Entering a new world

[Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni]

First, my thanks to Conrad DiDiodato for introducing me to this network. He had already earned a legion of fans with his lovely Yahoo Group Venus at Dusk. Sharing poetry online is a silent activity, but it serves the soul, and the artform, by allowing the writer to create a piece, and share it without fear. The readers then can respond, sometimes with advice for minor adjustments, sometimes with unbridled praise. If there is no response, that is the fatal response from peers. Back to the drafting board if that is the message.
Why do we still write poetry?
Because we have to.Without poetry in the air, words would die. Ideas would melt into a puddle like a candle at the end of the evening. Songs are best written by poets with music in their heads. Start with folksongs, and work your way along the years to songs in plays, and opera, and vaudeville, and jazz, and rock songs, and hip-hop, and rhythm and blues, and rap. All poetry put to music.
Catches you by the throat, makes you open eyes wide, when a poem gets through the fog to you.
That's why I like it. That's why we need it. Poetry, an essential ingredient for a healthy life.

[Conrad DiDiodato]

Hello Caroline

I couldn't agree with you more! As I've often said without the Internet I wouldn't be writing. It is a silent medium but its power to reach out , creating instant audiences of critics, readers and friends, is astounding. My high school English Writers class just recently presented its final culiminating activity in the form of a 'literary night', an event advertised solely through Facebook, and the turn-out and enthusiasm of both audience and participants were incredible! I've recently met Heather here who's using podcast technology in order to promote online literacy. Without the social networking websites like this makes possible many of us would be languishing in our rooms, alone, receiving feedback (oftentimes 'negative') just a few times in a year.

And it's also nice to be in a place where I can be unabashedly Canadian!

Conrad

[Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni]

Hi Conrad,
Your attention to the internet as a medium answers one of the issues that poetry writers always have to confront- how do we reach an audience? Live poetry readings are energizing because the audience response feeds back to the poet. This ancient artform, the poet as court sage, or village idiot, as the case may be, predated theatrical performances as we know them in western civ. So, with film and TV and internet, do we need poetry in live performance any more? The answer lies with the will of the audience. How do listeners best respond to the intricacies of verse? Some like to listen to a voice reading the words; some like to watch a skillful performer reciting; some like to read the words by themselves, alone, in a quiet place.
I welcome the arrival of the internet, especially in a land mass like Canada, because we can relate to each other even if we can't just go flying off to Vancouver to attend a book launch or catch a performance.
I also enjoy taking to the stage, or being part of the audience for a good reading.
As many styles as poetry styles... At least it keeps literature alive.

Caroline

[Conrad DiDiodato]

Caroline,

I believe, too, that poetry is an ancient art form; in fact, it seems to have sprung from this urge to give order, that predates verbal expression, to the terrible chaos and randomness of life itself. As an art form it imposes its own harmonies on the world, using ancient models and techniques of variation as its tools (A book I'd recommend in this regard is "Poetry as performance: Homer and beyond" by Gregory Nagy) In the song lyrics of one of my young high school English students, before language there was music. I'll go so far as to say poetry can only be 'live performance' (as she's understood already), the tempo & rhythms of live poet-audience interaction being its essence. I saw this for myself a week ago at our school "literary nite", in the live poetry performances of wonderfully talented, inspired young people (I fairly marvelled at it!) I saw the spirit of homeric storytelling first-hand, its quest to achieve the "most beautifully spoken and moving" in the human heart. To write poetry we must never forget that we were once as they are!

Too much of the adult 'literary world' has lost this innate appreciation of the music of language, too preoccupied as it is with 'criticism' and the filthy fame game. And the young, naturally averse to any form of negativity and beautifully alive, at the same time, to the song of life (as I have seen for myself in the classroom) have understood (and use) the amazing potential of the Internet for conversing freely with the world through Poetry. Poetry belongs to them, by right.

Conrad

[Carol A. Stephen]

Well said, Carolyn! Although I don't contribute as often as I might like, I do find Conrad's group a wonderful place to share!

And yes, I too write poetry because I have to. When the words come, unbidden as they often are, they have their own insistence and persistence until they get their release on the page or on the 'Net.

Carol

[Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni]

Hi Carol,
Thanks for your reply. I have enjoyed your contributions to Venus, though now I, too, am not a frequent visitor to the planet.
The new world I am discovering opened up when my first book was published by Quattro Books last October. The publishers encourage their authors to go out and do poetry readings-- to sell books. For me, it has been a good expereince, with excellent editorial assistance, a supportive comradeship among the Quattro Books authors, so suddenly I am involved in the dimly-lit backroom stages of poetry life in Toronto. And I ain't a young chicken.

Is it that way for you in Ottawa? I know from your input to Venus at Dusk that you have published there- and even won prizes. Tell me more about your experiences. Maybe other writers will join in, so we can discuss whether this kind of poetry demi-monde is the norm, is it healthy, are Canadian poets getting the exposure they (we) deserve in our cultural climate?

