Mad Dog Wind
Barcelona
from
Last Year in Paradise
(1979)
It rushes through the city,
loses itself in hotel lobbies,
comes out to snatch and snuffle
at the empty hands of children.
It hustles leaves,
leaves paper-trails
of flighty pigeons
flapping, indignant,
across the square.
Delayed by doors,
it snorts at windows,
shudders
tight-closed shutters,
rages at rooftops,
chases
a ragged herd of clouds
around the sky
high above the Ramblas.
Planners, Pantsters, and Thinksters
Wednesday Workshop
9 November 2016
Two new writers (John King and Amy … ) have joined our writers’ group (Chuck Bowie, Kevin Stephens, John Sutherland, and Roger Moore) and now we are six (with apologies to Winnie the Pooh). In addition, we have a virtual member (Allan Hudson) and a potential member (Victor Hendricken). Amy has joined on a first name basis. Alas, there were only four of us last night: Amy, John K, Kevin and Roger; Chuck and John S were both indisposed. We wish them good health.
This leads me to the question: what is the best way to integrate new members into an already established group of writers? I have no answer. Last night’s activities seemed quite successful. First we introduced ourselves, first names only (oh dear!) and then we invited Amy to tell us about her writing. What an adventure. She has completed one novel, 110,000 words, and has two more planned in the series. She is questioning her opening chapter: is it the right one or should she begin after chapter three? Without having read the work, I personally find it difficult to give advice.
We explored some of the themes Amy presented to us and discussed a series of images that recurred and seemed to link the novel together. The idea of iterative thematic imagery serving as a leitmotiv came forward and we analyzed how repeated images can tie a novel (or a poem, or a short story) together. We spent some time on triggers that motivate actions and reactions from the characters. What is the trigger or the hook that draws the readers in, makes them look to the future, and persuades them to want to continue finding out more about the characters?
We also discussed Kevin’s favorite topic: planners and pantsters. Kevin is a planner who works everything out in advance. His charts, photos, character guides, outlines, and plans are an exemplary work of art in themselves and are highly admired by the group members. Many writers are pantsters; that means to say they pick up their pens or sit by their key-boards and write by instinct and fly by the seat of the pants. I find myself in between these two extremes, for, like Fray Luis de León and Juan de Valdés long before me, I think most of my writing out and keep it in my head until it comes time to put it down on the page. Perhaps this makes me a thinkster; I would like to think it did.
We also discussed the importance of The First Five Pages (Noah Lukeman’s book, sub-titled: a writer’s guide to staying out of the rejection pile). We invited Amy to send us her first five pages for an online critique. Our next step will be to look at the first five pages of the chapter with which she is proposing to start. It was an exciting conversation. I hope it was not a scary one for Amy’s first time out.
John K has been to one of our previous meetings, plus we had a long series of discussions with him at the WFNB meetings last weekend in Shediac. He and I helped close the hotel bar in Shediac at 1:30 am, so we are very proud of our efforts there. He presented us with the outline of a ‘tale’ that he is developing. Good man: he writes with a pen in a notebook, jotting down his ideas as they come to him and elaborating them in pen and ink, just as I do. Kevin and Amy had their tablets and their computers while John K and I had our pens and notebooks.
Without going into the details of his story and giving anything away, he walked us through the tale as he has it at present. he has great ideas, but at present is in search of a format in which to present his ‘tale’. Is it a short story? Too long and too many episodes. A novella? Could be. A full length novel? We didn’t see why not, and more and more potential episodes suggested themselves as we went along. In many ways it sounded like a film or a televisions series and John K’s active photographic mind, he has done courses in film and script writing, painted an engaging series of linked pictures, all of them with great potential. We are hoping that John K will send us an outline sketch, maybe even a storyboard, of what he is planning. Perhaps we should also ask Amy for a chapter plan, or would that be too ambitious?
As for Kevin and I, we joined in the conversation, presented commentaries and ideas, outlined some of our own plans and directions, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Kevin’s book DiAngelo will be released on 22 February 2017. He is at the final editing stage right now and is busy, busy, busy with the final version of the text. We are all excited for him and are pushing him to keep at it and get the first novel of his planned five novel series out, and up, and running. He is also planning a series of pre-release advertisements scenarios, all of which are sure to catch the eye of potential readers.
And that may well be the topic for another day: how do we market our books and what is the best way to attract readers?
Pilgrim
Santiago de Compostela
She drew me out from inner darkness,
told me to rise and walk.
“But first,” she said, “your wounds.”
She washed them in laughter,
dried them with her smile.
I left that night
walking west beneath the stars
to where the red sun
dips beneath the horizon.
South I wended my way,
where winds are warmer.
Hope flowered anew each day.
