A Message from the President, January 2010
by Susan T. Moss, ISPS President
I would like to start by wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year filled with inspiration and peace. The beginning of another year usually brings hope and a list of resolutions, and for poets, often a goal of writing more and getting their poetry out to the world. In keeping with new starts, the first meeting of the Central Illinois ISPS chapter had a successful gathering in December led by David Alexander at the Pontiac Public Library. This location enables us to further expand our society with poets who live in the region close to Bloomington. Members are invited to join any and all of the three chapters for friendly and helpful critiquing of their work.
One way to continue growing as a poet is to try writing in other styles. Many of us tend to use free verse, but form poems can be interesting and offer different challenges. A genre seemingly less explored is haiku. Recently, I received two e-mails about this abbreviated poetry which might be a fresh way to help tighten ideas and see things from an alternative perspective. A haiku program will begin on Saturday, February 20, 2010, at the Winnetka Public Library from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Charlotte Degregorio, Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America, will lead the gathering. A related event is a contest sponsored by the Haiku Foundation, www.thehaikufoundation.org/contest/haiku-now-contest2010#submit.
Another possible way to open doors to creative thinking is to read a variety of books, poetry of course, but also fiction and nonfiction. As most of us have discovered, ideas can come from anywhere and often do. The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker offers an often humorous book about a fictitious poet and anthologist who expounds on many real poets and their work. The protagonist also discusses several ways to get ideas for poetry and how to improve them. For example, listen to other people's stories and let some aspect of them form the bases for a poem. After you take a scene, incident or idea and describe it to your best ability, let it go and allow others to see if the result can "breathe in its own world." Picking the best moment that happened to you in a day can be a further source for a poem according to the narrator, who recommends jotting down your thoughts as soon as they percolate in order to capture their poignancy.
A nonfiction selection entitled Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer, offers a different approach to insights and works that are reflected in essays about past imaginative people such as Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, Paul Cézanne, Igor Stravinsky and Gertrude Stein, to name a few. You may not always agree with the author's views, but details of avant-garde endeavors offer topics for potential poetic material. Lehrer states, "Both art and science can be useful, and both can be true.... This is the artist's purpose: to keep our reality, with all its frailties and question marks, on the agenda."
While reading anything, it's good to be conscience of word usage and its rhythms, nuances and what make or do not make for good images on the page. So much of what we write is directly related to and dependent upon the process. It's in the doing which includes gathering ideas, forming new phraseology, falling in love with your words and then deleting some of them that enlightens and fortifies the incorruptible joy of creating poetry.
Happy writing.
Susan T. Moss
stm48@hotmail.com
