Bewitched, Bothered and Butters: The Interview

[butters]

As the majority of poets here seem to be American, do you ever wonder (as I have on occasion) if they will actually 'get' what you are saying or read a completely different meaning into your words?

Ay oop, Annie!

Perhaps I ought to think more about nationality/culture when writing - but I'd be lying if I said it was a consideration. I suppose it would be something to address when submitting to specific publications, maybe. Unless there are area/accent-specific references, though, I don't think I ever have. If there is room for confusion that a writer's aware of, a footnote could easily explain things.

It's probably that I've only ever been asked for clarification once or twice that it doesn't become a thing. When people have read entirely different meanings into my pieces, it's more likely due to my own lack of ability in getting my meaning across clearly than any brit/american divide. I've been published in american, japanese and various european outlets and have never been called upon to edit any content due to confusion arising from language. Having said that, it might be that people read my stuff and get one meaning where I mean something completely different but don't get told about it so remain happily ignorant. It'd be nice to think the writes deal with images and emotional content that's universal to some degree, which makes such considerations less urgent for this lazy writer.

The way I look at it, overall, is this: I read poets from all around the world and take them as I find them. Their words seem to reach across any physical or cultural borders, and so it'd be nice to think I get read with the same reach of understanding.

 

[butters]

The ones that I saw I think you took on a walk on a lovely day, they were particularly atmospheric and lovely.

Yes, that is an amazing piece. You use eyes and ears to full impact. And, yes, you did answer me, thank you.

Thanks so much, you talented lady, you. and happy mothers day.

Ha, so not the Get your tits out here thread, then
I think the last I posted apart from there were probably the Southend (seaside) ones.

I was going for something like an overdose of imagery there to underscore the theme. I did? Great *phew*

You're very kind - I play it by ear and hope I can wing it. At the end of the clichéd day, I get around all that embarrassment by making it about the poem and its own, specific voice rather than about me. (That way, if it sucks, it's the poem's voice that sucks. <- That's called a cop-out, right? Right. )

Ta, but our brit Mother's Day was months ago.

 

[HarryHill]

Harry, thanks for your comment on 'and you and you and you' but what the hell are eol's?
..
End of lines. Chipper, if I can still call you that.
..
I have to admit that I never got past the first few poems in your vault. Real Life has been in the way of perusing them with any depth, at least my version of RL. This forum gives me a chance to pin you down about a poem that I wanted you to post in NP. 'VenomouSsssss' How did it come to you? And in that vein, do you write to the title or the poem?
..

 

[butters]

Harry, thanks for your comment on 'and you and you and you' but what the hell are eol's?
..
End of lines. Chipper, if I can still call you that.
..
I have to admit that I never got past the first few poems in your vault. Real Life has been in the way of perusing them with any depth, at least my version of RL. This forum gives me a chance to pin you down about a poem that I wanted you to post in NP. 'VenomouSsssss' How did it come to you? And in that vein, do you write to the title or the poem?
..

*facepalm* of course that's what it means. Duh. And call me whatever you like. If I don't answer, it means I can't possibly imagine it's directed at me

No worries, H - it was the same for me during Tristesse's interview. Life gets in the way of our Lit time.

Ah, that one. Okay, the title was a prompt given to us over on another forum I dropped in on and spent a little time at. Nice people, a few decent writers, but I didn't have have enough time to split between here, there and my other interests. So, in this instance, it was a case of the title dictating the direction of the write. I'd left it late and wrote it quickly in order to get it in under the deadline. I did what I tend to do when pushed for time or inspiration - fall back on the familiar. Here it was the familiarity of religious references using sound and imagery as framework - and just imagining the slightly camp lisping jewish-accented voice (jewish for a tie-in to stereotypical persecution) lent itself to a humorous twist to a serious idea about a subject I don't believe in anyway. So, in other words, I went for the gimmicky laugh. It was a success inasmuch as people got it and it made them laugh, less so with all the 's's which some loved, others found a distraction.

