The Mad Poets Blog

(Cross posted from my own journal here)

I’ve been working on a series of poems for awhile now that are loosely based around Bible stories. Instead of standard retellings, though, I’ve been trying to give these versions a little twist - maybe from the perspective of a character who seems peripheral in the original story (such as in “Lot’s Daughters“); with a new slant to someone’s motives (like “Cain’s Confession“); or perhaps entirely re-imagining the context of a story (as with the Jesus poems I’ve been working on). I have a vague idea that maybe I can collect these into a manuscript, should they be strong enough.

So in the process of writing this series, I have been researching stories that I’d like to twist - I haven’t read the Bible with such vigor in years, if ever. I’ve already covered Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Lot, and a few others. I’ve been thinking about Delilah and Jezebel, and how those women tend to be very polarizing figures, much-referenced. Delilah, of course, is the woman who cut off Samson’s hair (though it wasn’t actually her; it was a servant of hers), and Jezebel was a princess who encouraged idolatry (she wasn’t a whore, contrary to the popular modern-day connotation).

I came across two poems that have sort of put me off from writing about Delilah and Jezebel, though - the first is one I haven’t actually read yet, though I’m looking forward to. It’s Carol Ann Duffy’s “Delilah,” from her collection The World’s Wife. In it, apparently, a pacifism-loving Delilah cuts Samson’s hair to make him non-violent. The second poem is Heather Overby’s “The Defenestration of Juliette Lewis,” which is clearly referencing Jezebel’s death (she was thrown from a window and left in the street for the dogs to eat). The Overby poem is great - I think she has a wonderful sense of fusion, combining pop culture with tradition and high art. And I’m sure the Duffy poem is equally lovely, if her other poems are any comparison (”Warming Her Pearls” and “Valentine” as examples).

But now knowing that this territory has been mined (and how frequently - a quick look at Wiki’s references listing for Delilah shows a mass of entries), I wonder if I have anything new or exciting to say on the subjects of Delilah and Jezebel. I’ve already encountered this problem with Mary - how many versions of Mary can you come up with? The three best (she was lying, she was crazy or she was right) have been covered more times than anyone can count, so what else is there to say?

I suppose I’ll keep looking for ways to tell the stories that aren’t out there yet. And in the meantime, I’ll keep working on other stories that haven’t been done so well or so publicly.

Once again, we’re back with Shameless Self Promotion. Whatcha got goin’ on this week?

Well, George has done a spectacular job of keeping us in good poetry blogging. Me? Not so much. So I’m back to revive Shameless Self Promotion! It seems we’ve let it drift out of view for awhile, but it’s a good thing to have, so give it to us: Readings? Publications? New book coming out? Just some really good news you want to share? Let’s have it!

First a bit of my own:
My first chapbook, Ripe Again, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in March. Order by February 8th, and you’ll receive free shipping! (Psst - I need to sell at least 50 copies prior to February 8th in order to make the pressrun, so help a girl out, would ya’?) Visit Finishing Line Press online - head over to the New Releases page and look for Rachel Bunting.

And if you want to see me live in action, I’ll be reading with Juditha Dowd on February 13th at the Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge, NJ (yes, it’s a hike), and then again with Susan Deborah King on March 20th at the Delaware County Institute of Science.

So, bring it on!

I write free verse all the time. When I try to write metrical poetry, I get a headache and an intense craving for a glass of wine. What I don’t get is a successful sonnet, or villanelle, or whatever. But that’s ok, I’m comfortable with my limitations. Having a best friend who is a formalist, though, means I am kept abreast of excitement in the formalist poetry world. Some of the happenings over the past week caught my attention, and I thought I’d toss them out here for public consumption: (Continued)

As I mentioned in my last post here (goodness, was it really over a month ago?!), I’ve been reading a lot of online journals lately. I’ve tried spending some time with 21 Stars Review, and though I’ve enjoyed some poems there, I mostly find the issues to be hit-or-miss – some poems hit me really hard, right in the solar plexus (like Michelle Bitting’s “Reasons to Quit”), but others sail right over my head.

