This month's column has been unavoidably delayed, due to availability issues related to the move. Look forward to an interview with Meg Porter in our next issue!

In an interview on NPR, actor Aaron Eckhart talks of the plays of a favorite playwright, that they are carefully worded; the words are carefully chosen so that each word matters to the play and demands the actor’s close attention, exciting then the actor’s artistic fervor. The plays may be demanding and difficult, but they are ultimately satisfying to the artist because the words matter so much.

As poets, we work with words and forms, relationships of images and metaphors, cadences and lines. But first of all we have words, words in sentences and phrases, words that open exactness and a specific arena of connotation and allusion. As wordsmiths, those words are specific to a situation in a writing. They matter, or we say they matter.

Some questions suggest themselves for our reflection - as poets - on the words we assemble in our craft. Guy Kettelhack and Lana Wiltshire Campbell have agreed to reflect with us on these questions.

First, from Guy Kettelhack:

1. What makes our words, as the words of poets, words that matter, that they are not in any sense arbitrary?

I think any poem I've ever written is the product of two seemingly contradictory triggers. First, a word or phrase will hook me - some specific bit of language (which I often get from science programs on TV); second (or simultaneously), a blunt and powerful emotional "unh!" - a push that feels primal, wordless - impossible, really, to put into words. To me, poems don't satisfy if they don't tackle the impossible: try to say what can't be said.

Finding words that will push a poem as close as it can get to saying what can't be said - words that "matter" - to me means scratching several itches at once - and not stopping until all itches have been at least temporarily relieved. There’s the “itch” of sound – I write pretty much entirely with my ear: to me, before all else, a poem is about cadence and assonance and rhythm and rhyme and music; the "itch" of meaning - which for me has to dig deeper than description, and has to do more than re-state the obvious - it really has, in some way, to talk about - or talk back to - "God;" and finally the "itch" of surprise. Good poems to me are almost exactly like jokes - in some way they pop: sometimes by hitting you with a "contrary" ending that they've secretly foreseen from the beginning. Words that "matter" in a poem to me are words that meet all these criteria: sound, meaning & surprise. I know I’ve found the words that "matter" in a poem when, after reading it, I bark an at least slightly shocked laugh.

2. How do we find the actual words of a poem defining us as readers, at least for the duration of our reading?

I suppose one hopes that any reader will attempt to ‘meet’ the poem where it is – not impose on it the (seductive if rarely more than barely conscious) agenda of wanting to ‘change’ the poem into something that aligns more comfortably with his or her assumptions. It’s funny – some very good poets strike me as terrible readers of others’ poetry – and terrible or at least very limited ‘critics’ generally. Perhaps it’s because their investment in their own approach to language is so great – an investment that pays off handsomely in their poetry – that they can't – truly can't – speak with anything like ‘objectivity’ about anyone else’s work. (So often the critique begins, “If I were writing this poem…” – to which I am always tempted to say, “but, um, you're not!”). Some poets have a talent for entering another poet’s poem – some don't. It’s exciting, though, when you find yourself enchanted by the alien landscape of another poet’s world. At those moments, the poem does indeed “define” us in some sense as “new” readers – bring us out of ourselves – and probably adds to, enlarges our humanity. Nice when that happens. But I'm not sure you can ever "will" it. It's like falling in love. You either do or you don't.

3. Do words given us really demand that kind of respect from us – as readers? or as poets?

I don't know about “demand.” I think every poem offers an invitation to join it. But I suspect temperament accounts for why we can or can't say yes to that invitation. And you can push temperament only so far before it gets ornery. (I guess I believe nature is stronger than nurture.) But certainly at those moments when, for whatever happy reason or in some unforeseen state of grace, you've really let another poet’s words into your being you can't help but be ‘changed’ – and therefore learn from it. This can be a matter of craft: someone writes a sonnet that touches you and you find you want to write one yourself. Or someone uses internal rhyme or makes wonderfully unexpected associative leaps and you think – “hmm, I wanna play like that too.” But this is a slippery thing: “respect” for words can't, I think, be engendered by any sense of obligation. You're caught off-guard by a good poem – and you notice then, maybe, after the fact, that you “respect” what caught you. You feel far more than “respect,” of course. (This is when I bark my aforementioned laugh. There’s something cosmic in that laugh.)

4. Our workshop model finds us testing words and images, even throwing them away, reformulating them, seeking a poem by successive approximation (more or less radically reformed in the next stagewise approximation). How do we deal with Eckhart’s assertion concerning the imperative insistence of words, that they fully matter to the context?

If the suggestion here is that content must serve intent – that words should scratch the 'itch' of the poem's mission as completely and deliciously as they can – and that indeed they have to be meticulously chosen to do that – well, sure. Every time we change a poem even by one word we alter the whole: context and its components are, of course, completely interdependent: and poems, changed at all, become new creatures. But the ‘context’ here isn't merely that of a single poem. I think poems create a larger trajectory – in some sense, to me, a writer’s whole oeuvre is his “poem.”