As stated before, I write with whatever comes to mind first, and then decide whether to use a title as something to add to/explain the meaning of the piece or use a first line as title so the body is a direct continuation of phrase.

I'm really pleased you liked it, though, Harry - it's one that makes me smile as well when reading it Thanks for the question. Got any more? And mine's an ice-cold vodka with a twist of lime, please

 

[Angeline]

butters can you talk about your favorite poets, the ones you think have really influenced the way you write? Who are they are what about them is appealing to you? Have you learned any specific things from reading them that you believe has made a difference in your own writing? I know you talked about things you memorized as a youngster and the authors that got you interested in writing, but I want to know about the poets on your short list.

 

[butters]

butters can you talk about your favorite poets, the ones you think have really influenced the way you write? Who are they are what about them is appealing to you? Have you learned any specific things from reading them that you believe has made a difference in your own writing? I know you talked about things you memorized as a youngster and the authors that got you interested in writing, but I want to know about the poets on your short list.

Can I talk about . . . ? It's the shutting me up part you'll find harder.

First and foremost, the Romantic poets had a profound influence on how I 'heard' poetry: discovering them, I found their writing contained such a richness of language describing such bucolic imagery in such a measured, musical way that I was hooked. Nature has always been inspirational to me.Though there are times I frequently feel an outsider looking in, an observer of people, I've never felt a disconnect with Nature. Feet on the ground, head in the air, I could spend days if not weeks listening to all the voices of nature once people-voices are stilled. I think reading these guys gave me a fair grounding in rhythm (meter) despite being unaware of how it soaked into me, osmosis-like. So . . . when first experimenting with words, extravagant, more unusual words and generally 'richer' language was the path I took. Unfortunately, It became more about the words than what I was trying to say. But I don't regret it: instead it's something I view as a necessary working out of how I wanted to write - and you can only do it through experimenting. That was back when words ruled me. I choose to think it is somewhat reversed nowadays. Sometimes the words, though, they disagree.

Wordsworth gripped me with his imagery, Byron with his modernity, and Coleridge - well, Kubla Khan just blew me away . . . those caverns measureless to man? Oh man!

And then there was Walt Whitman. I've been known to say he's my favourite, but the truth is it's that one poem of his - Song of Myself - that I fell in love with. It was this poem that sort of gave me permission to write pieces as long as they wanted to be - permission to really free my mind from constraints of the romantic poets' line-length/punctuation and so on. Perhaps this is all an excuse, but it genuinely is how I felt at the time. It was after reading him that my writes grew to the kind of size not many wished to read (so in need of editing as they were) let alone critique. But it was good for me - another experiment, another learning experience.

It wasn't until later that I began reading a much wider and more modern band of poets - Neruda, Frost, cummings, Emerson, Pound, Eliot, Roethke, Verlaine - which further opened my eyes to ways a poem could be framed on a page, how familiar ideas/imagery could be made fresh, and how language could be made subject to the author and release the author from the tyranny (ok, that's overstated a bit, lol) - the control - of words. It was probably around this time that I was hosting my own writing/arts webcommunity that showcased the work of e-poets/artists/musicians. And this is when I found that poetry was alive and kicking out there in the ethersphere! Poetry wasn't dead, but spread around the e-cosmos like a million million twinkling points of light. I was drunk on reading good poetry, but had a hangover from having to toil through the bad to uncover it. Too many poets to name, so many names I can't even remember now but whose poetry sparkled. It was . . . a wonderful time of discovery. I think it affected my own writing by making me more self-critical - and by realising that options were endless but unless you made boundaries for yourself you could become lost in space. Lost In Space! Now that was a great show, right? Specifically, attempting to co-write haiku/tanka and other small forms with an award-winning japanese-form poet, taught me something about curtailing the words, making tardis poems, and about how bloody difficult such short forms can be. And it wasn't all about writing to learn, it was the learning how to critique others that helped shaped how I now write. Sort of.

