Poem Review: Birth of a Poem
I remember the first poem I wrote.
The year was 2011. Those were the days when updating one’s status on Facebook was a fad. I wasn’t an exception.
It was morning 7'o clock. My parents and brother visited me in Mumbai. I had met them and then gone to the office, hitchhiking a ride in my colleague’s car. I was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car, holding my Blackberry in my palms. It was morning, and I looked around. Out of the blue, words popped. I titled the poem ‘Commute Capers’.
Poem: Commuter Capers
A lazy start at seven,
Happy to be here and now,
with bro, mom, and pop it’s heaven,
My joy may raise a few eyebrows,But that is what the heart feels,
Elders smile, while youngsters squeal,
A lovely day ahead,
Fellas, get out of bed!
It is not the best of my poems, but my first. Like the first kiss, the first poem is always unforgettable, however clumsy it might sound.
From there, I have written hundreds of poems, of which many I have lost. But in 2020, I compiled them into a poetry collection, thanks to what appeared as memories on my Facebook posts. Almost a hundred poems, written over a decade found their way to print.
Poems appear in different forms in a poet’s mind. Some are melancholic, some are introspective. Some others are joyful and a few give us hope.
“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
― Robert Frost
I wondered how poems are born with a ‘lump in the throat’. Mine certainly didn’t.
Let’s move on. The ‘Ponderer’ in me kicks in. What about poems about ‘the birth of a poem’? I searched through LinkedIn, becoming the wanderer before the ponderer.
Four poems, I discovered, give a poet’s perspective of a poem’s birth.
a) Shweta Hitesh Joshi’s rare gem ‘Poetry Happens’, covers how poetry is always naturally born.
b)Leslie Xavier’s ‘The Writer’s Blot’ covers the struggle of the poet to write something, even bad poetry.
c) Donovan Baldwin’s ‘The Beginning of a Poem’, illustrates how a thought and a beat, with some rainy sights, give birth to a poem.
d) Priya Patel’s Haiku ‘The Poet’ is about how painful poetry is born.
Intriguing? Something stirs in my guts — a sense of curious cocktail deep inside. Then why wait? Let us dive in right away.
Poem 1: Poetry Happens
Do you still write
No, not often
Sometimes words are bereaved
Fleeced with nothingness
Conscious yet still
Not that the world has stopped
And the sun doesn’t rise
Yet I observe around
With little surprise
Things happen at their own pace
Poetry too…~Shweta Hitesh Joshi
Commentary on Poem 1:
Ah. The birth of a poem. It is simple. It is. Because it happens. Just happens. ‘Poetry Happens’ is like things around us.
“Everything that happens as it should, and if you observe, you will find this to be so.”
― Marcus Aurelius
There is an underlying premise in this poem that is shocking. The poet‘s position as the ‘voluntary creator’ or the ‘composer’ is incidental. Like how the river falls its path, driven by its destiny, twisting and turning, whirling into rapids, bubbly sometimes and deep and silent in others, and falling from the heights on occasions — poetry — the thought and the words happen. Just happen.
Do you still write
No, not often
Asked and answered. The poet does not write often, but with the premise, we can safely call it that the poet writes when poems occur to her.
Sometimes words are bereaved
Fleeced with nothingness
Conscious yet still
Words have life, both alone and together. Words have feelings, alone and together. Words have a conscience, alone and together. The words thus strung flow out, sometimes sad and bereaved, sometimes just empty mirroring the void that the poet grows into, but out of the nothingness, there is life — ‘conscious yet still’. Poems could be just flowerless or flowered — wilted or blossomed.
Not that the world has stopped
And the sun doesn’t rise
As Ernest Hemmingway puts it, ‘Life goes on’. The world never stops. The sun always rises. The poet realizes this, as the lifeless, sad, and alive words pour out of her. Nature and people move on, but words happen.
Yet I observe around
With little surprise
Things happen at their own pace
Poetry too…
The poet observes that ‘things happen at their own pace’. There seems to be an invisible plan in progress, each piece moving in volition. As things happen, the words flow. Just flow. Hence, poetry just happens.
A beautiful poem — inside and out.
If ‘poetry happens’ somewhere, like a natural birth; there is somewhere, almost a struggle happens, a full effort caesarian to give birth to another poem.
Poem 2: Writer’s Blot
In the iffy songs
I swayed to tonight,
I sensed joy.
But, the lyrical riddles
claimed my bearings as toll;
I found ire, and fire,
their tone coerced me to
let go of my gifts,
break my pen,
and curse the notepad.It is not the paper’s fault.
It is white, blemish free,
and my ink a blot
on its coarse
yet pure existence.
So I turn inward,
force myself not to justify
the blue blood on the dance floor
with some bad poetry,
a blemish too many.— Leslie
Commentary on Poem 1:
I first thought it was a poet’s mere struggle with words. But as always, the words more than meet the eye, and my pondering mind.
In the iffy songs
I swayed to tonight,
I sensed joy.
I will tell you why. Here is a picture that can explain.
I write late at night and listen to mostly cello, violin, or piano music. But now and then, I hop and sway to ‘iffy songs’. The songs are gibberish, but I love the pep and the verve.
But, the lyrical riddles
claimed my bearings as toll;
Read it this way. ‘The lyrical riddles of iffy songs’. I can sway to iffy songs, but trying to understand the meaning of the ‘lyrical riddles’ is not my cup of tea. Again, I understand where the poet was going. The dark, seedy alley behind a high-decibel bar. The words — call them lyrical at your risk — turn into riddles, for they appeal to our crazy. We lose our bearings.
