You know those poems known as ars poetica ? Latin for "the art of poetry" or "on the nature of poetry," they are poems about poetry. There are examples of them by Aristotle and Horace and many poets have written ars poetica since.
Some are titled "Ars Poetica" but many more are just on the nature and art of poetry. My own personal theory is that almost every poem has some ars poetica in it.
Of the moderns, the best known is probably "Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish from his Collected Poems which is our model for this prompt.
Rereading the lines "Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves / Memory by memory the mind—" this time, I connected with an article I clipped some time ago about scientists trying to erase/edit memories.
It says, ""Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain.
Editing and erasing memories - Isn't that what we all do every day? Perhaps not with total success. Of course, writers work at this and poets are the masters of editing.
On our blog post for this prompt, we also look at an excerpt from "Work" by Mary Oliver, where the speaker, in the realm of ars poetica, works memory into poetry. She is able to conjure her dog to her side by throwing a "handful of words...into the air." This is the world that we create in our poems and it exists beyond what we touch, see and hear.
For this prompt, try to write a poem about how you as a poet edit memories to create the world of the poem. It is an ars poetica on how we edit with a focus on the memory. It's more than just throwing a handful of words into the air, but when it works, it is that easy.
My first best friend
was Charlie Lumly
when I was four
and he was four
I can still see his face
it was always dirty
or maybe it was only
freckled in which case
it was always freckled
in the house next door
where he lived until
he moved away
to another country
or maybe it was only
Pennsylvania
in which case it was a state
with a name like another country
and I never saw him again
though for a long time
I dreamed about him
because I think I loved him
or maybe it was only
a backyard sort of
dirty-kneed lust
that revives as soon
as someone else
named Clayton or
Cleveland moves
in next door
no matter how hard
I try to fit it, to squeeze it,
to mold it, to be it...
it does
have a life of its own
it will say
what it wants
it will be
who it is
it will draw from
the depths of itself
I only go along for the ride
I hold the pen
I find the paper
and then
I drown
in piles
and piles
of unedited
musings
Linda Harpe
MAKING SCENTS OF LIFE
Poetry bottles
the scents of life
not memories of lilac
but good times and strife
Its essence are oils
from destinies we share
not patchouli or bergamot
but mirth and despair
All poems are infused
with life's undertone
not sandalwood or chocolate
but from feeling alone
So breathe the faint vapors
that poets have designed
that reminisce of your life
and others now entwined
Steve Castro
BREATHING
Writing a poem is breathing.
Inhale.
Roll an idea to the back of my brain, and wait.
Distractions of the day arise.
Turn off the tv.
Wait.
Hear the night street noises outside my window.
Wait.
See still, lace curtains covering the venetian blinds.
Wait.
Hear murmurings of neighbors through thin walls.
Worry, again and again am I strong enough to
Leave the security of my second-guessing known
To travel?
Write poetry?
Ellen Kaplan
TIN MUG
the tin mug you left
in the old house doesn’t grow rust
round the lip, granny -
I float jasmine flowers on ink
moving them round like words
It will come to me in a tide
slowly crawling up my ankles
back and forth,
higher and higher,
'till the fish nibble at my toes.
I will focus on those memory fish
darting back and forth
staying still long enough only
to catch a glimpse
and sink lower and lower.
I may not get their colour right,
and they get bigger with each retelling
but I remember the feel of its teeth,
the brush of its scales
well enough for inspiration.
And maybe there are fewer clouds
in my rendition,
smelling more like salt than rotting kelp,
but I will catch my wonderment
just right.
Memories edit the poet;
fluid samples of old thoughts
turn up and paint themselves,
example: sunrise, martyr, kitten.
Wishful or wistful
pen-stroke surgery
fabricates, repairs,
eliminates.
Debt, death, ego…
all can be saved or lost
in one synonym.
So what of continuity-
when poets fall asleep
they fill the holes
with dream.
They’re right
in the middle of our subject:
life,
that catchy little song about singing.
