As we begin to move on to looking at form, I thought we'd begin by asking ourselves what exactly it is that poetic form achieves - what effect is given by the use of dark marks on a light surface (be it page or screen); what effect does the shape and size, the layout and spread, of these marks achieve? This creates quite a nice segway from last month's session, where we looked at the effects generated by page poetry as opposed to performance pieces.
Exercise 1: Escaping Clichés
We began with a free write, to warm up our poetry brains by pushing our creative expression. Take one of the following prompts:
- As black as...
- As white as...
- As dark as...
- As light as...
and begin by completing the simile. You might begin with the more obvious, clichéd images (for example, if you have chosen 'as dark as...', you might finish this off with 'night') - this is fine; in fact, it's great, as in writing these out you'll be freeing your mind to move on to more original expression. Once the obvious images are out of the way, you can begin thinking more creatively, and come up with more interesting similes.
Discussion: 'Poets work with two materials, one's black and one's white.'
Over the past few months I've found that some of the most interesting and productive work comes out of our group discussions, so I wanted to dedicate a little bit of time to having a focused discussion on the subject and a selection of poems.
We began with some quotes and passages from Glyn Maxwell's 'On Poetry' - this is a great book which offers some wonderful insights into the writing of poetry, written both 'poetically' and conversationally. I'd really recommend getting a copy (some of the cheapest copies I can find are at AbeBooks, click here), as it's a fantastic read and a really useful guide to keep dipping back into.
The first two chapters of Maxwell's book are entitled 'White' and 'Black' - I read a number of passages from these sections, and these are some of the quotes the group found most thought-provoking.
‘Imagine whiteness, a blank sheet of paper, the white screen….Imagine the black of ink or pixels or you…Do this if only to remind yourself that the writing of a poem is a physical act, a deed that elbows into its space and time in the day or the night. The passing of the quill, the fountain-pen, the typewriter, the iPad - this too shall pass - never changed anything. [...] Put the blank paper, or the empty screen, right to one side there, and start to know it.' (p. 2-3)
- For Steve, the mention of various mark-making technologies cast his mind to his childhood and when he used to play around with the typewriter to create poetry, and to his father working at a printing press, where the act of changing font was far more laborious than on today's word processors. This fed into one of Steve's later pieces during the session.
'Poets work with two materials, one's black and one's white. Call them sound and silence, life and death, hot and cold, love and loss: any can be the case but none of those yins and yangs tell the whole story.' (p. 3)
- For Jood, this list of antithetical concepts came into line with her knowledge as an artist, and the fact that the sharpest contrasts in a painting attract the eye the strongest. In a later piece, she considered how we only know what it is to experience one of these concepts because we know how the opposite feels. In a later exercise, Luke aligned the black and white in a painting to the dichotomy of tomorrow and yesterday, unknown and known.
‘Assess the balance of the black creature and the white silence. Consider always what in this case the creature is, what in this case the silence is. And if they are those things, what pressures do they exert upon one another?’ (p. 11)
‘The nine sheets [of paper] are nine battlefields. The black will win some, the white will win some, it will be as silly as war and bloody as chess. If you get any poems out of it, any lines at all, pin them to your breast. If you get any white sheets, bury them with honours. Remember where you won, remember where you lost. Wonder why.’ (p. 20)
- With these two quotes in mind, we looked over some poems that illustrate how the dynamic between black and white can be altered to great effect. We looked at 'Who not to speak to' by Marianne Morris, a poem which uses text of varying size, font, format and layout to show the black marks fighting back at the surrounding white space; to contrast, we looked at Camilla Nelson's '(writing trees)', where the sparse use of words on the page saw the black marks swamped by whiteness. An extreme example of both of these dynamics can be seen in Mark Z. Danielewski's novel House of Leaves, which contains pages both jam-packed with text and almost empty of it (see pictures below).
‘Imagine the negative of a poem on the page, white script on black. You’re blundering through arctic night with your little lantern swinging. Think of poetry cold and dark, like that: what will it need at least? A heart, a heartbeat, warmth, a place to go.’ (p. 13-4)
- To finish, we considered the above quote by looking at a book of poetry where the text is in white on black paper - Tom Chivers' Dark Islands. This takes the dynamic of blackness and whiteness to a whole other level, showing the effect when black 'wins the battle' over white. In some of Chivers' poems, the narrative/concept really works with this reversed colourisation, in particular 'i. Formentor' and 'Poem as Negative'.
Exercise 2: Responding to Portraits
For this activity you'll need a number of things:
- A photograph or portrait, ideally of a scene with areas of shade and light
- A piece of white paper
- A piece of black paper
- A black ink pen
- A white ink pen
First, take a look a your chosen photograph, and take in the scene - who are the figures, where is the setting, what objects or details can you see, and what kind of poem (romantic, comedic, narrative) does this image suggest?
Choose an area of dark within the image - just a small segment, it does not have to be a complete object, or can encompass more than one thing. You might find drawing a box around this area on your image will help you focus on just this area in isolation. Begin a 10 minute free write on this area of shade (thinking back to the 'as black as...' or 'as dark as...' simile activity might help here). What is creating this darkness? How does this area of darkness impact on the image? What emotions does it evoke? After doing this, repeat again for an area of light in the image: how does this area of light impact the image as a whole? how does it exert pressures on the area of shade? how does the tone of the free write change?
After doing this, use the black and white paper and ink to create two poems, either as a pair in sequence with one another, or as two separate pieces (they will inevitably be linked as they come from the same visual stimuli). These poems can either be completed, refined pieces, or fragments from your free writes.
For the 'shade' free write, you could write in white ink on black paper, so the darkness of the page swamps the text; or, you might write in black ink on white paper, but in fonts, sizes, shapes, and layouts which illustrate darkness' prowess on the page. The opposite of these suggestions will work for the 'light' free write.
Exercise 3: Leonardo di Vinci
For the next activity we took a bit of time to explore and absorb the pieces on display in the Leonardo di Vinci exhibition in the gallery above.
Leonardo di Vinci's work ties in quite nicely with the themes of light and dark: his drawings - from portraits to anatomical sketches - show a mastery in shading and highlighting. His pieces are also excellent examples of the extent to which dark marks on a light page can be utilised - some of his pieces are tiny sketches on a wealth of white space, while other pages are swamped with material, often a mix of different mediums from drawings and doodles to writing and scientific observations. He is also known for his mirrored writing, another interesting demonstration of mark-making.
Looking at one or two of di Vinci's works, conduct a free write with a focus on his use of dark and light - whether that be in terms of shading/highlighting, the materials he uses, or his use of page space. Using this free write, construct a poem: either in black ink on white paper, white ink on black paper, or a blackout or 'erasure' poem (use a black marker or a white ink pen to cross out or erase some of the text of your free write, leaving a choice selection of words amidst a space of darkness or light)
Below are some links of some of the interesting things that came up in discussion:
- chiaroscuro, a term for the treatment of light and shade in drawing or painting
- the works of Goya, particularly his 'Black Paintings'
- the works of Lowry, particularly 'The Cripples'
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