30 Poems in 30 Days: Progression
September 24, 2007 by J.C. Hewitt
This is Day 21 of 30 Poems in 30 Days
On the Move
Poetry, unlike prose, is not reliant on plot. While it is possible to create a poem with a plot, a plot is by no means a requirement for a successful poem. It is merely one option out of many. Progression, however, occurs whether a poem has a plot or not.
There should always be a reason why one line appears before or after another. There should be a reason why the first line is the first and the last line is the last. Even in an Imagist poem, the description of the image needs to progress. The readers shouldn’t feel as if they are being fed a series or random but related facts. They should feel as if the poem is leading them towards a shared goal or destination.
For many poets, progression is second nature. They automatically write in a linear style and it comes through with very little effort. That doesn’t mean that they can just assume the progression of the poem is perfect every time, but they often find little reason for change. Other poets spend much more time determining the order for their poetry. They consistently move or change lines simply because the original version (or even the revision) doesn’t seem to move forward or evoke the right impression. Determining order can be especially difficult in longer poems and Imagist poems that are not intended to tell a story so much as to develop an impression or feeling in the reader.
There are no quick and easy solutions to the problem of progression. Every poem is different and has different needs. It is fairly easy to judge the progression of a poem with a plot, but a poem about an image or an issue can be harder to interpret. Below are some ways to measure progression. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it probably covers 90% of poems.
Chronological: Progression through time.
Spatial: Progression through a physical position
Process: Progression through a sequence of events.
Size: Progression from the large to the small or the small to the large.
Climactic: Progression through levels of importance
Relational: Progression that shows a relationship such as cause and effect, problem and solution, comparison and contrast
When reading and editing, try to determine what sort of progression is taking place and how successfully that progression is shown. Once you determine the type of progression you can judge each part of the poem by how it relates to the intended progression.
Today’s Poetry Assignment
Write a three stanza poem that shows a progression with each stanza. The three stanzas should serve as a beginning, middle and end respectively. It might help to picture the poem as a three act play.
Today’s Recommended Poet
John Kinsella is an Australian poet that was recommended by axe-grinding Rosemary Nissen-Wade. I haven’t had the chance to read one of his books yet, but from the poems that appear online I detect a strong Imagist influence in his writing. He is definitely worth a look. With any luck, Rosemary will post her views on the poet.
Books of Poetry
- The New Arcadia
2007
- Peripheral Light
My desk is a hurricane of indecision and chaos
I look upon it with grateful appreciation
A distraction from the loud crumbling of my stone heart
Nothing makes sense anymore
Cold tea sits on the corner of a page I have forgotten to fax
My purse lays haphazardly splayed across the far end of a counter I can’t remember passing
Throughout last night I tossed and turned
In the guest room that was unfamiliar to me
My own home
Lost between night and day
Wishing it were morning so I could leave for work
So I could leave behind
Images of you fluttered in my mind like intrepid bat’s wings
I could not rid them from my sight
Last night you said you loved me
Last night you said you resented me
Last night my heart died
I thought you were the one
The only one I could see myself spending the rest of my lives with
You were too cowardly to even say it aloud
I had to say it for you
“I don’t want to be with you anymore…”
“With any luck …” You taking the mickey outa me, mate?
My comments on others haven’t exactly been the heights of literary criticism, consisting mostly of rapturous praise – so for Kinsella you can take my recommendation as amounting to the same.
Sorry if I’m a bit of a Scally. I hope I wasn’t a Wally.
No, I think you’re a wag.
Ta for hunting up this poet. He actually spends a fair bit of time in the US, but he grew up in Western Australia and his regional poems are very beautiful. I’ve never met him (unlike the others I recommended) but discovered his work on a visit to WA and was blown away by the aforesaid regional poems. But he has quite a range of styles and subject matter.
There, you got me posting my views after all! Twist me arm why doncha?
Sandra, some nice lines and metaphors. I particularly like “my purse lies haphazardly splayed . . . . ” Thank you for sharing. I might change one word, fluttered to fluttering.
Thanks Connie. I think you’re right about “fluttering.” Nicer ring to it.
Her Dreams
Once she had dreams of writing
Poems and making music that got
Lost in social peer pictures
Like sitting in a corner office
Making it big in the main stream
Her daydreams turned into planing meetings
And office homework, happy hour and
Merit raises leading to high-income praises
The cheap suit into high-fashion
Gaberdene,
before the merger that changed
The way the company would function and the dream
Rolled over into a back-room closet volleying
The not-so-occasional off-color joke
Made by the VP who thought it was his job
To make Her cry in the bathroom with wise silent sobs
Hiding nicely like a proper southern girl
While handling all the correspondance and
Transcribing notes to comply with Robert’s Rule
Expediting shipments, forecasting next year’s sales
Taking the heat when the salesmens failed
To deliver the goods to get the company out of the woods
Courage came slowly, it took years to get wise
The glass ceiling was real, no longer veiled before her eyes
Where to she queried the earth
I thought you’d never ask the earth replied
Take a look inside, you’ve always been supplied
With all the tools you need, you’ve never been denied
Access to the dream, welcome out of hiding
Take the spotlight, you’ll survive
I must say Connie, I am becoming quite the fan of your work. Very harsh and realistic poem, but quite a beautiful ending. Hope should always be the foundation for any ending, no matter how excrutiating the situation might seem….
