 Poetry: March 13, 2024 Issue [#12461] |
This week: Icebergs Edited by: Fyn  
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Language and identity are so fundamentally intertwined. You peel back all the layers in terms of what we wear and what we eat and all the things that mark us, and in the end, what we have are our words. ~~Jhumpa Lahiri
My book has a very simple surface, but there are layers of irony and paradox all the way through it. ~~Mark Haddon
I found that gloss paint suited me entirely, and its qualities still intrigue me. It's viscous and fluid and feels like a pool. It's highly reflective, which means there are layers of looking. You look at the picture, and you look at the surface, then you look at the reflection in the surface behind you, then you look at yourself. ~~Gary Hume
It's always interesting exploring something that has dimensions and layers to it. Tahir ~~Raj Bhasin
I have always loved story - I escaped within it as a child, I read every day, I love figuring out the complex layers of an author's work. ~~Kirsten Prout
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There's a reason that the phrase just the tip of the iceberg exists. Roughly 87-90 percent of an iceberg is below the waterline. At first glimpse, we cannot see most of an iceberg. We must look deeper. That is when one can see just how little we see floating around. Try it yourself with an ice cube and you can easily see how much of it is below the waterline.
What has this to do with writing or writing poetry you ask? Whether one is reading poetry or writing it, it is easy to see what is readily available, or right on the top level. And certainly, one could stop there. Or, one can delve deeper.
Looking into the depth of a poem requires multiple readings to ascertain everything from rhyme scheme to repeated words, from metaphors to to perhaps even researching when as in time the poem was written or even when in an author's life it was written. What surrounds it: circumstances, life events, or world events. What are the possible meanings attached? Why did the poet choose those specific words? Why the title?
I'll never forget analyzing a poem of Robert Frost's in college. I 'thought' I knew that poem inside and out. People who 'know' me, know I met Robert Frost as a child and for a summer we walked and talked about poetry. He had me memorize his and other poet's work. We'd talked a lot about The Road Not Taken. As a child, I'd thought his 'taking the road less traveled' was what had made all the difference. But revisiting it in college, I realized that it was more the fact that there was a choice between the roads. The road not taken, the other road, was what made the difference and those are two vastly different things.
Learning how to incorporate depth, levels into one's writing adds so much nuance, meaning, and understanding into what we write. It is difficult to learn how to do. It's hard work. But it is so worth it!
So don't just hand over the mere tip of the iceberg. Give the reader that 90% more for them to discover and sink their teeth into! Long after college, I was going into a high school English class to talk to the students about writing. To prepare for me, they'd studied some of my work. (That was a scary (and humbling) thought!) Three of the poems they'd studied were The Covered Bridge - 1927},The River Never Stops and Sleigh Ride.* I stood there in the back of the room, unnoticed as I hadn't wanted to interrupt the current discussion.
A student was responding to the teacher's question about how were the poems similar. She was saying that the poems were as much about the poet as they were about the subjects within the poem. And, that she thought that, in a sense, the poetry incorporated the reader as well. I remember smiling. The teacher saw me at that point and the previous discussion came to an end. I did, however, compliment the student on her 'getting' it. She later asked me how did one really know if what the reader got out of the poem was what the writer intended. I explained that if it was there to pull out, then probably it was indeed. She smiled and then told me she needed to reread her own work.
It was my turn to smile. I told her that Robert Frost had once upon a long ago time that he felt a poem was never finished and how it frustrated him sometimes when he wanted to change something, but the publishers said not to because so many people had already memorized it as it was. I remember him grumbling about that and how it was his poem in the first place. But then, he'd smiled and told me that once the poem had been given to others to read, it was up to them to get what the poet told them. And that if it really bothered him over him, he'd just write another.
So I say again, give your readers the opportunity to look deeper. Give them something more to discover.
*all in my port should you choose to go looking. :) |
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