Yesterday in my dance class we had a substitute teacher who wanted us to focus on our bones as we danced. We did a lot of jumping and shaking, the general “rattling of bones” kind of thing. And then we did these lovely circular movements with our arms and legs in space where the teacher asked us to still focus on our bones, but as light or liquid, as if they contained the ocean. It was a really enjoyable class, the mixture of rigidity and fluidity manifested in the body.
A few days ago I found a set of antlers outside my house (hence the photo). They were bleached by the sun, Georgia O’Keefe-esque. All of these things together got me thinking about art, in particular poetry and what the “bones” are for a poem. Many poets I know out here rail against form. They place their poems all over the page; they don’t pay attention to meter or line breaks. They don’t have the intentionality I believe that is needed for a poem to have backbone. These things are the poem’s bones.
A good friend of mine, S. Heit, is a master at the combination of these things—both maintaining form and allowing it to breathe a bit. As if her bones were unconstrained by skin. She places poems at the edge of a page, down towards the lower-left corner and they seem to sigh in place there. Land, if you will. She places them all along the left margin, beautifully spaced couplets and you have the sense that the lines are perfectly balanced in space like shelves ready to hold something. I’ve been thinking about form a lot lately in terms of the collaborative work I’ve been doing with several musicians. Their music seems to give me permission to break my usual form. Seems to demand it almost, as if my words reflect their music only when I use all the available space on the page. But, I still want each phrase to have vertebrae, to use all 207 bones of its body. I’m working on this and I’m thankful to have the opportunity to work with music to help me break-free from my previous poetic dance. By the way, S. Heit is a dancer. Perhaps all poets should dance to better see their words and ideas in a space larger than what fits in a printer.
A few days ago I found a set of antlers outside my house (hence the photo). They were bleached by the sun, Georgia O’Keefe-esque. All of these things together got me thinking about art, in particular poetry and what the “bones” are for a poem. Many poets I know out here rail against form. They place their poems all over the page; they don’t pay attention to meter or line breaks. They don’t have the intentionality I believe that is needed for a poem to have backbone. These things are the poem’s bones.
A good friend of mine, S. Heit, is a master at the combination of these things—both maintaining form and allowing it to breathe a bit. As if her bones were unconstrained by skin. She places poems at the edge of a page, down towards the lower-left corner and they seem to sigh in place there. Land, if you will. She places them all along the left margin, beautifully spaced couplets and you have the sense that the lines are perfectly balanced in space like shelves ready to hold something. I’ve been thinking about form a lot lately in terms of the collaborative work I’ve been doing with several musicians. Their music seems to give me permission to break my usual form. Seems to demand it almost, as if my words reflect their music only when I use all the available space on the page. But, I still want each phrase to have vertebrae, to use all 207 bones of its body. I’m working on this and I’m thankful to have the opportunity to work with music to help me break-free from my previous poetic dance. By the way, S. Heit is a dancer. Perhaps all poets should dance to better see their words and ideas in a space larger than what fits in a printer.
No comments:
Post a Comment