Photo of the Week: "December Morning, Lake Michigan"

I remind all interested that many of my photographs are available at a daily photo blog. I invite everyone to visit the blog and to click on the photographs to examine them in high resolution or to magnify them for a detailed look.

John Ronan: "Wallpaper"

The VPR Poem of the Week is John Ronan�s �Wallpaper,� which appears in the Fall/Winter 2012-2013 issue (Volume XIV, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

John Ronan�s recent book, Marrowbone Lane, appeared in 2009 (Backwaters Press). His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Folio, Threepenny Review, The Recorder, Hollins Critic, New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, Louisville Review, Greensboro Review, and Notre Dame Review.

Tuesday of each week One Poet�s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. 

"All my life" by Sarah Broom

So we sat, and the waves
crashed in like gifts, or insults,
and the children played,
digging trenches to defend
against the sea, and then a head
bobbed up and down
in the waves, a bit too far out,
and an arm waved, and again,
and a friend walked the beach,
waving the head in, and we sat
and said to each other
do you know that Stevie Smith
poem, not waving but drowning �
yes, and why is it still

Photo of the Week: "December Evening in Valparaiso"

I remind all interested that many of my photographs are available at a daily photo blog. I invite everyone to visit the blog and to click on the photographs to examine them in high resolution or to magnify them for a detailed look.

Thomas Alan Holmes: "Dish"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Thomas Alan Holmes�s �Dish,� which appears in the Fall/Winter 2012-2013 issue (Volume XIV, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Thomas Alan Holmes, a member of the East Tennessee State University English faculty, lives and writes in Johnson City, Tennessee. Some of his work has appeared in Louisiana Literature, Appalachian Journal, Seminary Ridge Review, Florida Review, Blue Mesa Review, Black Warrior Review, and The Southern Poetry Anthology Volume III: Contemporary Appalachia, with work forthcoming in Cape Rock Journal, Stoneboat, Connecticut Review, Emerge, and Noctua Review.

 

Tuesday of each week One Poet�s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. 

Lines for a New Year by Sam Hunt

I like the branch
I find myself on

a view over the garden
all the way down to the beach

the family below me
gathered in the garden

debating where I�ve gone.
My father�s got a theory.

I like the branch
I find myself on.

_____


You know how it is

to give up the piss
a week to the

day before Christmas

you know how it is

to fall over sober
safe in some spot,

come to later

Photo of the Week: "Dune Ridge"

I remind all interested that many of my photographs are available at a daily photo blog. I invite everyone to visit the blog and to click on the photographs to examine them in high resolution or to magnify them for a detailed look.

Risk & Point of View

In the last couple of weeks, I've been asked to talk a lot about point of view in poems. In workshops I often question whether the poem has enough risk or urgency. There are many ways to heighten tension in a poem. Some are thematic, e.g. alluding to backstory. Some are syntactical, e.g. phrasing a sentence as a question. Some are formal, e.g. breaking lines at a critical junction, or enjambment between stanzas. 

But I think point of view is undervalued as a determinant of tension. The POV you choose helps shape the risks your poem can take. 

First Person: Here, the central risk is one of discovery. The speaker's understanding of something, or the reader's understanding of the speaker, should change across the course of the poem. That doesn't mean the subject might not also do something. But keep in mind that you've chosen a POV that privileges his or her perception of that act/experience, a version that may or may not be reliable, versus focusing on the act/experience itself. 

Second Person: Here, the central risk in one of disclosure between parties. A secret is being revealed or created by those present in the world of the poem. If the "you" is being addressed through a series of imperative commands, then he or she should be asked to do something counterintuitive to what we know of that identity. 

There are a ton of Second Person poems being written right now, in part because it is a shortcut to intimacy with the reader. But it's frustratingly static when "I" tells "you" a story, across the course of the poem, that in reality would already be known and complete between the two parties. It's a gimmick, much like when the character in a short story pauses on a doorstep and flashes back to an entire romance right while her finger is pressing the theoretical buzzer. 

Third Person: Here, the central risk is dramatic. These are characters, and you control their stage, even if your writing is inspired by contemporary or historic events. A compelling Third Person poem, whether bird's-eye (in which you're battling the drag of expository language) or omniscient (in which you're tackling the beast of authenticity), is an awe-inspiring thing; I wish more people would try their hand at them. 

Ask yourself why your draft uses its particular point of view. Try envisioning the same poem in First Person, Second, Third. What does an outside view reveal or emphasize about your "characters" and their dynamics? What secrets would one tell the other? How do you newly sympathize (or not) when an antagonist becomes the speaker?

When the poem finds its destined POV, it will cling to it. Your favorite moments won't work in the other modes. You can try the same thing with verb tense: rotate the poem through past, present, and future. And I always create an intermediate draft in which all line and stanza breaks are erased. I massage the syntax as a prose-paragraph, then I break again. Sometimes this results in the same visual format. Sometimes not. 

When the poem starts to fight back, to commit over and over to certain aesthetics, that's when I know I'm on my way. And I'm wrestling with one right now, so wish me luck.

VALPARAISO FICTION REVIEW: Winter Issue Released

I am delighted to announce release of the Winter 2012 issue of Valparaiso Fiction Review,the national (international) literary journal published by the Department of English and Christopher Center for Library and Information at Valparaiso University. This issue of the journal contains compositions of short fiction by Bryan Shawn Wang, Jessica Roeder, Alan McMonagle, Nathan Gower, Joel Hans, and Tony Van Witsen. At nearly 200 pages, this is the largest issue of VFR thus far, and it is the first to present an international author.

Co-Editor Jon Bull and I are also pleased to announce Doretta Kurzinski has joined the staff as Associate Editor. We invite everyone to examine this third issue of VFR to read the fine stories, and we encourage all to pass along word to others who might be interested:

http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/

Valparaiso Fiction Review (VFR) is now accepting submissions of original short fiction by new, emerging, or established writers for the Summer 2013 issue. Authors are encouraged to visit VFR and follow the guidelines for submission.

Tuesday Poem: Nature Writing 101 by Catherine Owen

Our minds can turn anything romantic.
Is the problem.
The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes

pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,
at night, like two of Isadora Duncan�s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,
harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren�t our hearts

more similar to wastelands.
We can make it kin, this pollution, children one is

Photo of the Week: "Sunset Beyond Pond"

I remind all interested that many of my photographs are available at a daily photo blog. I invite everyone to visit the blog and to click on the photographs to examine them in high resolution or to magnify them for a detailed look.