Okay, a short-list. Well, compared to you guys who've studied literature properly, or made it your careers, I feel poorly-read and am shit at naming names the way you all can. I cannot, though, feel impoverished too long when I feel so rich having read the people I have! Like music, I have a tendency to prefer individual tracks over specific bands with some rare exceptions whose bodies of work I enjoy as a whole. It's much the same for me with poetry, but the poets I'd most regret not ever being able to read again would be:

Whitman - his joie-de vivre and mastery of the word - the length and breadth and width of him

Byron - depth, modernity, sharp insight and acerbic wit

Shakespeare - for making it appear effortless, no matter how many verses - a happy education, and a lover of language

Neruda - sigh. that's it. he makes me sigh.

Roethke - he does stuff like this for me:

The breath of the long root,
The shy perimeter
Of the unfolding rose,
The green, the altered leaf,
The oyster's weeping foot,
And the incipient star --
Are part of what she is.
She wakes the ends of life.

(from Words for the wind)

Now if he can do oysters, Angeline, we can but try our pens on nano-clams.

 

[Angeline]

Thank you. The Roethke is beautiful: I think we share a love of musical poetry. And if reading Neruda doesn't make you sigh, well you need to check your pulse imho. I disdain those who dismiss him for being sentimental or bathetic, you know what I mean. I read him and think he was a man who understood women in an elemental way.

Your response is a wonderful road map of how you got to what you're writing now. I started with the Romantics (and Shakespeare), too and it was the richness of the language, but mostly the music of the rhythms that pulled me in like you describe. I know lots of people dismiss Wordsworth, too, for being shallow, a 19th-century Hallmark poet, kinda, but there is much to love about the lyrical way he writes about nature.

What really strikes me though is what you've said about learning to transcend the tyranny of words because is there any poet who has been at this game for a while who doesn't discover that too many words ruin poems? I feel like my own poetry journey has been an exercise in learning how to take words away.

And maybe you will get me to read Coleridge again! I had to memorize parts of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school and it made me hate him. I should know better. Some of the best writers I've known here rhapsodize about Kubla Khan. I read it in college but was not open to it (the bad high school memories of him still sitting on me like lead back then).

So since you love Whitman, what do you think of Ginsberg? He is such a disciple of Whitman to me.

Again, I'm loving the way you teach me here. Cause you do and don't deny it!

 

[HarryHill]

Can I talk about . . . ? It's the shutting me up part you'll find harder.
Do you type this or use a Dragon(rtm) how fast do you type?

Roethke - he does stuff like this for me:

The breath of the long root,
The shy perimeter
Of the unfolding rose,
The green, the altered leaf,
The oyster's weeping foot,
And the incipient star --
Are part of what she is.
She wakes the ends of life.

(from Words for the wind)

he does stuff for me too, thanks for that taste

Now if he can do oysters, Angeline, we can but try our pens on nano-clams.

Notice Angie was mum about this.
How in the world did you pick that title?

 

[Angeline]

Notice Angie was mum about this.
How in the world did you pick that title?

Yes, mum, but inside I'm a swirling cloud of doubt about the challenge. I have no clue how to approach it yet.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Notice Angie was mum about this.
How in the world did you pick that title?

Don't blame Ange, it was the diabolical CharleyH who stuck it to us. Any way you sound as if you're home and dry already, so clam up.

 

[Angeline]

Don't blame Ange, it was the diabolical CharleyH who stuck it to us. Any way you sound as if you're home and dry already, so clam up.

And Lauren. I blame Lauren, too.

ETA: I had no role in the choice of title. CharleyH looked at the list and picked her favorite. Believe me, I woulda gone with the oceans title. Well maybe I can still write about the ocean. Sort of.

 

[HarryHill]

Don't blame Ange, it was the diabolical CharleyH who stuck it to us. Any way you sound as if you're home and dry already, so clam up.

Yes Ma'am

 

[butters]

Thank you. The Roethke is beautiful: I think we share a love of musical poetry. And if reading Neruda doesn't make you sigh, well you need to check your pulse imho. I disdain those who dismiss him for being sentimental or bathetic, you know what I mean. I read him and think he was a man who understood women in an elemental way.

