Poem, come in, sit down. How are you getting along? Are people reading your ordinary troubles? Let’s talk about that. (I hear my fatherly voice: pledged to do no harm.) Let’s first talk about your literal surface. The reader can’t know a poem at first glance, by appearances, I assure you. Don’t worry about snap judgements. You look comfortable on the page today. Is that safe to say?

You might be a narrative, let’s say, or a description, a reminiscence, an emotional plea, a philosophical dialectic perhaps, or a political screed. Want to talk about how you see yourself? Would a message or a second reading help? Maybe crack your back like a chiropractor or gently ask about your critique group, or write a prescription for word loss?

After we’ve cleared that up, I wonder what are your intentions? What are you proposing to your reader? I’ve read lots of poems so I am familiar with the spectrum: undisciplined image-scatter, cleverness for clever’s sake, to choreographed dances, symphonic parades of sound. From ho-hum, “So what?!,” efforts to intriguing insight that slap me in the face. Most informed readers (those who befriend you) don’t need lectures, homilies or rules-of-thumb and certainly not whiny rants.

Tell me, Poem, how do your words convey what you intend? Are they words that most folks would understand? Or are you dressed in definitions that have to be Googled? We all get tongue-tied occasionally, say the unintended thing which suddenly sounds like a lie. Have you ever talked yourself into a metaphorical corner? You have to be selective as all art is and choose your words carefully. Your reader doesn’t want prose, word salads, or “woven” contexts. Do you actually have a solution or at least hints regarding your intention?

How are we doing?  What would be helpful is some internal logic. Don’t go stream-of-consciousness on me; leave that to your novelist friends. Mind games are okay as a hobby, but your images should have verisimilitude. Don’t lose your reader on the road home: a continuity of image may help that. Yes, Poem, you can construct your own reality: forget your friends who say, but it really happened that way.

I haven’t quite figured you out. Where is your conflict or tension? To be compelling (as we all want to be) you have to provoke or inspire some thought in the reader. How can you do this, you ask. One way is to include a phrase or statement of contradiction like a slight tease or itch, a “bee in the bonnet.” The sonneteer calls this ‘turn’ a volta. Most readers like surprises in art that seem logical and not a gratuitous ‘punchline.’ Sorry, didn’t mean to use such a violent simile. Calm down. You have to consider all sorts of words: pleasant or ugly. Language isn’t always fair. Remember to use language to its fullest: words plain-faced, of multiple meanings, with connotations (nuance), and even ones you might make up (neologism) or ones used as a different part of speech from the usual (anthimeria). Sorry, didn’t mean to wander into technical weeds.

Poem, feel better? Don’t need a hot-line number? Remember your figures of speech, to use your own voice (it’s very pleasing, melodic) Don’t be afraid to revise yourself, it might do you good.

See you next week? Same time, but you know you can call me anytime you feel lonely.

Notes of the session:

Poem is the world in words: a train, a schooner, a horse (or mule), an airplane, a magic carpet, a rusted pick-up to take the reader to another place. It can be the place itself, physical or spiritual: a cabin in the woods, a park without a fountain, a graveyard (or a grave), an insane asylum, an office with too many windows; a place of warmth, security, of inner peace, insight, even ecstasy. Poem can be a lover’s ache, a father’s advice, about the cognitive slippage of a brother, about a damaged daughter returning home, a child’s first question, about disappointment, useless habits, loss and grief, about the satisfaction of one’s labor, or the joy of discovery.  But there is no art without craft: Poem is the compression of expression using concentrated language—connotation and figures of speech—to say things prose cannot. Poem is of memory, of aspirations for the future, and of the present as the reader reads the words (or hears them) feeling a tingle of delight.  Poem must be in love with language, rocky, quirky, sexy, and shameless as it can be.*

*Session notes originally published in The Midwest Quarterly, Spring 2024, Vol.65 #3)

Frederick Wilbur received his BA from the University of Virginia and an MA from the University of Vermont. He has authored three books on architectural and decorative woodcarving. His two poetry collections are As Pus Floats the Splinter Out and Conjugation of Perhaps. His work has appeared in many print and on-line reviews including Shenandoah, The Atlanta Review, The Comstock Review, The Dalhousie Review, Rise Up Review, and Mojave River Review. He was awarded the Stephen Meats Award by Midwest Quarterly (2017).