Dear Sandra and Connie, I found both your pieces vivid and engaging. Sandra, I love your first line – it is my desk too!
Mission Beach
I would go there with my family
Head out into the water
Dodging the constant attack of kelp
Grabbing at my legs
I would hunt the crabs
As they burrowed downward after each wave
Smooth lumps under the slick brown sand
I would stand on the beach and let gravity
And the tide bury my feet
Sinking a little deeper with each new wave
Until I would lose my balance
As I got older I would move out further into the water
Working my way into the deep waves
Without the earth under my feet
After high school my friends and I
Made the trip to Mission Beach
In Darryl’s old Datsun pickup
With the Superman emblem
Painted on the hood
Diving into the waves
I landed in the wake
And left a long bloody scrape
On the end of my nose
I dived into the next wave
To wash it off
Surprised that the salt didn’t sting
We hit the Boardwalk
I rang the bell with the sledgehammer
Winning a giant inflatable crayon
That I gave to a kid
In the crowd that was watching
The last time I went to Mission Beach
I had just quit a high paycheck job
Without a single prospect for the future
I didn’t book a room
I just sat on the beach all night
And watched the waves come in
Feeling the moisture gather around me
Smelling the salt and damp life
Collect in the wind as it blew in
From the ocean
John: Ohhh! I love the ocean too, and grew up around beaches. I don’t like swimming in the surf, because I’m a sook, but everything else in this piece I could relate to very well. You made me feel it and smell it. We have a Mission Beach here too, in Queensland, and your words transpose there with the greatest of ease.
BURMA PROGRESSION
1.
Precocious reader, I found Kipling
early and loved him long.
Puck was my friend, Kim my hero,
but most of all
I heard the East a-calling
with the lovesick British soldier
dreaming of his Burma girl
in far-off Mandalay.
I saw the paddle steamers
and I heard the temple bells.
They have echoed ever since.
2.
I don’t even know, now,
how old I was so long ago
when my cousins from Burma came.
A schoolgirl, maybe nine.
Who fetched them from the plane?
Probably one of the uncles.
It was dark and the moon out
by the time they arrived
down Grandpa’s long driveway
with the orchard one side
the creek on the other
its tall stands of pampas grass
ghostly in the dark,
to where we were all gathered.
They were not Burmese,
they were Anglo-Indian like my Mum
(and her siblings too of course)
but they lived in Rangoon
a long time. Why did they leave
and cross the world to tiny Tasmania?
I don’t know that either.
They were magic, they shone.
They gave me a Burmese umbrella
red and lacquered, with black spokes
and strange white flowers painted on.
Now they are long scattered
and many gone.
Handsome Uncle Leo
tall, dark and thoughtful.
Aunty Irene, Mum’s cousin,
with her scented bosom,
her plump arms, her cornucopia
of hugs and sweets and old wives’ tales.
Joan and Anne, those beauties
disappointed in love, grew old.
“Little Leo,” the teenage cousin
I swore to marry when I grew up,
fathered six children
and watched them mature
to all kinds of success before he left us.
It was John, his older brother,
who did become my first love
when I was eighteen, he twenty-seven,
my first grown-up passion
surprising us both.
John with his alcohol problem
finally cured, his late, happy marriage
and later widowhood.
And Irene’s youngest brother,
Noel, known as Johnny,
who walked out through the jungle
when the Japanese came,
starving on wild berries
and was never quite well again….
It was Uncle Leo who told us
Kipling got it wrong,
in one respect only –
the pagoda looking eastward
was not the old Moulmein,
it was the Schwedagon.
We know it now from the news images,
pointed, and shining gold.
3.
My heroes are freedom-fighters,
champions of their people —
you know the ones.
Gandhi, Mandela, King
and that slender, graceful woman
with a spray of small white flowers
sweetening her hair.
All the years of her exile
to her own house in her own country
I have been sending her
anonymous love and prayers.
I met one who knows her well,
who told me that in private
she is earthy, a person who laughs.
Last night on the television
her face looked sombre, aged.
4.
Rangoon in the news glimpses
looks much like any city –
rectangular buildings,
asphalt, dust,
the golden spire half-hidden
diminished by shops.
The people mass. The people run.
The red-robed monks march slowly
to their deaths. A young woman
sits on the ground and sobs
defiantly, with her head up,
looking the soldiers in the face.
These are not British soldiers.
She is wearing red
as bright as new blood.
Until they silence her
she won’t stop yelling
the real news from Burma.
And the dawn comes up
on empty streets where the guns rattled
like thunder.
Ahem! Quite forgot about the three stanzas. Oh well.
My above comment will make sense when John rescues my very long, disappeared poem.
Ah, glad tyo see it appear. And if anyone doesn’t recognise the allusions, or wishes to refresh their memory, here is Kipling’s poem: http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1800.html
The Buyer’s Prayer
Another open house, searching for a home
(Peace, child, you are never alone)
In a strange mirror, how gaunt you’ve grown
(Peace, child, you are never alone)
You will reap the rewards of all you’ve sown
(Peace, child, I’ll be your home)
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