Poetic Lineage

Follow the Tracks

Often I can’t track where exactly I heard about a book or resource. What rabbit trail led to which riches? But this time I can. And each step feel like it’s worthy of your attention.

It’s the magnolia microseason, and once the sun came out

A few months ago I took a workshop with

Joanna Penn Cooper

. She is wise and funny and it was time well-spent. She mentioned that she had been reading a book called Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing. That sounded like a title I would like, so I picked up a copy.

Janisse Ray is wise and funny too. Even though she is writing nonfiction, lots of the lessons are applicable to poetry. Halfway through the book she quotes Brenda Hillman (who’s married to Robert Hass—can you imagine?) and wears great glasses.

Brenda Hillman

Revise toward strangeness.

This stopped me in my tracks. It feels like a skittish animal, like advice I can only understand if I don’t look at it too closely! Then I found this incredibly strange and wide-ranging interview with Hillman from the Los Angeles Review of Books.

I spent way too long tracking down this old Robert Hass video. The library where he was recording kept trying to turn off the lights! But it will turn on lights for you.

In the video Hass mentions Technicians of the Sacred by Jerome Rothenberg, a poetry anthology that Nick Cave describes as

the single most important book on poetry I have ever read. It has been a heavy influence over my songwriting – more than I’d like to admit.

If there is anyone out there struggling to write lyrics, get your hands on this book; immerse yourselves in it, live inside it for a while, free your mind, and you will emerge brimming with ideas.

So. A few trails for you to follow on the day before Poetry Month. I’d love to hear about your plans for the month. My list includes walks // reading poems // writing poems from family stories // journaling.