Caroline

[Carol A. Stephen]

Hi, Carolyn! Well to start with your last question: No, I don't think Canadian poets get the exposure they deserve, but I am not sure that it is only Canadian poets. I think poets worldwide need more recognition for what they contribute to culture and history.
When I rediscovered my poetry writing back in 2005, I had not written for 25 years. I was dealing with the death of my husband, and the poetry started to flow. It was cathartic, but not particularly good. But it got better quickly. A new friend talked me into attending a poetry reading, at one of (if not the) oldest reading series in Canada. I was terrified, but I did it. Next thing I knew I was being interviewed by the newspaper...asked for my perspective as an emerging yet older poet. I was 58 then, now 62. I have read a number of times and places since then, and find it energizing! A great way to network, too! I was sad that I had not discovered this demi-monde years ago.
In 2007, I heard slam poetry for the first time, and although I will not be a slam poet, I find the youth, energy and exuberance of the slam poets to be marvelous fun, entertainment. Of course, I hear echoes of my early poetry in theirs, as the seek to change the world! But I do, on occasion, read at their open mics.
It changes which poems I read, as I try to pick ones that are more about performance than literary gem-quality pieces...lol
But I still haven't put together a book...
Carol

[Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni]

Hello again, Carol,
Isn't it amazing what the young writers/ slam poets are doing these days! I found it perfectly appropriate that Alberta named a 23-year old rap artist as Poet Laureate. I've only seen a few of his works, but he is very talented and articulate. The Globe & Mail Review section had a piece about the age of some of the "Greats" in English lit: 25, 23, 31, you match them up. Mozart died at 37, leaving such a treasury that the world still marvels. Shakespeare wrote all those plays, then retired to Stratford upon Avon and died at age 53. But not to make too fine a point, writer Annie Proulx didn't really get busy writing books until middle age, and Alice Munro is a wonderwoman in her 70's.
So there is plenty of room for folks like us. I am also 62. I've always used creative writing as my outlet, but I kept everything in a box until 2007, when I signed up to read at a local cafe during a weekend arts festival. There was an editor in the audience who asked me to send in some pages. The result was my first little book, Looking at Renaissance Paintings and Other Poems. Pure serendipity!

Yes, so let's keep up the energy and participate in this new world every chance we get.

Caroline

[Conrad DiDiodato]

Carol,

Wallace Stevens, Sophocles, Blake, William Carolos Williams, Tristan Tsara, etc were all ostensibly writers known primarily for their mature work; their juvenilia have been of more interest to editors or doctoral candidates. But, of course, all writers of note begin early, reading, keeping diaries and just being alive to human perceptions. It is contradictory to imagine a poet of talent who didn't serve literary apprenticeship beginning in youth and reaching to fruition in his/her later years.And I wouldn't discount the invaluable contribution of rbooks, early literary starts or even an influential author/teacher to a poet's development.

It is wrong to date a poet's career from only the publication of his/her first book, discounting all the rest.

Conrad

[Carol A. Stephen]

Oh, I agree, Conrad. But I didn't really claim the title poet until lately. Before that I just "wrote poems"...lol And for the most part they stayed in the dark in a drawer...
I do regret that I did not have the courage earlier in life to act like a poet...
Now I need to stop procrastinating and get to the hard work part...

Carolyn, I find being around the young poets who slam makes me feel a lot younger too. I don't dwell a lot on the age thing, although recently it has become more apparent to me that I am not quite as young as I was...but I know some contemporaries who won't give Spoken Word a chance.
I try to be open to all aspects of poetry but I must admit some of the language poetry I tend to call The Emperor's New Poetry...so I guess I am guilty too!

Carol

[Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni]

You are right about the early spark for poets and writers. As a teacher, you must have watched students begin to understand their own gifts. What a miracle that is! I've seen it as a parent. Also, I believe that every human being has some capacity for wonder and creativity in childhood. What is most precious of all expereince is the fragile passage from wonder to expression and then to making art.
What are the influences that develop awareness? Teachers, certainly. Reading , observing, sharing and receiving encouragement, feeling self-confident, "hearing the applause." All these things are important elements for building an artistic life. Talent , of course, the gift of a unique voice, must also enter into it. However, for a civilization to flourish there has to be acceptance that everyone has gifts of one sort or another. The most gifted will shine out; those less blessed must also be respected. Not everyone will win prizes or even be published commercially (or get the role they audition for, etc, etc) But I am arguing here that the effort to show your creativity forms part of human identity. There is dignity in that effort, and it must be respected.

That's why your Venus at Dusk replies always impress me, Conrad. You are the model f mentorship!

Caroline

[Carol A. Stephen]

I agree, Caroline, about Conrad's replies. It always makes me marvel at how much he sees in someone else's poems. I know that Conrad has pointed out things about my efforts that I did not even know were there!
Such insight and depth of analysis in a short period of time, a marvelous gift of teaching, I'd say!

Carol

[Conrad DiDiodato]

Thanks to you both!

But it isn't hard at all to see the merit in someone's writing: if it's sincere work, begun with a little will and determination, applause is due (as Pope says). I don't believe in (nor will I ever subscribe to) poetry Associations anymore: there is only poetry community, nurtured and sustained by real writing by real poets. And it's always easy to spot the fakes: they're around for only a short time.

I'm enjoying this exchange of ideas; it's a pity there aren't more of us discussing poetry (and writing) in this marvelous Canadian Authors Network. Kudos to the creator of this website!

Conrad