Tracy Pace
AFTER MANY YEARS WRITING AGAIN
After many years letting the words
Flow again like a dam broken,
A log-jam loosened and the pain
Oozing from many old wounds,
The hurt seeping slowly like bark
Gashed open drips clear sap
That catches the light, sticky and
Rough before being processed
Whole lives excised though the pain
Lingers, the jagged scars barely
Grown over, images still too sore
To touch except indirectly—
But a start, a kind of deep
Sobbing and pulling together
A wrenching agony of trying
To find the path backwards
Turning and erasing the foot-
Prints, the depressions still seen
Faintly, the echoes fading slowly
New words silently forming
The end of a notebook arrives
With more to come, spring thaw
Leads to torrents and dead trees
Eventually pour onto the flatlands
Where meaning can be picked
From among the branches and drift-
Wood lying in the sun drying
To white skeletal pieces.
You collect the bits that fit
Piece together the picture,
A mosaic of dead sticks
Flotsam of the past, time
Enough to write it, measure
The collected sediments layered
In a dark fissure in the rocks
Your own history turned to stone.
Emily Strauss
COTILLION
Strange how memories dance, light and fragile,
across the page to the soft seductive scratching
of your poet's pen. How gracefully they move, on
lines as taut as tightropes, shining bright and clear
as crystal until the music's last inevitable crescendo.
And for a time this dance, this cotillion, seems to
shimmer as bright as party lights strung across
a scented garden. But do not put pen to paper
too quickly lest recollection begins to waver
and your hand slips. Suddenly memories darken,
dislodged by a single word from their time-honored
place, toppling and tumbling in dangerous freefall
to be shattered against stone-cold reality.
The music ends. Memories once so full of life
now hide like coy mademoiselles behind their fans;
their beaus having long ago deserted them.
But before they fade and are gone forever,
you gather them quickly together, setting each one,
word by deliberate word, polished and gleaming again,
like jewels in the crown of your sonnet's lyrical lines.
Maddison Ross
ALMOST A LOVE SONG This was almost a love song,
but the words didn't come out quite right,
and the rhythm was a heartbeat off.
For months it lay face down on the desk, ashamed.
Allowed the pen to scribble all over its dull white back.
It considered changing itself into a paragraph
or the kind of poem where words don't have to rhyme.
It almost won a three-legged race once
but near the finish line got tripped up in the rope.
Almost, found the confidence to speak in front of a group
but fell a bit shy.
I had children. It was truly happy then,
built a life around its children and all the details:
cooking and sewing, washing and ironing,
ABC's and 123's . . .
It worked hard all day and slept well at night.
Its dark hair, streaked with gray.
Its children grew up and moved away.
Too much quiet. Too much time in this
too big house.
It thought for a while and decided what to do.
It found a first grader and volunteered in his school.
Bobbie Townsend
POEM IN SEARCH OF A BOY
In the poem he isn't real -
how could he be? In poetry, everyone's
imaginary, just like the world
portrayed. Not even the poet is real.
Think of it as metaphor.
But back to the little boy -
the one who got lost in the woods -
he's a composite of, let's say,
17 little boys who, in the real world,
met their fate. And yet
they're still present; they visit
in dreams. The poem tries to bring them
to the daylight of words.
In the poem the boy wears a blue
T-shirt. Who knows what
he was wearing when he disappeared
as if into thin air? Maybe
the poet was looking out the window
as a blue-jay flew by,
and it caused him to remember
or imagine a lost boy.
So he made the T-shirt blue. Deep
drowning blue. Sky blue.
I've been way too coherent lately,
Too literal.
Some of my more artistic friends
Blush
At my naive,
Prosaic,
Poetry.
I actually use the words
"Love,"
And "heart,"
Even "God," for "Pete's sake."
I "dream"
And sometimes I am "sad,"
Sometimes full of "hope" and "joy."
I apologize to my more sophisticated friends
For my unadorned simple-mindedness
And would darken coherence with obfuscation
But alas,
I am "too far gone."
