Ars Poetica

First off, I'd just like to take this opportunity to say, I am glad to live in the nation and the era in which I live. Here I sit, on a pink futon in my dormitory at a public liberal arts university, despite being a woman, an atheist, an Aspergian, and generally unwilling to follow the dictates of fashion... I am sitting in an institute of higher learning, with every intention of attending law school (and no tolerance for the idea of denial due to my sex), wearing blue jeans and writing rough-draft gibberish that may well be read and appreciated by more people in a month than Proust got to read and appreciate his finalized work in its first year. Is that deserved? You decide. Is it incredible? You'd better believe it.

 The title of this blog is derived from one of Carl Sandburg's myriad one-sentence definitions of poetry. I feel like every poet worth his or her salt should come up with a working definition/description of poetry's art at some point or another, at least once. Sandburg came up with dozens of one-sentence descriptions, perhaps my favorite being that "poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits"; this implies the union of the sublime and beautiful ("hyacinths") with the common, concrete, and everyday ("biscuits"). The "Ars Poetica" poem can reveal the nature of the poet as much as the poetry, and certainly the relationship between the two. Poetry is a relationship between art and artist, at bottom. It is tuneless music, the primitive heartbeat of a language... poetry is knowing by heart.


Personally, my aesthetic tends to gravitate heavily toward form. I am currently taking a class titled "Writing Poetry for the 21st Century." We weren't allowed to write in form, meter or even rhyme for half the semester. The frustration that boiled under my skin all that time almost killed me. Yet I find I have learned to approach a first draft by simply playing with sound and see what sort of form could result. This has allowed me to enjoy a much more prolific output of work in recent weeks. I can write rough drafts without sweating, and sharpen and pinch and prod and refine later. This freedom is a revelation to my process. Yet now that, at long last, we are assigned form, I feel lost.

Perhaps until now, I was simply uninspired. But now I know that I would like to write an "Ars Poetica," perhaps in a sestina or pantoum form. Not a sonnet; I write so many of those; it wouldn't be effortful enough. Not a villanelle either; I just wrote one of those, and I think I like it, though it might need a few tweaks of word choice. Villanelles require such a ridiculous economy of words that it might take me months or years to feel that my choices could not be improved. In keeping with the additional theme of this assignment, "First ____," this will be the first time I will have defined poetry for myself, my own relationship with the craft, in explicit, image-rich terms. This will be quite the endeavor. I hope you all (whoever you are- my friends and family only, I would assume) will read it and enjoy it once I post it. Bear in mind, it will only be a first draft. I am writing it tomorrow, and posting it in the evening. You may read it then, and comment at your leisure. Please keep criticism constructive; at the same time, comments like "I like this" and "This is just great! Don't change it," are not very helpful. There has to be something specific to like or dislike that you can point out. I would appreciate those comments very much.


So begins my illustrious writerly career on the Internet. Not so glamorous as I might have hoped; I'm sitting here in my blue jeans and a pajama top with no bra on a pink futon my roommate bought from Wal-Mart, and she's out again, who knows where, and all night; I can't see the surface of what was once supposed to serve as a desk; I can see my laundry basket overflowing and will vaguely contemplate doing it tomorrow (for about the fifth time this week); my right second toe just cramped in protest against dehydration; my mouth tastes funny because I haven't brushed my teeth in a couple of days; my hair is swept up in a high messy bun to keep it from tangling in my sleep (if I ever do get to sleep), and I'm sure it looks ridiculous, like a mound of brown broccoli sprouting out of my scalp; on top of all this, my eyes are practically melting under the pressure of sleep, the way even subzero ice will melt under the blade of a skate.


Hey! Eureka! I can write this week's assignment about this first post, and how I feel and what I see and am saying RIGHT NOW! And what better inspiration? I'm living it and now it's even well-documented. (I still do want to write an Ars Poetica. I just feel like I can save it now.) Though, to be fair, this moment doesn't feel like it has much of a form. Terza rima with extreme slant rhyme, maybe. At best. An Ars Poetica, though... now that could hold a square shape. I shall have to decide tomorrow. Perhaps I will attempt both.


Now, gentle readers, I will bid thee goodnight (or good morrow?) and eagerly await thy return to my humble abode.