And, dangerous as it may be, I’d like to take a blog entry to focus on the latter. (Continued)

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of online journals. It’s a faster, easier, cheaper way of seeing what’s being published in the poetry world. Standard print journals like Poetry and American Poetry Review are, of course, wonderful – but again, they’re expensive and slow to come (being published once every two months). I’m impatient. And online, there is an infinite variety of journals to choose from - instant gratification. So here are a few of my favorite, in no particular order (well, actually, in alphabetical order): (Continued)

Lately, I haven’t been reading much poetry. I set a goal for myself at the beginnng of the year to read something like a hundred poems a month. I was doing really well for the first four months - by the beginning of May, I’d read over 400 poems, from journals like Poetry and the American Poetry Review, as well as online journals like Wicked Alice, Stirring, 21 Stars, Diquieting Muses and Apple Valley Review. I could feel the nature of my poems changing - I moved toward a style that was more stream-of-consciousness, more fragmented. I felt it was truer to my circular way of thinking than my previous attempts at more structured narratives.

But since May, I’ve sort of given up on poetry. Well, not entirely. I just haven’t been able to put my mind to it in quite the same way. So instead I’ve been reading quite a bit of fiction, and some personal essays. And now I’m realizing that my poetry is changing again - this time, instead of changing style, I’m changing content. Prior to the shift to reading prose, I was writing a lot of poems about my life - divorce poems, love poems, poems about children. These are things that have meant a great deal to me, and so of course found their way into my writing.

But now I see my writing shifting toward subjects of greater universality - race, gender and sexual expression, politics, war, peace. I’d like to think I’m finding a way to tie these universal concepts to my own life, that I’m grounding them in tangible, believable experience. I don’t know for sure.

So how about you? How does what you’re reading affect what you’re writing?

In January, my girlfriend Donna handed me a book by a guy called Patrick Rosal. “You should read this guy,” she said. “He’s really good.” So I read this guy, and she was right – he’s really good. He’s from New Jersey, which immediately endeared him to me, and his poetry borders on the performance side, with emphasis on sound and rhythm – but his language is so concrete and tangible that the poems work on the page as well as in that sacred space between the poet’s mouth and the audience’s ears. I have been living with his poems since January, carrying their language with me for months now.

So I was thrilled to discover that he was reading at the Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge, NJ. Being a South Jersey girl who is more comfortable in Philly than in North Jersey, I approached the idea of the reading with some trepidation. Driving up the turnpike past exit 9 is something I haven’t done in a long time – but for Patrick Rosal, I decided, it was worth it. And I was not disappointed. (Continued)

Every writer experiences their share of block, and I bet if you talk to 10 writers, you’ll get 10 different explanations of how it happens.  For me, usually, I can’t write a dang thing when the block hits.  No.Thing.  It’s crappy.

Tonight, though, I hit a different kind of wall.  I was outside playing with my son when an idea for a poem hit.  Fortunately he wanted a break from me, so I let him play with his new Lightning McQueen toy while I scrambled off to find some paper.  I scribbled out the first draft of the poem - the initial idea (which was something like two lines) led naturally on to the next idea, and the next and the next, until I had a full first draft.   After putting the little monster to bed, I transferred the poem from my notes to my laptop, and did a bit of editing.

And now I’m looking at the poem and thinking, “Damn. This sounds just like this other poem I wrote.  And that other poem I wrote.  And a little like that one, too.”  I have four poems that have the same pacing, the same rhythms, the same voice.  I know each writer develops a voice, and I have my own.  The problem is that these poems are slightly different than what I’ve been writing for the past few years - they’re not the carefully paced and stanzaed poems I’ve been laboring over.  They’re a bit breathless, a bit looser,  a bit more informal and conversational.

The four poems span a pretty good range of topics: a walk with my son, a hate crime, a sexual assault and being on the receiving end of inconvenient news.  But I’m worried that’s not enough - is a difference in topic alone enough to make the poems successful instead of derivative? Is similarity in voice and rhythm enough to doom a set of poems to failure?

Perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic here.  I’m just a little worried that the poems will seem unoriginal and uninspired.

So what do you think - when you’re reading a collection by a poet and you come across several poems in the collection that are reminiscent of each other in voice and style, are you put off? And do you find this happening in your own writing?

Well it’s that time again, kids:

Anything exciting happening this week? Did you just find out about an acceptance or a reading invitation? Do you have an upcoming appearance in person or in a journal? Did you just have a set of poems accepted for broadcast at Skin Radio? Let us know what’s going on!

Bring on the self-promotion!