I think there are two general ways poets “grow.” One is by revising the same poem over and over. The other is by exploring craft more laterally – allowing the poet through each poem to investigate various angles of vision, learning from the limits or successes of each to produce the next poem. I guess this is what I try to do. I certainly revise every poem extensively before I'll post or send it out – but once it’s achieved, for me, a state of “post-worthiness” – it feels “done.” Not (by any means) “perfect” – but it’s sort of said what it came to say. I had the experience recently of putting together a small collection of my stuff – which sent me back to two years of daily poems. God, what a lot of dreck most of it seemed! But I was able to see, especially over time, that I had after all been developing craft – I could cull about 30 poems from over 700 that felt – I don't know, “right.” I'd created, without realizing it, a much larger context to which my words mattered than I'd any idea I had.

Somehow, as I go on, this context invites me both to lighten up and take it seriously. Embrace life, death and pratfalls. Poems are so much more than little verbal artifacts. They're an attempt to talk to and play with the Universe. If mine don't make me bark with the kick-ass miracle of whatever it is that’s going on, well – I keep at them until they do.

Second, from Lana Wiltshire Campbell:

1. What makes our words, as the words of poets, words that matter, that they are not in any sense arbitrary?

Although the words of poets are not arbitrary, I believe writers other than poets (consider playwrights, advertising copywriters, preachers, lawyers) might argue that their words are not less arbitrary than poets words. Therefore, that distinction does not seem dispositive.

Perhaps our words as poets matter because we refuse to limit ourselves to literal meanings of words (or even to words actual words in some cases). We try to use words to go beyond words, if you will. For example, the noun sun may mean the sun, or sunshine or it may mean all light, or it may mean reason or it may mean something else altogether -- something that will be made clear only within the context of the poem.

Wasn’t it WCW who said we must render presence into words?

2. How do we find the actual words of a poem defining us as readers, at least for the duration of our reading?

In all art, I think there must be a sort of willing suspension of disbelief or perhaps a relinquishment of expectation on the part of the perceiver. Poetry readers know going in, right at the start, when they undertake to read a poem that the words may serve double or even triple duty, may stand for something very different from the common meaning of the words themselves. We as poetry readers open ourselves to what the words may mean, instead of or in addition to standard usage, and we willingly follow the words, letting them create images and thus define us as readers for the duration of the poem. Interestingly, if we can’t make any real sense of the words and their meaning (either because we don’t get any meaning or because we can make several meanings), we may not care nearly as much as we might when reading something other than poetry because we don’t limit our expectations to ordinary, literal understanding when we set out to read a poem. In that sense, like a painting, poetry is capable of making us think or feel without a complete intellectual understanding.

3. Do words given us really demand that kind of respect from us as readers? Or as poets?

I don’t think one and only one word, or group of words, can be considered necessary for a poem to work - to create the image or message a poet is trying to create. One hears about poets who mark up their poetry volumes on friends bookshelves because they now like different words better when rereading their own published word. However, having said that, I think the words given are all we have in a particular poem, both as poets and as readers of poetry, so the words arguably deserve that sort of respect.

Specifically, in a poem, we don’t have visual images to accompany the words as in film, or inflection and staged action as in plays, or the thread of topic sentences supported by evidence as in essays or briefs, or even the understanding of the purpose of the sermon or the TV ad. Nor do we have the same level of freedom to make meaning or experience feeling as we might in viewing, say, an abstract painting, where the meaning is not mediated by language as such. So, yeah, the words are important enough in poems to deserve the respect of poets and readers.

4. Our workshop model finds us testing words and images, even throwing them away, reformulating them, seeking a poem by successive approximation (more or less radically reformed in the next stagewise approximation). How do we deal with Eckhart’s assertion concerning the imperative insistence of words, that they fully matter to the context?

I think of the poetry workshop model as rather like the film test-screening model: the audience response may help you to tighten, adjust, or revise a work. But, you cant give up your vision of the poem (or film) just because the test sample doesn’t get it or doesn’t like it. Luckily, there seems to be quite a bit of diversity in the online poetry boards/workshops.

Of course, its always worthwhile in any endeavor to seek out the opinion of people you admire and trust. However, if we chuck all or part of a poem because workshop members don’t like it, we run the risk of creating poetry by committee and all sounding alike, workshop by workshop. It really is better that we as poets retain our diversity and use the workshop model as the playwright uses readings or a group of playwright friends, or agents or producers as a means to test or get feedback on our work.

Context? The words of playwrights or screenwriters are but a large step toward the final product. Their words must and will be further mediated by directors, by actors, by physical action, by music and sound effects to create meaning in the perceiver. In poetry, although the sound and the look of the words on the page can make a difference, its just our words, the readers and us as poets. That’s the context that really matters.

