Poetry Postcard 15

Remember on Friday I complained that -- nearly midway through the 44 Postcard Poem project -- I was hitting my wall? Today, I am sharing brick # 1.

The poems are getting a little weird and trippy.

I spent the better part of an hour researching pelicans. I learned about gular sacs and how pelicans swish their food around in order to swallow prey head first. And that pelicans have ten foot wingspans and are heavy, up to 30 pounds, but are still great fliers if they catch a good wind. 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pelican_in_Flight.jpg

And this is what my tired brain came up with:

Bird Song

Pelican, pelican, pelican pie --
your hinged ladle mouth,

your marble blue eye

always alert for

a fish swimming by --
pelican, pelican, pelican pie.

by Laura Shovan

(Note: No actual pelicans were eaten or placed in pies for the making of this poem. "Pelican pie" is a term of endearment, according to the author, who claims to be fond of pelicans.)

Honestly, as there are three pelicans in the photograph on this postcard, I had the phrase "pelican, pelican, pelican" in my head. The rhythm was attractive, but silly. I just kept going from there.

Postcard Information:

Pelicans in Tropical Florida

Photo: John Hinde Curteich Inc. ©

CURTEICHCOLOR® 3-D NATURAL COLOR REPRODUCTION (REG. U. S. A. PAT. OFF.)

View the postcard at this vintage postcard site.

I sent the poem off to a very forgiving friend who is also one of my favorite native Floridians. If I ever revise it, perhaps I will add this poem to my series of bird odes, which already includes poems honoring an owl and a hawk.

Other interesting facts about this card -- it is one of a handful in the project that were actually used and mailed. This one was sent to a bookstore in Alabama. (Must be on of the cards Irene Latham donated. Thanks, Irene!)

On it, the writer says: 

“Dear Reed Books:

Pls quote fee for

locating and mailing to

me:

Doug Boyd: Swami

(Random House, 1970)

Thank you!"

The card was cancelled in 1986.
My poem is making Sinclair Lewis very grumpy.

If you are interested in spirituality and 1960s/early 70s pop-culture, you might take a moment to look up Swami.

Is the Title Important?

Kids often ask me if the title of a poem is important. Why can't a poem remain untitled? Why can't you just use the first line as a title?


For those students (I'm looking at you, Mr. O'Brien's Advanced Comp class) I thought I'd share this window into title-making and why the right title can play a crucial role in revision.

A very busy John Milton title page.

I started working on a new poem about eight months ago. It's about a bad word. Or, more exactly, about the day, in 7th grade, when the rumor that a certain bad word existed made its way down the halls of Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School.

It looks exactly like it did 30 years ago.

I'd always known I would write a poem about this word-rumor memory. Just the fact that I remembered that day so vividly, told me it was poem-worthy. But, it wasn't until my daughter started middle school that I felt ready to write.


The offending word does not appear in this post, or in the poem, which I think is a good thing. (In the poem, and in real life, the boys knew the word and would not tell it to the girls, because it was "too bad." What was important was not the word so much as who controlled its telling or not-telling.)


However, in the first few drafts, the title did refer to the word (by its first initial) and a disease. It was one of my worst-ever titles. Because of it, some references to doctors and diagnoses ended up in the poem.


I knew the title was awful. A few readings and drafts later, I tried a new one: "Vocabulary." It was simple and it put the focus on the poem's middle school setting.


Unfortunately, the health-care references stayed, because they felt clever (never a good sign). I did a few more readings, submitted the poem to two or three journals. At readings, it was received well. At journals, no luck.

Finally, this weekend, a brainstorm! How about a new title? "Language Arts." Without posting the whole poem, I'd like to show you how this title change affected two key sections of the poem.


Vocabulary

Stanza 3

Boys pressed against the wall

in threes and fours, opposite

our teachers in their bright doors.

Language Arts

Stanzas 2-3

 

Boys pressed against the wall

in threes and fours, opposite

our Language Arts teacher,

languid in his bright door.

The new title allows me to specify which teacher. I made him languid, so he'd appear James Dean-like in his bright doorway. The symbolism of the back-lit, grown man in a doorway (to adulthood) was only hinted at before. Much stronger in the new version.

Vocabulary

Stanzas 15-17

Robert’s hair is wavy.

He is the arbiter of dirty words.

A doctor who decides

which patients can take

the Latin terms

and whose diagnosis

to dumb down.

Language Arts

Stanzas 13-15

Robert, our instructor in the art

of dirty words, knows

who can handle profane terms

and whose vocab list

to dumb down.

This revision makes me want to jump up and down. Until I changed the title, I didn't see that the doctor/patient imagery was a holdover from the first drafts. It doesn't "go" with the poem. Robert as a teacher of language makes the backbone of the poem stronger, the overall theme tighter -- how we learn language and how words are used to put women "in their place," even in middle school.

I am busy making final selections for the Audacity issue of Little Patuxent Review this week. After that, I hope to send the newly revised poem out. Wish "Language Arts" luck!