But that, itself, may be another debate.

[Jenifer]

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I just get turned off about being called a 'confessional poet' because I don't like people reading my stuff and assuming I'm all fucked up or people I know are all fucked up or whatever.

It would be one thing if people just commented on the piece, but when I get messages about what people 'think I should do' or even encouraging letters it's annoying!  It takes the release out of writing.

[unpetitfauve]

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Since this is pretty much a response to what I said, I'll clarify my original thought:

I'm not saying writing about personal experience is bad in any way.  Everybody's writing has some degree of autobiography, and plenty of writers have written excellent works that have been very much dependent on personal experience (my all-time favorite being The First Man by Albert Camus).  When it comes to my own writing, I personally need some form of separation between myself and the speaker.  However, I do not necessarily need to see this in the writing of others.  I appreciate a wide variety of styles and narratives that are very different from my own.

Also, I'd like to mention that the first poem of mine that was ever published was of a personal nature!

[Jenifer]

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Another nice thing about being a writer is that you can always take what is personal or true and twist it to make it either better, worse, what you want it to be or whatever.  Poetic license is a cool thing...

[Sana]

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Another nice thing about being a writer is that you can always take what is personal or true and twist it to make it either better, worse, what you want it to be or whatever.  Poetic license is a cool thing...

I agree! 

[red_sparrow]

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Why do I keep wanting to 'like' peoples' posts... too much Facebook?