Writing Poetry
Chapter 11: Subject
Probably the thing I seem to struggle with the most in my own poetry is being abstract. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I tend to find myself latching onto defamiliarization in an effort to keep the poetry fresh, and in doing so, I end up being too abstract even though I am using more concrete words than not. What I'm discovering is that being specific is not always only about the words you choose, but how you use those words and into what context you put those words. "Subject" helped me see how an odd subject (like Bigfoot) could be treated in an understated fashion to deliver even more impact than had it been given all the bells and whistles that naturally seem drawn to such a fanciful topic. Magical realism seems to end up delivering the magical quality of the content without sacrificing anything to defamiliarization for the sake of the odd phrasing itself. Instead, the more blasé the delivery of the fantastical, the more emphasis seems to be granted to the fantastical element itself and less (comparatively) on the poet's voice. My poem "Game" and the one about the ghouls, in particular, suffer from my habitual misread of this element. The analysis of the different Death poems, as well as the Batman poem, helped me to see how I can use symbolism in context without being either too abstract or too prosey, and, more importantly, how I can ease understatement into the phrases I use to deliver the most impact for the given fantastical subject matter. As I lean towards genre writing, not only in my poetry but primarily in my prose, this will be a particularly helpful lesson to return to from time to time.
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