Dew on the morning grass
gifted both food and water.
Birdsong raised its morning voice
to the creator and her creation.
Sunlight flooded my body.
It flowed out through my heart,
a beacon to light my way.
At night, when star song
brightened the owl’s path,
I saw my road
stretched high above me.
Pilgrim through once barren lands,
the light she lit for me
burns within me still.
Rain, sleet, snow, ice, fire:
they’re all the same.
No lion shall me fright.
I’ll with a giant fight.
“Constant,” she said to me.
“Come wind, come weather.”
Christopher Columbus
leaves foot prints,
wake to his imagined ships,
dark, in the snow,
the unusual snow,
the snow they haven’t seen
in Granada city centre
for forty years.
It settles on roofs,
forms dark ridges
where the sun catches it
and turns it into
wet, dripping snow.
The Alhambra:
a wonderland of stiff,
white starched buildings,
stands out against
the mountain’s mass.
We click our cameras
and say “Just like home!”
We don’t realize
we’re repeating history
for it snowed then,
as it snows now
and Columbus
walked these streets
like any Canadian tourist,
short of breath,
short of cash,
the seams of his boots
letting in the cold,
wet snow,
you know how it is
on Yonge Street,
Main Street,
any street,
any town
in Canada.
And then the miracle:
he’s walking away,
leaving it all behind,
when the messenger
catches up to him and says:
“The war’s over:
there’s money now.
She says ‘Go for it!’
The ships you want,
the dream, the world,
they’re all yours now.”
Christopher Columbus
fell on his back,
flapped his arms,
and created winged shapes:
dream-angels,
white-sailed ships
sailing in the snow.
El Cristo de Carrizo
For Tanya Cliff
“Contemplate this crucifixion.
Each time you sin
you plant a fresh
thorn in your savior’s
crown.
Each misdemeanor
spears the sacred side
or hammers a nail
in hand or foot.
Christ lives in you.
your daily misdeeds
nail him daily to the cross
he bears for you.
No death, for him,
no resurrection:
just an everlasting hanging
from these nails you daily drive.”
Cave Paintings
Altamira
(11,000 BCE)
Cold rock presses on shoulder and neck.
Sunshine dwindles until daylight is a distant star.
A great weight of earth weighs me down.
The tour guide strikes a crimson spark.
Firelight flickers, shadows dance, animals appear:
deer, elk, boar, buffalo.
Magic illusions
created from fat, charcoal, red ochre, ash …
how long have these huddled herds
grazed their way across these walls?
My spirit sweats as elders anoint
my flesh with bear grease (for strength),
with greyhound hair (for speed),
with wolf blood (for tenacity on the trail).
They brush my eyes with eagle feathers.
Now I am a hunter.
I envision the animal my arrows will pierce.
My backbone arches like a bow.
I shoot thought arrows:
my beloved dances her death dance on tip-toe.
Court Dwarfs
Calabacillas, the idot of Coria;
Francisco Lezano, the child of Vallecas;
don Diego de Acedo, the cousin;
and don Sebastián de Morra
in his red velvet coat:
a pride of lion-hearts,
these medieval jesters,
blown up
in some practical joke to
a full life size
that competes with their majesties
for our dialogue
with this time and place.
Their captive souls
run the gauntlet
of their canvas jails.
Their eyes
recall those of Segismundo,
imprisoned in his tower,
drugged, then dragged
from darkness
to the palace’s brightness.
On his return to prison:
“Man’s greatest sin
is having been born,”
he cries.
Heir to a kingdom,
surviving in darkness,
rags and chains
binding his royal flesh:
“Life is a dream,”
he sighs,
“and every dream,
a lie.”
Titles
Wednesday’s Workshop
02 November 2016
I am currently thinking and re-thinking the titles to my books.
Clearly, the title is of the utmost importance. The title should draw the reader in while offering some information on the content. Alas, my earlier titles did not do this.
Monkey Temple, for example, really doesn’t say much about what the book contains. Nor does its subtitle: A narrative fable for modern times. Those who have read poems from the book or who have heard me read excerpts from it, know what it is about. However, deep down the title really says little about the life and times of Monkey, the protagonist who works and suffers in the corporate Monkey Temple.
In similar fashion, Though Lovers Be Lost is a wonderful title, taken from Dylan Thomas, and illustrating his theory that “though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion.” If readers have these lines on the tip of their tongues, as most people from Wales do, then they will have a fair idea about the contents of the book. However, without that intimate knowledge of one of the great Welsh poets … many readers will be lost and the title will lack meaning, check my post on Intertextuality.
