pen ink river

Below is my Top Twenty from the Nuts and Bolts chapter of Hugo's book, The Triggering Town. I've shortened a bit and, of course, eliminated his examples and discussion. Hugo was writing about poetry. I think some of these are applicable to all writing.

1. Write with what gives you the most sensual satisfaction. Pen, pencil, keyboard.

2. Write in a hard-covered notebook with green lined pages. Green is easy on the eyes. The lines tend to want words. Blank paper begs to be left alone.

3. Cross out rapidly and violently, never with slow consideration if you can help it.

4. Make your first line interesting and immediate.

5. Never want to say anything so strongly that you give up the option of finding something better. If you HAVE to say it, you will.

6. Sometimes the wrong word isn't the one you think it is but another close by.

7. When you feel finished, print it. Put a typed copy on the wall...read now and then.

8. End more than half your lives and more than 2/3 your sentences on words of one syllable.

9. Don't use the same subject in two consecutive sentences.

10. Don't overuse the verb "to be."

11. If you ask a question, don't answer it, or answer a question not asked, or defer.

12. Maximum sentence length: seventeen words. Minimum: one.

13. Make sure each sentence is at least four words longer or shorter than the one before it.

14. Use any noun that is yours, even if it only has a local use. Don't be afraid to take emotional possession of words.

15. Beware words necessitated by grammar to make thing clear but dilute the drama of the statement. Words of temporality: meanwhile, while, as, during, and.
Words of causality: so, because, thus, causing.
Words of opposition: yet, but.

16. Beware using "so" and "such" for emphasis. Phony words when uttered.

17. When writing, assume the right of all things to be resides in the things themselves.

18. Any stance, no matter how melodramatic, is prefer to none.

19. Locate the events in your poem, with specificity.

20. Style and substance may represent a class system. The imagination is a democracy.

Posted by Nancy Flynn at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm supposed to be writing one of these this morning. Having a hard time focusing on objects, my mind wants to ramble and rant. Below, some notes on what an Objectivist poem is from the Writers on the Net class I'm taking with Barbara Henning.

These kinds of poems:

-- Concentrate on the luminous details in the present conscious world.

-- Includes historic and contemporary particulars.

-- Follows William Carlos William's "No idea but in things."

-- An organic poem with no parts to analyze, rather an accumulation.

-- Yet it makes a social statement.

-- The opposite of symbolist and surrealist poetry in that it's about immediate conscious reality, no streaming consciousness.

-- The object is primary. No metaphors. Instead the material quality of the word.

-- The poet in the background as a collector or arranger.

-- Use documents and newspapers and talk of people. This school of poets wrote usually urban poems, but this isn't necessary.

-- Use local speech and rhythm. Immigrant particularities. Documents.

-- Condense and collage.

-- "The poem as a field of action" (W.C. Williams again). Shape grows organically during the process of making. All at once. All together.

-- Intellectual & moral.

Posted by peninkriver at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)