Normally. when I am inspired to write a poem, it comes out quite quickly. I have the idea and the words swim through my brain and out onto the page or the computer screen. There are usually some small revisions as I try to get the best words in the best order but after a day or two the deed is done and by then the tide of my inspiration has receded.
With "Stanage Edge" I am deliberately doing it differently, putting reins on the emerging poem and sometimes leaving days between my tinkerings and final word choices. You may recall that I first shared my little scheme a month ago in a blogpost I titled "Incubation".
I want to do justice to this poem because Stanage Edge is so special - not just to me but to lovers of the outdoors in this northerly region of England. When my late brother Paul was studying biological sciences at Liverpool Polytechnic at the end of the 1960s, he was a member of the rock climbing club that visited Stanage Edge several times and when our children were very small we had a brief tradition of putting the big turkey in the oven on Christmas morning and then heading out to Stanage for a breezy winter walk. Stanage Edge is as familiar to me as Trafalgar Square is to London taxi drivers.
To write a worthy poem about Stanage Edge is a challenging but ultimately satisfying task. I might not get there but I am doing my best. Metaphorically speaking, it would be easier to stay home watching the television of inaction than tramping about on the moorland edge of poetry, exposed to the wind.
I rather like those lines for they do speak of the geology and the seemingly apparent timelessness of Stanage Edge. Now the task is to incorporate the lines within the main body of the poem though I might leave them as an epigraph that provides a hint or foretaste of what will follow.
In building the poem, I have written more than 2000 words so far in a Word document and I have handwritten a thousand more words on lined paper. I have researched history, geology, birds and plants as well as the names of rock climbing routes. Stable buildings require solid foundations.
So yes, I have not forgotten my ambition but I think the poem needs more time to mature like cheese or wine. I will keep working on it, editing, polishing, adding new ideas, deleting others. I feel that I owe it to myself as well as Stanage Edge.
Sounds like you're writing an epic!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I have built it up too much.
DeleteAnd this is why I don't "do" poetry. Just reading this has my tiny brain overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteThere once was a woman named Kelsey
DeleteBut everyone knew her as Elsie
In the middle of the street
She tripped over her feet
And was hospitalised in Chelsea.
😂😂
DeleteYou may end up with your Stanage Edge poem like Leonardo Da Vinci with Mona Lisa as well as some other paintings he kept moving with him from place to place, sometimes adding just one or two brush strokes over the years, never really feeling satisfied with them as being complete.
ReplyDeleteNot being an artist myself, I have often wondered how an artist knows when their work is finished, be it a painting, sculpture, piece of music, novel or anything else.
I never knew that about Leonardo's continuous tinkering. Thanks for sharing that knowledge.
DeleteI'll do a Jack Haggerty and recommend this biography about Leonardo Da Vinci:
Deletehttps://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.com/2020/03/read-in-2020-6.html
I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteI hope so Addy.
DeleteCan you ever polish writing enough? I quite enjoy polishing my writing, when I actually do it. Read a sentence, pull it apart and rearrange it. Nothing changes like permanence is very interesting to ponder.
ReplyDeleteWe need to know when to stop.
DeleteSublime. Like the huge rocky crag that terrified Wordsworth as he
ReplyDeletewas rowing his boat on Ullswater in darkness. As you said in Incubation,
climbers have fallen to their deaths from Stanage Edge.
Andrew asked, can you ever polish enough ? It is knowing when to quit.
Randall Jarrell said poems succeed not by philosophical argument but by
conveying what it's like to be something else, like a bat with echo-location.
Or Henry James : We work in the dark and the rest is the madness of art.
Thank you for your off-beat reflections Haggerty.
DeleteI like the two lines you shared!
ReplyDeleteGod gave them to me.
DeleteThen to edit it down to 240 words.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe 365 words.
DeleteI've only written silly poems where the last rhyming line was "Boop Boop Be Do". I used to do that for birthdays and anniversaries for my family and everyone always got a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lass called Ellen
DeleteWho looked like Scooby Doo
When netted by the dog catcher
She yelled "Boop Boop Be Do!"
You got the right rhythm there, Neil. But I don't look like Scooby Doo and I wouldn't rhyme Doo with do.
DeleteI like the musicality of your two lines - I can imagine them going round and round in your head.
ReplyDeleteWalking can loosen our thinking.
DeleteThis is going to be a veritable Beowulf! (But hopefully not in Middle English.)
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how all your research and drafting affects the finished product. Will you be happier with it, or will you find that your first, instinctual jottings are more honest, more yours?
You make a good point Steve. Breaking my usual writing habit for poetry may lead to hesitation, complexity or a depleted spirit.
DeleteThat does look like a place worthy of a great poem. Never having attempted any similar project myself, I can only wish you luck!
ReplyDeleteYes, good luck.
ReplyDelete