A senseless set of words with sway-worthy music. That is what the iffy song is all about. The poet is disoriented by the impact of the lyrics.
The interesting part is that the poet turned to ‘iffy songs’ to keep his writing going. Here is what happened.
I found ire, and fire,
their tone coerced me to
let go of my gifts,
break my pen,
and curse the notepad.
The poet lost his mojo, listening to the songs. The tone of the songs, exacerbated by the disorienting lyrics, ‘coerces’ the poet, who is unwilling, yet finds his ‘ire and fire’. It is all downhill, sliding in the slope, so much that the poet ‘let go of his gifts’.
“It makes me sad, sad inside, to see a warrior without his pride. ”
― Adam Ant
The loss of mojo in the poem is sad and frustrating. The warrior of words now turns his frustration on his writing weapons. His notepad, now cursed and his pen, now broken beget his wrath.
So I turn inward,
force myself not to justify
the blue blood on the dance floor
with some bad poetry,
a blemish too many.
The poet realizes that laying the blame on his muses — the ink, the notepad, and the pen is not going to justify his frustration. His pen is broken, like an injured dancer that has spilled blue blood on the dance floor. It was like a performance gone wrong — he calls it ‘some bad poetry’.
It is a gory, violent birth of a verse with a frustrated parent in a noisy hospital.
Poem 3: Beginning of a Poem
Off, off in the distance,
Almost like a muse offering
A thought, the beginning of a poem,
Thunder rolls, and without losing a beat,
I find myself watching the rain begin to pound
The window panes and remember when we sat and
Watched a rain like that… which has not happened yet.~ Donovan Baldwin
Commentary on Poem 3:
‘Which has not happened yet’. It did not happen. It has not happened. Maybe, it won’t happen. But what happened was a thought. A thought about it. But it is not the thought in itself — but it is the thought about the thought. Spinning? No. Let me simplify.
A poem. A poem was born from thought. The thought was about a thought, which happened. And that thought was about an event that has not happened yet. That is how simple, yet layered a poem can be if the poet is Donovan.
A poem, therefore, was born out of an event that never happened. Let us go to the event that never happened. I know your smile. I smiled too.
remember when we sat and
Watched a rain like that…
Sitting together. Watching the rain. Like that. Like that. Remember. You know. A thing that only you and I know. The poet and his muse. A special but familiar thing ‘like that’ that only they ‘remember.’
Remember this event did not happen. But the thought…about this event.
Thunder rolls, and without losing a beat,
I find myself watching the rain begin to pound
The window panes
Thunder rolls. The rain pounds on the window panes. A perfect setting, the poet connects to. This is still a thought. Maybe, it was raining. But maybe it wasn’t.
But there was the thought. Because the poet caught himself watching. Oh, the thought. The thought about the thought. The observer is the poet. The observed is the poet. The ‘thought’ that connects between observer and observed.
But how did that ‘thought’ come in? ‘Off, off in the distance like a muse…the thunder’. Thunder is the event. It is the muse. It springs the thought. The thought about the thought. The thought about the event that remained… a thought.
The thought that came with the thunder… was the beginning of a poem. Now go figure. I just love the birth of a poem. This one, in particular.
It is not the paper’s fault.
It is white, blemish-free,
and my ink a blot
on its coarse
yet pure existence.
After he has vented his ire, things cool down. But he realizes his folly quickly. He blames himself and absolves his weapons of any blame. ‘It is not the paper’s fault’. It is his fault. The paper is pure, white, and blemish free. He blames his imagination, his thoughts, and his ability as a writer.
“Inking is meditation in liquid form…”
― J.H. Everett, Izzy, and the Candy Palace
Ah! The ink. The ink is the liquid form of his everything — his thoughts, his imagination, his introspection and meditation, everything about him as a writer. But, suddenly, he feels that his talent is stigma. The ink, the outflow of his talent, is a stain, a blot on the pristinely clean and white paper.
“Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument. Am I writing well? Thank my pen. Am I writing badly? Don’t blame me blame my pen. By such displacements does the fearful imagination defend itself.”
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
The poet has various muses, for some he blames, and some he absolves. The ink suffers blasphemy, and the paper enjoys absolution.
Poem 4: Poet
She was a poet
mixed letters and bleeding words
to tell her story~ Priya Patel
Commentary on Poem 4:
Priya is a poet I admire. She is so prolific that I have promised her that I will take a week to read all her poems I have not caught up with. It is not surprising that I found one poem on this rare theme.
She has many poems about poems — but this 5–7–5 Haiku caught my eye.
A poet tells a story that dances and sings, with rhymes and metaphors. The words cry and smile, our hearts weep and our souls ache for liberation. Flowers smile even when they are sad and leave dance while dying.
‘Mixed letters and bleeding words’ is about weaving patterns and textures by mixing letters and dying them with blood. WORD-S become the S-WORD, bleeding the story of emotions, soaked in sorrow and drenched in tears.
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
Poetry is a painting of words, colors, hues, and all that knot our hearts and strings our souls. Even a 17-word Haiku can be as powerful as a picture. Don’t you agree?
The birth of a poem:
Like a seed to a sapling, thoughts grow into words. Words weave together to form verses.
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
― Shakespeare William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Out of thin air, through a combination of imagination and introspection, the poet gives shape to fascinating things. While some poems are born violently, some flow naturally. While some poems are complexly layered thoughts, others are soaked and drenched in emotions and feelings. Like a complex garden of words, poetry is the ultimate gift of the human conscience.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