*nods - nods and sighs*

Your response is a wonderful road map of how you got to what you're writing now. I started with the Romantics (and Shakespeare), too and it was the richness of the language, but mostly the music of the rhythms that pulled me in like you describe. I know lots of people dismiss Wordsworth, too, for being shallow, a 19th-century Hallmark poet, kinda, but there is much to love about the lyrical way he writes about nature.

Just don't ask for directions because I'm rubbish at reading in a car. The images and words wiggle too much and hurt my brain.
That whole daffodil thing? Why do they shove that in kids' faces? It's one of his I find least interesting, though the idea of that bright sunny patch of colour has a certain charm. His piece 'Skating', from The Prelude, is the one I remember best and with love - sound, motion,concept, imagery, and that whole 'make a sudden stop and you can see the world keep turning' thing - it left its indelible mark on me without a doubt. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, Angeline x


And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us–for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six,–I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures,–the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star

That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me–even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

What really strikes me though is what you've said about learning to transcend the tyranny of words because is there any poet who has been at this game for a while who doesn't discover that too many words ruin poems? I feel like my own poetry journey has been an exercise in learning how to take words away.

Cut, cut and cut again - but it's such a cool feeling when you find those few words left do the job of twice their number or even more!

And maybe you will get me to read Coleridge again! I had to memorize parts of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school and it made me hate him. I should know better. Some of the best writers I've known here rhapsodize about Kubla Khan. I read it in college but was not open to it (the bad high school memories of him still sitting on me like lead back then).

Having to do anything can be enough to put us off - even stuff we'd do quite willingly through choice! If you only ever read Kubla Khan - with your reader's head on first and foremost - and allow your mind's eye to be filled with its visions, it'll be an experience worth having. Well, in my ever so 'umble opinion, that is

So since you love Whitman, what do you think of Ginsberg? He is such a disciple of Whitman to me.

Again, I'm loving the way you teach me here. Cause you do and don't deny it!

Annnnnnnd here we come to a stonking great hole in my literary knowledge - I've been moved by those of his I've read, but not read enough to form a proper response to your question. HOWEVER! I intend to address that gap by getting out my book on American poets and reading him in depth. I'll get back to you So many poets to read, so little time. And another thing I've noticed is there are far fewer women poets whose works have rocked my socks than men. I've nothing against women poets (obviously!) but have yet to immerse myself properly in the writes of people such as Maya Angelou - she's someone whose work I really want to settle down with and devour. I've read pieces by Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Pam Ayres (grins), Wendy Cope and many more but there are so many still unread - writers who will move me more than these women, I hope. I'd like to think it's my lack of knowledge of these writers that skews my preferences to-date for male poets. Suggestions, please?

 

[butters]

Do you type this or use a Dragon(rtm) how fast do you type?

Notice Angie was mum about this.
How in the world did you pick that title?

Type - fast! I dunno, almost as fast as i can talk or think - specially if i'm not operating the shift key.

Yes, yes she was

The title - blame the tv. Some wildlife oceanic programme mentioned nano-clams. It was on in the back ground as I was making posts over on the general board. The sound of the name made me prick up my ears:

'nano-clams'? Never heard of them. Are they real? Of course they are, they're on a documentary. *Opens browser to look them up . . . posts on the general board 'nano-clams!*

Then when I read the call for titles, it seemed an obvious choice but needed a little something more and that's where it went. And you're probably the only one who's got a draft pinned down already I'm still doing a bit of reading - before I throw all that aside and write whatever comes along

 

[butters]

And Lauren. I blame Lauren, too.

ETA: I had no role in the choice of title. CharleyH looked at the list and picked her favorite. Believe me, I woulda gone with the oceans title. Well maybe I can still write about the ocean. Sort of.

Exactly - take it in whichever direction you want. Are you a water-baby?

