Would
That I could
Find Chrysanthemums in bud.
For those in bloom
Are gone to soon.
I remember the sweet scent
Of the chrysanthemums that bloomed
In my grandfather’s garden.
Entombed,
They are long since spent.
I expressed a view, contrary to your own.
Now I am alone
Thinking on the old adage that one ought
Not to talk,
About religion, politics and sport.
“The daffodils are out in Saint James’s Park”
My colleague did remark.
Today
The wind blusters
Through Wordsworth’s spritely clusters,
And I wonder how long will the chancers stay.
When I taught college writing, I told students to write like they talk.
I didn’t mean write like you really talk.
If we taped and transcribed our conversations, we’d quit reading after the first page. In everyday conversation we use filler language to give our brains precious seconds to catch up with our words, we backtrack to fill in details we previously forgot.
From time to time we expel word farts.
For example:
“Like, Carol and I were driving, you know what I mean? When this badass cop, I mean really badass, six foot tall in navy blue, nazi jackboots, you could tell he wanted to bust anyone to put another notch in his badge. Where was I? Oh, yeh, he pulls us over, we were driving seventy, like, I mean…we were in Dripping Springs which is about twenty miles south of Oak Hill, if you’ve never been out that way? No shitting? Man, I thought everyone knew about Oak Hill even if they never drove through. But anyway, the only other drivers are rednecks and blue haired ladies, I kid you not…”
I use the phrase “Write like you talk” as a metaphor for stripping the pretension from your writing, writing to communicate rather than impress. In non-fiction that means make sure to make your point clear. In fiction that means no distractions; keep the reader in the story.
“Write like you talk” doesn’t mean leave no room for art, tropes, themes and metaphor. In fact, writing without artistry can turn away readers as quickly as murky prose. It means that you shouldn’t front-load your prose to impress readers with your artistry, but to enhance the story. If it distracts the reader, if it draws attention to you and away from the story, then you might as well write poetry.
However, even should you turn to poetry, the best poets would advise you that art should never distract the reader from the poem. The only time you want the reader to dwell on the trope is when she reaches the last line, the image lingers in the corners of her consciousness and she thinks, “Wow.”
The artistry in your story should be like that. It should linger at the back of the reader’s consciousness. They might not even recognize it until another reader points it out. Readers want to ride in the passenger seat at full speed until you dump them at the destination. Ride over. Their response should be. “Ride over? No way. Let me back in the car.”
Crafting a good story requires walking a fine balance between clarity and artistry. Hopefully the adage, “write like you talk,” will remind you that every story should carry a quality of ordinary conversation.
Compare the writing of Pynchon and Joyce to Hemingway and William Carlos Williams. Which impresses and which do you follow without wrestling with meaning?
You don’t want your readers (especially when you write non-fiction) to think, “He was a brilliant writer. I didn’t understand a word he said.”
Twitter: @stephenspt
Cigerets, Guns & Beer: Kindle, paperback
Seeing Jesus: Kindle, paperback
Raising Hell: Kindle, paperback
The Worst Noel: Kindle, paperback
“The Hellelujah Trail,” free on Smashwords
“A Christmas Carol: The Sequel,” Smorgasbord—Variety is The Spice of Life
“Quantum Noir” Wind Eggs
“Free Wheeling Free Association and the Theme Park Rangers of Death,” Hell’s Grannies: Kickass Tales of the Crone
“Hell’s Kitties,” Hell’s Kitties: and Other Beastly Beasts
The Poetry That Drives and Divides Faith International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society (1:43)
”Science and the Language Wars,” International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society(2:4)
There was a young leader called Lee
Who shouted “all you people follow me!”.
He ran straight ahead,
Then stopped dead,
On account of hitting a tree!
I am delighted to report that 2 of my poems where featured on the World Poetry Reading Series, a weekly programme hosted by Vancouver Co-Op Radio. The show was broadcast on Thursday 9 March. I am grateful to Ariadne Sawyer for kindly including my poetry. To listen to the programme please visit http://worldpoetry.ca/?p=11601. On Thursday 29 January the World Poetry Reading Series featured an interview with me, during which I read several of my poems. For my previous appearance on Vancouver Co-Op Radio please visit http://worldpoetry.ca/?p=11413.
This week I shall begin the process of pulling together many of my poems, with a view to producing a new collection of poetry.
My poems lie scattered as leaves on a forest floor, in no particular order throughout my blog.
Many will appear “as is”, however others require to be edited by me, while all of my poems will be proofread prior to their publication in book form.
Proofreading is, for me, about spotting typographical errors such as spelling mistakes and the use of a comma where a colon or no punctuation should properly be. It is not about the proof reader/editor re-writing my work, for however good a proof reader/editor is (and there are many excellent proof readers/editors out there), my work is my work and the only person who will make changes to it (other than correcting typographical errors) is me.
While I am engaged in this project, I shall post less frequently as the work entailed in producing a poetry collection is both time consuming and laborious in nature.
I will, however take breaks from the task in hand and post on newauthoronline.com from time to time.
Kevin
What is this thing
Called progress? I asked a girl, who stood alone,
But her phone
Did ring
And technology (the king)
Who rules all
Led her to answer that call.
What is progress? I asked a teenager sitting at his laptop.
He answered me not
For he was engaged in the plot
Of a game in his bedroom
Which he played long into the gloom.
What is progress? I asked the statistician.
She gave me rhemes of data to analyse
Which led me to pedition.
What is progress? I asked my dog as he lay in the sun
He did an answer lack
But rolled on his back
Just for fun.
Someone said
A magpie
Killed a blackbird, stone dead
And that is why
He dislikes the magpie.
We laud it over the magpie for he is our inferior.
And we humans, being superior
Do good to one another
For who will
Kill
His brother?
As a child growing up in Liverpool, I have happy memories of visiting “The Mystery” or, to give the park it’s correct name, “Wavertree Playground”.
The unofficial title of “The Mystery” derives from the fact that the donor of the land wished to remain unknown. It is, however believed that the land was gifted by a Mr Holt of Liverpool, (http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/wavertreeplayground.html).
