Without it becoming complete crap? Or just something kind of absurd, surreal? Seriously, I’m trying to start a poem for the Dorothy poetry prize, because why not, but I keep writing crap.
You guys have any favorite “happy” poems that I could read for guidance?
3 responses so far ↓
1 skyscrapersoup // Jul 31, 2008 at 10:00 pm
“If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees,— if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: “I am lonely, lonely. I was born to be lonely, I am best so!” If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades,— Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?” -WCW
I think you shouldn’t set out to write a “Happy Poem” capitals n all… just don’t forget to write something the next time you feel happy… It’s dangerously easy to vent your feelings on paper when you feel shitty… its much harder to transfer the good stuff, but if you make a habit of it, it can be done.
2 Natalie // Aug 1, 2008 at 10:10 pm
what do you mean by happy? if by happy, you mean something akin to drinking a six pack on a hot summer day, what’s the point?
i feel like your poems are truly joyful (maybe except for this last one you posted. which i like for its radical departure from your usual tone.)
but, if you feel like you’re having writer’s block, that’s an entirely different issue. i’m still working on that one myself.
3 mackenzie // Aug 15, 2008 at 11:19 am
Ed,
yeah, it’s not so much that I only write when I’m feeling shitty, but that when I write and I’m feeling good, the poetry seems worse. But then, I also feel like what the Dorothy prize people are looking for is fluff. Or err, maybe a sort of joyousness I don’t know how to convey. The trouble continues.
Natalie,
which poems are the joyful ones? maybe i can fluff them up. I’ll revisit them with the fluff dial turned up a notch. you in new york yet?
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