Return to the Review	The Poetry Window discussion with Donna Gagnon, Thomas D. Reynolds, and Carmen Ruggero	Part 1 appeared in issue 199.
part 2

Bewildering Stories: How do you start a poem? From a visual image? Dialogue? A phrase or sense of rhythm? A general feeling? What makes you choose to write a story like “Some Things Disappear” as a poem rather than as prose? Might the same have been done with “A Trick of the Mirror”?

Donna Gagnon: Sometimes, a poem begins with a certain string of words that enter my head unbidden — “feet reaching for the stars” or “drinks after dinner.” Other times, it comes from a specific emotion. Anger’s always a good one, or love, or loss. Rhythm is very important and tends to establish itself as I’m writing. Angry poems tend to be filled with short, staccato bursts of words. Love & loss poems (oddly enough), both seem to demand longer, more stretched out lines and stanzas.

The choice to use one form over another when I’m telling a story isn’t a truly conscious one. “Some Things Disappear” began almost a year ago as a prose piece. But I got stuck and couldn’t find a way to continue writing it ... until I decided to try it as a series of interlinking poems. Then it just rolled out of me.

I think it’s got something to do with whether I want to present a seamless portrayal of a character to the reader or if I want to hand over a series of snapshots. For me, a short story is like a movie and poetry is like somebody’s vacation pics. After I’ve read a good short story, I’ve pretty well got the picture. After I’ve read a poem or series of poems, there’s still a lot of gaps I’m required to fill in for myself.

Does the inspiration for poems come from personal experiences? Observations? Ideas? Do you have a preference for specific themes or imagery?

Donna: Most of my writing inspiration comes from personal experience, which includes things that have happened not only to and within myself but to others around me, whether I know them well or not. I’m rather empathetic.

Thomas D. Reynolds: This is a difficult topic for me to discuss. I’m not sure I have a method of inspiration, or at least one I can articulate. When I know that I have some free time to write, I begin reflecting on things I’ve seen or heard. I look at photography books. I scan over memories, family stories I’ve heard many times over the years. Usually, something will take hold, maybe a spark will occur.

I might have to write three or four poems before I can get into any kind of groove. These early poems are set aside and considered as finger/brain exercises. Usually, when I begin writing in earnest, my mind seems to run on a certain track and poems seem to follow a certain theme (although I’m often not aware of it until much later).

As for having a certain emphathy with the characters, I do try very hard to remain true to the characters I write about (and whose voices I attempt to find). I think the key to that lies in the details — trying to envision what would be at their fingertips. Photographs definitely have been important for me in discovering those details.

Don asked if I am as bleak/filled with despair as some of my poems, particularly those set in space or the future in general. Actually, no. I don’t drag my scythe behind me on most occasions. I’m actually an overall positive person with a happy family life, including a wife and two children.

However, when it comes to writing down my thoughts, whims, etc. (whatever form they might take), even I have to acknowledge that I tend to focus on bleak landscapes (Kansas, outer space). The characters in my poems about pioneer-era Kansas are similar to those adrift in outer space: they are isolated, lonely, occasionally desperate, and yet determined to survive, to not give in. I’ve also written a number of poems about fossil/dinosaur hunters, and those characters share those same traits.

First of all, do I write prose as well as poetry? I have written several stories in the past. All four were Kansas folk tales set in 1880’s Kansas. Two of them were fairly good, but I have yet to send them out. Actually, they began as poems but quickly morphed into stories with a poetic strain. Those pieces are the exception, and even with those pieces, I began with the intention of writing poetry.

That is the medium that seems right for me, maybe because of its conciseness, or because of its ability to stick in the mind and be committed to memory. Or because of a lack of patience on my part, to get it down (whatever “it” happens to be) fairly quickly and move on to other things. Perhaps in some cases I’m lazy and don’t want to spend the time to work out the piece into a full-fledged story, even when I realize that the piece has promise as a story but not as a poem.

When I write poetry, I almost always try to tell a story in some way, even if the poem narrates no more than a single moment. Most of them are not autobiographical, at least not too literally. I don’t think I’m a particularly introspective person. I usually look outward first.

Don, you mentioned that my poems are often visual. What’s interesting is that I’ve written many poems based on photographs, especially those of turn of the century Kansas — small dusty towns, haunting images of landscape or pioneer-type residents.