Bistro is a collection of flash fiction. I am not sure that the title suggests that instead of a standard and expected table of contents the book has a menu that refers to the 34 pieces of flash fiction are contained within its pages. The pieces are so varied, rather like a meal of sashimi or sushi, that it is difficult to describe the contents (or menu) in such a short thing as the title. Does the one word, Bistro, draw the reader in? The cover picture might and the combination of title and picture and cover may go further. However, I have my reservations.
Empress of Ireland, on the other hand, is a book of poems about a specific event: the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence River in May, 1914. Here, title and event are closely linked and hopefully the title is rather more indicative of the contents. Even here, as in the cases of the books mentioned previously, a brief description of the book is necessary.
Sun and Moon is a great title, provided you have lived in Oaxaca, Mexico, and know that Sun and Moon are the official symbols of the state of Oaxaca. Without that knowledge, the sub-title, Poems from Oaxaca, Mexico, is essential. The cover photograph with the state symbol of Sun and Moon is intriguing, but it is still necessary to read the description to find out what the book is about. Are title and sub-title enough in themselves? I’m still not sure.
Obsidian’s Edge is a tricky title. I thought everybody knew that obsidian is the shiny black glassy stone produced in volcanic areas. Further, I thought most people knew that the edge of obsidian is used in weapons and knives that cut. By extension, obsidian knives were used by the Aztecs and others in their human sacrifices … so much knowledge that is clear to the writer but unclear to the reader who may not realize that we all live at Obsidian’s Edge with the sacrifice of our own lives hanging by a thin thread on a daily basis. Oh dear, I have been to workshops and readings recently where people knew nothing about obsidian and its properties … my title gives so little information.
Land of Rocks and Saints has yet to be revised and rewritten. Few English readers will associate it with the old Spanish saying, Ávila: tierra de cantos y santos / Avila, Land of Rocks and Saints. The tragedy of living a life in more than one language is that the cultural knowledge so easily understood in one does not necessarily transfer readily into a second or third language. Some of my readers write me to say that they Google all these terms and learn a tremendous amount from the books. Alas, I have to improve my titles. I need to sharpen them and use them to draw my future readers in.
Ávila: cantos y santos y ciudad de la santa, the Spanish translation of Land of Rocks and Saints that I have just put up on Amazon / Kindle, is a better title. Avila is both the province and the capital city of the province. The rocks and saints are clearly linked to the name and the city itself is the city of the saint, St. Teresa of Avila, of course. Hopefully, this title, in Spanish, will attract some Spanish readers. I can only hope.
The book on which I am currently working was originally called Iberian Interludes and had no sub-title. In my revision, I am selecting poems about Spain from various earlier collections and placing them together in one large compendium. I have selected poems from two collections Iberian Interludes and In the Art Gallery (oh dear, I never mentioned that it was the Prado and that all the paintings could be found there). To these I have added a selection of individual poems either published in reviews and literary magazines or taken from other collections.
I am still working on a title for this collection, hence today’s post. I have rejected Iberian Interludes as too vague (how many of my potential readers know that Spain is Iberia) and I am now looking at a bold assertion: Spain. If I do this, I will need a sub-title. The evolution of the subtitle looks like this: Bull’s Blood and Bottled Sunshine, ¡Olé! > Bull’s Blood and Bottled Sun > Bottled Sun and Bull’s Blood. I wonder if Spain: Bottled Sun and Bull’s Blood will be catchy enough. Will it draw readers in and attract them? There’s still time for me to think and re-think and all observations will be gratefully accepted.
By all means, let me know what you think.
Butterflies
We raise our hands:
you sever them at the wrist.
We lift our arms:
you measure us for a cross.
Where do we turn?
Our fingers bleed from scratching
our skulls in bewilderment.
They catch on the thorns
you so thoughtfully provided.
Stigmata?
No, you haven’t nailed us yet.
Great barbed hooks penetrate our bellies,
inflaming our guts.
Like live bait,
threaded to tempt Leviathan,
we squirm.
Like butterflies
awaiting your chloroform jar,
we tremble
Your collector’s pin is poised:
that final thrust will skewer our flanks
and claim us under glass.
Eternally.
Velásquez’s Secret
Two large paintings
hang on the wall,
one in front of the other:
Las meninas.
I gaze at the serving maids,
the royal princess,
the court dwarf,
the sleeping dog.
The painter,
stranded behind his easel,
paintbrush waving,
stares back at me.
I turn around.
The second painting
is not a painting:
It’s a mirror.
There I am,
standing by the princess,
one of the family.
I move my hand
and wave at myself
across the centuries.
Like the four court dwarfs
staring out from their wooden
prisons on the walls in another room,
I emerge from obscurity
and join the élite:
the painter
waves his magic wand
and
Velásquez
paints me
as I stand beside
the king and queen.
rogermoorepoet 