Moonlight Musings

Am I Any Good?

Or rather, are my poems any good? (And how can I tell?)

My old friend, fellow-poet and frequent collaborator, Jennie Fraine, recently came from interstate to visit me for a few days. (Here we are lunching in town.) Some of our conversations, of course, were about writing and poetry.

At one point I confessed worriedly, 'I think some of the poems I post to my blog are a bit ... er ... slight.'

'Nooo!' she exclaimed in shocked protest. But then, 'Well, if you're writing to prompts and writing a poem every day....'

Jennie has done a lot of work in schools, inspiring kids to make poetry. She said she tells them, 'If you write one poem a week, it might be a good one or not, but if you write seven a week, there are more chances for some of them to be good.'

That was reassuring. It suddenly gave me permission to write some poems that aren't as good as others – whatever 'good' means, and however it's determined. (Perhaps I should let my readers judge.)

I don't write every day, though sometimes I do, e.g. in April Poetry Month. I do write most days. Last year I wrote 257 poems that I kept (I just counted). Mind you, some of them were very short; but others were not. I guess, with that kind of output, year after year, I needn't worry about a few duds. Or even a lot of duds.

I also realised that 'slight' poems might have their place. After all, I like to try a variety of forms and styles; they don't all have to be big and important! And some of those which I consider slight, or ordinary, or lacking in some way, seem to please my readers.

I think of what I myself enjoy reading. Yes, I love the ones that knock me out with their assured craft and stunning language, the ones that are incredibly beautiful and/or deeply moving, and those that pull no punches with their powerful utterances. (I find plenty of examples of all of these on your blogs, dear colleagues – just in case you're wondering whether yours are any good.) But I also enjoy the humorous pieces, the wordplay for its own sake, the domestic vignettes, the celebration of the ordinary, the efforts and explorations of those still learning their craft (hang on, isn't that all of us? I mean, the learning doesn't stop).

When it comes right down to it, a poem is a one-on-one piece of communication. Even when it is read by a lot of people – even when it is heard by a lot of people – each person apprehends it individually. If you're looking to posterity, you will need a consensus of enough people over time saying it is good; but here and now, that is a decision for every individual reader/listener. You can only ask, 'Was it good for you?' and they must all decide for themselves.

The question, 'Is it any good?' in general terms becomes meaningless.

'I liked it,' someone comments, or even, 'I love this'. Or perhaps, 'That really made me think'. Or, sometimes, 'LOL'. All of those mean that poem was good in that moment, in that interaction; it was good as a piece of communication.

They often also mean it's good as a work of art. Someone might love what a poem says; someone else might thrill to the way it says it. Ideally, I guess, the two can't be separated. It's poetry; our medium is language.  Even when we're writing with the focus on the language itself, in ways that fracture, complicate or layer meaning, still we are communicating something. We succeed when our readers – or some of them – get it, whatever the 'it' may be in the particular instance.

I've been thinking aloud here. Have you followed me so far?  Did I reach a valid conclusion? What's your opinion? How do you personally cope with the inevitable self-doubts? (They are inevitable, aren't they?)


Feel free to share your thoughts.

I Wish I'd Written This

...and this, and this, and ...

This is as close as I can get to Christmas for a Friday post, so today is the day I am giving you a treat — a smorgasbord of poems from some of the wonderful people I've already featured before. But the poems are different.

I hope those of you, in any part of the world, who observe a festival around this time are all still having a delightful festive season — and that anyone else is also having a delightful time!

(And sorry, it seems this posted later than usual. I am away from my usual computer and even my usual town, and must have got a bit mixed up.)

Bounty (a remix)

By Jennie Fraine

Thinking of Christmas and the arrivals

with children, I take the camp bed

we no longer need

and come home with two green skirts

(my  favourite colour) and a felted

gumnut hat with stalk.

The very next day I can wear the hat!

The day after, it is warm enough

to wrap a skirt around.

I have drawers full of picture and photo

frames, toys on  shelves in garden,

wooden bowls, Bakelite.

Oh sheds and shops of donated goods

you constantly surprise me, gift me

a sumptuous life.