Probably my best work is based on those images, either using them as starting points for story-poems or trying to recreate the moments of the photographs. What were the individuals thinking? What happened just prior to the photograph? What happened next? What was the photographer thinking? Did he/she have an agenda?

Tom’s “space” poems are all like that. And “Our Eyes Are What Make Us Human” (issue 142), although more futuristic than space travel, also implies a “larger story” in a compact, mysterious way.

Talking about the “plot” or “larger story” of a poem is almost like comparing novels with their film versions, isn’t it? Or maybe vice-versa...

Carmen Ruggero: You’re right, Don, Tom’s “Our Eyes are What Make us Human” could easily turn into a novel. They say the eyes are mirrors of the soul, and as far as I know human beings are the only ones endowed with a soul, though some may disagree. I see a plot taking place maybe in 5006 when our earth has been depleted of it wealth and food is manufactured, perhaps allotted rations by aliens now ruling the planet and the only way of recognizing and perhaps communicating with another human is through the eyes. I could go on an on, if you let me.

Tom: “Our Eyes Are What Makes Us Human” grew from one of those Kansas photographs, of a man wearing a mask outside a cafe during a dust storm so severe it was referred to as a “black blizzard.”

The image stayed with me for several years before I attempted to work with it. I couldn’t find my way into it until I envisioned it as a sci-fi scenario; then it seemed to work.

Actually, if you saw the picture, you’d realize it wasn’t that much of an imaginative leap. It could have been straight from an old 1950’s sci-fi movie, maybe It Came From Outer Space.

I think issue 170 was before my joining Bewildering Stories so I just went to the challenge page and read “Sparrow Egg.” I definitely see a story there. Could be a good subject for discussion.

Even if the poems are not based on photographs, they more often than not grow from images, the result of just keeping my eyes open. I came upon the image from “Sparrow Egg” while out walking though the fairgrounds near my home. Beneath the awning of one of the buildings, a small egg lay broken in the dirt, with the tiny alien-like bird (clearly not ready to hatch) lying in an interesting position, as if seated with claws on some invisible controls. Another image that’s still with me.

Carmen: Have I written a play? I’d rather forget. It was a one act — my first play, but someone liked it and wanted to produce it and like a fool I let him. But it taught me something, and in the end that’s what counts. The writer writes from his own experience. The actor interprets the line as it was meant, but brings his own experience into it, and the line takes on a dimension of its own. And you sit back and say to yourself: “Wow! Did I really write that?”

“Yeah, you did... Aren’t you glad the guy on stage knew what the heck he was doing?!”

It taught me to appreciate the responsibility an actor has toward the writer. In the end, it is a total collaboration between actor and playwright.

In my experience of poetry, I’ve been keenly attuned to the role of sound. What role does sonority play in your poetry? Do you try to achieve sound effects? Or do you consciously avoid bad ones?”

Donna: As one of those kids who did a lot of reading alone in the basement or under the covers at night, I came to a love of words through the way they looked on the page and how they made my brain whirl and my heart pound. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I connected their sounds to music and rhythm and movement. Through years of working in community & regional summer theatre, I developed a completely new appreciation of wordsound. Before I really understood any of Shakespeare’s plays, I was mesmerized by the sound of the language on stage.

Whatever I write, I choose my words carefully. Sparingly. Cautiously. For me, as a writer and a reader, more of good/less and less of bad/more is what I’m looking for and I do read aloud while I’m editing, which is why my neighbours are convinced I’m slightly batty. I also sing opera in the shower.

As for consciously avoiding bad sound effects ... well, sometimes even I have to fart!

Tom: I think sound is at the heart of poetry, more than ideas or messages. The poems which first perked my interest did not do so because of their message or content, rather their sounds, the way the words worked together, how they sounded when spoken aloud. I love certain poems, have even memorized them (sometimes without trying), but could make no effort to explicate their meaning and have little interest in trying. The mystery appeals to me. Most of all, the rhythm of the words convey whatever meaning I want to gain from the poems.

I do pay attention to sounds when I write, revising until the words find the right rhythm for me. My goal is to write in a conversational voice, one that seems honest, if not necessarily realistic. At the same time, the language should have a special, heightened quality that somehow separates it from regular discourse, that qualifies it as poetry.