As Cummings put it in i: six nonlectures: ... poetry is your goal… forget about punishments... rewards... and remember one thing only: that its you, nobody else --who determine[s] your destiny and decide[s] your fate.... There’s the artist’s responsibility and the most awful responsibility on earth.

Thanks to Guy and Wiltshire for their contributions.

Chris George's poem in Melic Review XVIII Autumn 2002, "The Waste Land by Orson Welles" a parody of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" has been referenced in the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia in the entry on Eliot's poem.
An interview with Chris is also quoted in the Wikipedia entry on the "Liverpool Poets" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_poets.
Chris's "Bird Dogging in Walker, Texas" appears in the print journal erbacce 6, edited by Alan Corkish and Andrew Taylor and published in Liverpool.

Jim Corner's "An Early Morning to Remember" was accepted for The Call to Worship at Chalice Christian Church, Easter, April 16, 2006. The service was held on the church's land just south on Gilbert and William's Field Roads. The first ground turning for the new building was performed as the last portion of the worship service.

Yolanda Calderon-Horn appears in this issue of Niederngasse.

Gary Blankenship will be reading in SoCal and Port Townsend in May.
First, featured Friday, May 5, at Rapp Saloon, Hostelling International Building, 1436 2nd St in Santa Monica. The reading starts at 8 pm, open mic sign ups at 7:30.
Featured with other poets from Wild Poetry Forum on Monday, May 8, at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades. The reading starts at 7:30, come early for open sign-ups.
Saturday and Sunday, he will likely read at an open-mic. Currently looking at Abbot's Habit, 1401 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, for Saturday; and Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd, CA.

DMR is represented by five poets in the Spring Issue of Loch Raven Review. Don't miss poems by Mo Swanson, Wiltshire, Gary Blankenship, Jim Bennett, and Marie Gail Stratford.

Fred Longworth has two poems in the new Folly.

Sarah Sloat is interviewed in the new RockSaltPlum. Don't miss Sarah's poems "Chianti Bottle with Candle" and "Susie,"and an outstanding interview.

Greetings from a brand new server, a brand new message board, and a brand new look for DMR! We appreciate your patience while we work the bugs out with this (different) file structure. Please don't hesitate to inform us of any problems encountered.

It will be necessary to transfer our domain name soon. It's possible that the site might be unavailable for a short time, due to dns caching at your internet service provider. To guarantee that you'll always have access to your DMR - regardless of DNS issues - please bookmark the following link:

http://www.thedesertmoonreview.com/

Tremendous thanks go to Charlene Dewbre, for her hard work and intense devotion to the Desert Moon Review. Thanks to Char, we have one of her dedicated servers at a fraction of its actual cost, a brand new sleek look, and she's personally borne the expense of our upgrade to the very latest discussion board software.

Hugs to Charlene!

Hi all--

The following are the picks of our IBPC panel for the month of May--

Allen Weber -- "This is how our love will be"
Charlene Dewbre -- "Travels"
Laurie Byro -- "Mourning Vespers"

The IBPC panel this month comprised Sarah Sloat, Johanna Maria Donovan, Tracy Estes, and Chris George.

The other poems considered this month were

Guy Kettelhack -- "Funk"

Wiltshire -- "From Another Room"

Laurie Byro -- "Thumbelina’s Blues"

Seán Callaghan -- "The bower"

Yolanda Calderon Horn -- "Note Found in My Pocketbook after a Fourth Date"

James D. Corner -- "I am Placido"

Congratulations to all of the nominated poets and good luck to the three poets who are going on to IBPC, Allen, Charlene, and Laurie!

Chris

Our new discussion board features a cookie-based "Check New Messages" option - located near the top of the page, to the left of center. If you aren't logged into the board, no cookie has been set and you see a log-in box instead. Log in to see the new feature.

Here's how it works:

The first time you click it, it will return a maximum of 500 posts. The next time you click it, it will only show those posts which have been added since the last time you clicked "Check New Messages."

Use this feature instead of "last 1 day" searches, and bid goodbye to scanning down a long list of posts you've already read!

From Editor Chris George:

Hi all

I was pleased to win Char Dewbre's weekly challenge to write a fuldrum. In celebration, I am giving away a copy of the promo CD of my musical to the best fuldrum entered on my blog.

Winner receives a signed copy of the promo CD of the musical by songwriting partner, Erik Sitbon and myself, "Jack--The Musical" being performed in Charlotte, North Carolina, May 13 and 14.

Enter through the comments section on my blog:

christophertgeorge.blogspot.com

Best entry received by 12 noon, eastern standard time, Sunday, May 7, 2006 wins the signed copy of the CD published with a numbered limited edition 16-page color book (cash value $35.00). Good luck!

Chris

From Associate Editor Trace Estes:

The following poets have recently been granted membership to the workshop:

Sylvia Greybe
Sergio Ortiz

Please join me in welcoming them to the Desert Moon Review!