novels and poems oh my
Since I have been writing a lot lately I have been thinking about [guess what?!] forms of writing. I post poems on here because poems are what I write when I have an idea that I want to get down without devoting myself to a story. When there is an image with no plot, with nothing happening to it, a moment.
I like poems. I like to write them because they are terribly fun and incredibly, I think, free. I think of a poem as a space in which I can twist words and language and rhythm into whatever form [or formless vapor] I want! And they are lovely, and very striking sometimes when a poet manages to get that thing just right. I love how words can conjure images with sounds and associations, and how images can capture something for a small space, over and over again whenever the poem is read over.
But poems aren't my main goal. I like books. I like big long intricate books. I read a gazillion more books than poems. Yes, I like to read poems. A book of poems by my favorite poet is right next to me presently - Leaves of Grass. But my "main goal" is books. I want to be a novelist.
I have had more practice with poetry than with fictional prose. But I think the practice in poetry is just as well as practice in novel-writing. The prose I love best is just a kind of poetry without line breaks and meter. And poetic imagery is a defining element of a novel!
I love my dear novelish Waverly and its main character Eliza and they are probably more important to me than poecy. But then, why don't I write more stories? write more of Waverly the novel? Because it is such a commitment to write a story, it must be carefully done, more than a poem, because a paragraph is a more difficult medium than a stanza with which to portray something specific. Poems are easy where stories are hard.
I like poems. I like to write them because they are terribly fun and incredibly, I think, free. I think of a poem as a space in which I can twist words and language and rhythm into whatever form [or formless vapor] I want! And they are lovely, and very striking sometimes when a poet manages to get that thing just right. I love how words can conjure images with sounds and associations, and how images can capture something for a small space, over and over again whenever the poem is read over.
But poems aren't my main goal. I like books. I like big long intricate books. I read a gazillion more books than poems. Yes, I like to read poems. A book of poems by my favorite poet is right next to me presently - Leaves of Grass. But my "main goal" is books. I want to be a novelist.
I have had more practice with poetry than with fictional prose. But I think the practice in poetry is just as well as practice in novel-writing. The prose I love best is just a kind of poetry without line breaks and meter. And poetic imagery is a defining element of a novel!
I love my dear novelish Waverly and its main character Eliza and they are probably more important to me than poecy. But then, why don't I write more stories? write more of Waverly the novel? Because it is such a commitment to write a story, it must be carefully done, more than a poem, because a paragraph is a more difficult medium than a stanza with which to portray something specific. Poems are easy where stories are hard.
posted by Laura at 4:59 PM
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