Having said that, my work often fails to achieve those goals, often being too prose-like, too ordinary. I do try to avoid bad sound effects; unfortunately, I’m often not aware of them until years later, when I reread a poem and cringe. How could that possibly have sounded good, I ask myself.

Carmen: Yes, sound plays a role in poetry, and I think an important one. The use of alliteration and ending consonants that blend into the opening consonant or vowel of the next word, helps establish rhythm and makes the line flow. In free verse, I often use internal rhymes and that contributes to sound. I’ll take a word I want to stress for instance, in the first line, and rhyme it with another stressed word in the third line.

I think poetry should sing. Whether the subject is happy or grim, the poem should have a musical quality. Like Tom said: he has memorized poems without even trying. That’s the way we memorize songs. We hear them and think we’re not really paying attention but we memorize them, at least parts of them. I think that’s because the music stresses certain words, or parts of speech that are important to the subject and that’s what we try to recreate when writing poetry.

Ever since the Romantics, lyric poetry has been characterized by imagery and symbolism. What imagery and symbolism would you say characterize your own works?

Donna: Themes and imagery ... hmmmm. I write a lot about being ‘lost’ or misunderstood. Maybe it’s a way of breaking out of the paper bag of my repressed childhood!

I’m not sure if there are any instances of recurring imagery in my writing. One of my favourite authors, Timothy Findley, had a drunken wife/mother in most of his works, as well as a repeatedly slamming screen door. If I had to really think about it (darn you, Don Webb!), I’d say there’s a lot of ‘touching’ references in my writing. Fingers on fingers, lips on necks, hands on other body parts.

Carmen: More often than not, I use colors and music as metaphors. Both those elements convey mood and movement.

I try to use metaphors to create both image and feeling. I work very hard looking for the right metaphor. In poetry we don’t have the room to expand as we do in prose; every word counts and the stronger the metaphor the greater the impact. After writing poetry for a while, I now find myself looking for the shortest most powerful way to communicate meaning in prose. My prose has changed as a result of writing poetry. For the longest time, I thought I’d forgotten how. *grin*

For instance: “Autum leaves flip and flutter in the wind...” I tried to bring the idea of movement in a capricious sort of way, as well as alliteration. In that sonnet, I use words such as ‘yarn’, ‘weaving’, ‘tale’, ‘plot’ — something is going on. And the word ‘plot’ also indicates there’s something of a conspiracy. Like something she has no control over. When the sonnet gets to the line “...in the other side of silence...” it is clear (at least I hope it is) that the protagonist is watching life happen from her place of isolation.

In “When Old Children Cry” I used color to serve a dual purpose:

when summer flows into autumn’s gold
and like feathered strokes of burning embers
spatter in shades of amber across the sky

the use of ‘embers’ and then ‘amber’ not only communicate the season’s colors, but the heat of embers brings to mind the idea of heat. The word ‘spatter’, I used to create an image of these colors being splashed or thrust about. Altogether, as the poem continues, my aim was to communicates an underlined feeling of anger. Using ‘embers’ and ‘ambers’ also served alliteration purposes.

Tom: As for imagery and symbolism in poetry, I think it’s something that one should be conscious of to a certain extent, of course — developing an image and revising for the greatest effect. I also believe that there should be an unconscious element to it — something that takes over during composition, that is organic and natural and accidental and surprising, which can later be tweaked and manipulated.

Last fall, I was walking through the deserted fairgrounds near my home, and at the edge of a gravel road I came across the body of a dead owl in the grass. I don’t know how it died; its death seemed to be the result of a natural process. There were no marks or wounds on it of any kind that I could see. I knew from the moment that I saw it that I would eventually write about it, probably sooner than later. My heart was beating a bit faster than usual because of the shock of seeing such a large bird close up and also because I knew that this was an image that had some meaning. At the time I didn’t know what that meaning was.

Several days later, when I had some time to write, I began jotting down some ideas, none of which worked. I had developed a pre-set notion of what I thought the poem and image should be and mean. I can’t recall this notion, but at the time I’m sure it seemed interesting and deep.