It Is Cold & Raining in Austin, Texas

By Thom Woodruff

The lights we share are candles and electric bulbs
if we were ancients, there would be fires blazing
to keep us warm and keep out the cold
yet wisdom says to welcome in / all elements challenging
Rain that floods, cold that freezes
Coughs and colds and sneezing allergies
Caught within this web of cities
that look like blazing fires from space
we steal back time, and for a moment
meditate on human fate.
Time's candle flickers in the wind
Night will reclaim us to the cold
We have this moment to reflect
upon the New Year—and the Olde.

The Tree Walks Home with Me

By Donall Dempsey

my uncle Seanie
growing from the soil

my uncle Seanie
a silhouette in sunset as natural as a tree

I climb up
into the branches of his hands and
the tree walks home with me

always in my dreams I am
always climbing up into my uncle
his footsteps falling forever in my mind

The Tree Outside the Yoga Room

By Helen Patrice

The tree outside the yoga room

 takes me through the yearly dance

 from summer to winter and back to heat again.

 We are both in savasana

 as winter blankets us,

 both deep into earth,

 muffled by sky.

 My hands curled soft,

 while outside, the tree stretches out

 and holds the clouds in place

 with bone and twig.

 We wait for Spring,

 for Demeter to cease mourning.

 We shall burst forth

 in joyous tremblings of blossom

 and Salute to the Sun.

 The tree and I,

 we take our yoga slow,

 like sap, like the year.

 There is time and space in both of us.

Elegy for the Not Famous Poet

By Lori Wlliams

Someone, I Tell You, Will Remember Us - Sappho

As we reduce to root and rock,

we speak there, still — recite with dusty breath

food for worms, old lovers, the synchrony in death

look up! at the tree above the stone,

see green turn to brown in a blink,

then blink again, watch peaches grow.

The sun once a sword that flamed our belly

now leaves us to bone. Don't cry,

listen for the poppies that burst

through the earth.  You can remember us,

what we meant. You have that.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).

I Wish I'd Written This

Budding Relationship

by Jennie Fraine

You found this red and blue robot

under a house you had to leave in Kew

and though its fist is empty of the gun

it once waved up and down up and down

you donate it to the toy box; it stands

almost as tall as your alien son

who knows all animals have daddies but not

which man is his own. He hugs the robot

to his chest to carry it outside, tells it

twice and sternly to get up when it falls

face down on the grass; after that,

does not persist. Later, he lays it on

the shiny lounge-room floor, spreads

a blanket over its legs. “Sleep,” he

instructs tenderly. The arms rest

stiffly parallel to the narrow-hipped sides.

He grabs his familiar teddy, sits watching

over the stranger, apparently satisfied

that it’s a law unto itself, a foreign territory

worth further study, or guarding.

As implied in this piece, Jennie Fraine is a single mum — to a son and daughter who are now adults. She lives with her mother and her daughter in a small town within commuting distance of Melbourne and works for Landmark Education, an international personal development company.

I like the understatement of this poem, and the subtlety of the metaphor. I happen to know that Jennie is an earth sign (Capricorn); perhaps that explains the sense of groundedness I find in many of her poems including this one. You can judge for yourself at her poetry blog. The list of her books is there too.

Online information about her is sparse. Neither that, nor what she says about herself at her blog profile, includes the information that her first book of poetry, The Cast Changes, was runner-up in the Anne Elder award the year it was published— a highly prestigious Australian prize for a first book of poetry. I know this because I was the publisher of that book! (Under my Abalone Press imprint, now discontinued.)

In the 1980s Jennie pioneered what she first called ‘on-the-spot’ and later ‘off-the-cuff’ poetry writing, and made her living by it for several years.  She now calls it Interactive Poetry. It involves asking people what poem they would like to write if they wrote poetry, and then writing it for them. Often there is a lot of talking back and forth to get the details, and they are asked if they want it to rhyme. The resulting poem is not just a regurgitation of their own words — it is crafted — but it does use many of their own words and tap into their own feelings, in a way that usually delights them.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).