 

[Angeline]

Exactly - take it in whichever direction you want. Are you a water-baby?

I was a fairly athletic kid and was actually on a swimming team for years: a very fast freestyle swimmer. (I've slowed down considerably in the intervening years.) Anyway this is my mode: I piss and moan and put things off till the last minute and then I just sit down and write. And whether it comes out good or not, I always learn something new in the research and writing. I like that because I'm a total nerd for learning.

If you want to read Ginsberg, start with Kaddish, an elegy for his mad mother. If you've not read it before you will see the Whitman connection right off, albeit through the looking-glass of another time.

 

[Angeline]

Just a few days left

before this interview thread is unstuck. If you have questions or comments and time (because you are not, for example, writing a poem about clams), time grows short. Well you can always bump any interview thread, but that doesn't mean the interviewees will respond indefinitely.

In any case, butters you sweetheart, you are the real thing. No artificial ingredients, just creamy goodness! Thank you for sharing your poems and ideas thus far. I've learned from you about writing shorter poems and commenting and maybe even why I should kiss and make up with Coleridge. I suspect I speak for all when I say how glad I am you've chosen lit as a place to write.

 

[butters]

sorry for clamming up! will drop in tomorrow night. work got real. real busy

 

[Angeline]

sorry for clamming up! will drop in tomorrow night. work got real. real busy

I won't take it down until Monday or Tuesday to give us time to get past the challenge.

 

[HarryHill]

Where do you find stuff like this?
..
he sang a sprawl of stars
to glitter in her desert

 

[butters]

Where do you find stuff like this?
..
he sang a sprawl of stars
to glitter in her desert

Hello, Harry!

These lines are from Saving Grace - where a guy's doing what he can to 'save' Grace from her emotional desert, trying to show her there's stuff out there that makes life worthwhile. I suppose, trying to show there's hope, beauty, inspiration....

Having said that, I have no idea where the lines came from other than through visualising the imagery and each word suggesting others, building on itself.

Did you find the piece confusing as some did? It's a problem I have struggled with before - that it's clear in my head but I'm not getting what I mean across with the clarity needed.

 

[HarryHill]

Hello, Harry!

These lines are from Saving Grace - where a guy's doing what he can to 'save' Grace from her emotional desert, trying to show her there's stuff out there that makes life worthwhile. I suppose, trying to show there's hope, beauty, inspiration....
They stopped me in my tracks, had to read them again... they did show all those nouns of poetic search.

Did you find the piece confusing as some did? Uhh... maybe.It's a problem I have struggled with before - that it's clear in my head but I'm not getting what I mean across with the clarity needed.

What are you working on now/how full is your journal?
...and a formal thanks for doing this, can't wait to see who's on the hot seat next.

 

[butters]

What are you working on now/how full is your journal?
...and a formal thanks for doing this, can't wait to see who's on the hot seat next.

Lol, glad they stopped you in your tracks, less so about the confusion

Right now I'm not 'working' on anything - I think I've become a lazy writer, only trying to get something down when inspiration strikes unless it's a challenge, and even then it tends to be last minute stuff. I'd like to think some of it's saved by quite judicious editing. *fingers crossed*

I should be doing things with my site, but I'm not right now - have to be in the proper frame of mind. Plus, I'm sick. 2 days of feeling like rubbish but I have to get my butt into work tomorrow (my boss has plans I know can't be changed at short notice and there's no other cover available) so will dose up and do it. Only some summer bug, but I've slept most of today as it is.

Oh, sorry, thanks!

And there are plenty of questions I'd love to ask you, so why not put yourself forward? It's quite painless, honest

 

[HarryHill]

... I'm sick.hope you feel better soon. you need chicken soup.

Oh, sorry, thanks! welcome

And there are plenty of questions I'd love to ask you, so why not put yourself forward? It's quite painless, honest

ask away but I could never do this.

 

[butters]

ask away but I could never do this.

sorry you feel that way, mr H - though I admit to being baffled. It's only us asking questions