Unfortunately, the poem was not coming alive; there was no spark. After a time, almost in desperation, I began writing a number of phrases very quickly onto the page. During those moments, I wrote this phrase: “a brown bundle gift-wrapped under the tree.” At soon as I wrote it down, I knew that this was the metaphor for the owl — that it was a gift which no one wanted that had been left under a tree. The rest of the poem came very quickly after that, as I worked on extending the metaphor as far as it might stretch.

This process is the usual one for me; I begin with an idea, but often out of disgust or desperation, something better will pop up (if I’m lucky). Here is the poem, which was published in the online journal Ghoti Magazine in January:

Owl Corpse

A stiff brown bundle
seemingly gift-wrapped
lies under the tree.

Disheveled feathers
atop the crown
serve as the bow.

Whatever is inside
wrapped in white tissue
is perishable.

Beneath this tree
strung with robins
the gift lies unclaimed.

Did its recepient forget
among so many others
this last small gift?

Only the wind
like an eager child
strains at the wrapping.

Carmen: The first time I read it, your image of ‘the gift’ was puzzling, I must admit, but several weeks later I can understand why it took you some time to come up with the appropriate metaphor.

At about the first of the month, my mother went into a hospice. She and I have spent hours talking about our parents’ lives and how they impacted our own lives. Of course the question of eternity has been very much a part of those conversations as we both feel we continue to live through those whose lives we have touched. I feel my parents have gone or are going away through a kind of metamorphosis. I don’t believe that at some levels, I am the same person I was some thirty days ago.

It took some personal pain to completely assimilate that the life of the bird represented the gift. We often miss its meaning until we’re about to lose it. In the owl’s case, as you said, its death seemed to be the result of natural causes but perhaps the fact that it lay there abandoned had a powerful impact on you. So powerful that it took you days to come to grips with it. Obviously, it also took me days to capture the weight of your words.

I am like you in some ways. Sometimes an idea hits me, but I have to jot down concepts and ideas until the mind abandons control of the subject, and I let the subconscious guide me. (You should see my first draft of anything.) Then as you say, we can go back in and tweak it. But it is important to write from the heart, and poetry in particular is empty unless it happens that way, because poetry is very subjective.

I particularly like your last stanza:

Only the wind
like an eager child
strains at the wrapping.

Thank you so very much for giving us these words.

Carmen, with your experience in the theater, one would expect you to be turning out plays as well as short stories. Is poetry the most direct way of communicating feelings? “That Gaudy Red Hat,” among others, is for me a very successful mixture of a whole range of emotions, and it goes from tragedy to comedy.

I notice that you sometimes seem to enjoy writing in formal styles, such as the sonnet. In real life are you a very tidy person?

Carmen: I wrote a play many years ago, and it wasn’t very good at all. It got produced, though the critics hated it. At the time, I was very much into acting and didn’t think writing was something I could do, though I wrote all the time. I wrote character biographies, and unless it was a historical play, the biography was totally invented. I think the answer is that I enjoy writing prose as opposed to plays, and as we discussed before, I draw from my acting experience to create believable characters and situation.

I wrote poems in childhood. One stanza, nothing really good, I didn’t work at perfecting any of it. I starting writing poetry and actually studying form in 2002. And yes, I find poetry to be a direct way of communicating feelings. And I find myself writing more about concepts than any thing else.

“Winter: A Silent Symphony”, is not just about aging but about the way some look at aging, like a waiting room for death. Aging may limit us physically (though I still jump rope). It should not be the reason to stop mental activity.

“That Gaudy Red Hat” is about the demise of a character who gives into such degree of anger. I’m glad you saw the transition from tragedy to comedy. Those elements are two sides of the same coin. Tragedy taken to an extreme does become comedic.

Regarding sonnets, for me, subject dictates form. Some poems lend themselves to form and others, not. I love the challenge of writing sonnets. They’re not easy to write. Meter and rhyme come easy to me. The real enjoyment for me, is finding the exact words to make a stronger impact. Sonnets, though we constantly innovate, are still guided by tradition. I really enjoy the process.

Am I a tidy person? My house is in good order, but my downstairs office is a royal mess and I seem quite content. I’m tidy with some things and then some others can wait till I’m done writing. :-)

Copyright © 2006 by Donna Gagnon
Thomas D. Reynolds
Carmen Ruggero
and Bewildering Stories