On the Necessity of Poetry. How to begin?
By Ronna Bloom

“In my book, poetry is a necessity of life. It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so.” – C.D. Wright

When I read those lines, my whole body responds with recognition, relief. These words have already freed something in me I didn’t know was needing it.

Though I am always writing and reading, I am also always asking, being asked, “How? How do we do this?” How does a person begin to get near those zones that can be so well guarded by the filters of expectation? How can you move towards what’s honest, scary, new, yours?

I often run a workshop in schools, on campuses and in offices called Panic-Free Poetry. In it, I first ask, “What sets a poem in motion? What inspires poetry?” People answer tentatively. “Feelings?” “Imagination?” “Things that happen to you?” They’re worried. They want to get it right. I say, “Yes.” All the answers are right.

It’s not really fair because the question is a set-up, directing people toward finite answers. Then, because I want to break the thing open, I ask, “What did you have for breakfast?”

Then we get into it; people start yelling out answers. “Cereal!” “What kind of cereal?” I ask. “In a bowl or a snack pack?” Someone says, “Eggs,” and I say, “Who made them? Were they scrambled?” Eventually I get some folks saying, “I had a patty and two cokes, on my way to school,” or “Frozen waffles with peanut butter and syrup; I ate it dripping down my hand.”

By this time we’ve all groaned in hunger or disgust or both. And when I ask if they know why I’m asking, it’s clear: details, description, senses, the vividness of the experience. Whether it’s toast or death you’re describing, if you don’t feel it, neither will I. “No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader,” said Robert Frost. You have to go all the way.

Then I read a poem of mine called “Toast”. The poem was written because I’d been asked to give a toast for a friend at a party. I got blocked. So I wrote what was in front of me: toast. What came was my adoration, my passion. What came was relationship and greed and jams of all kinds. Feelings, sure. Imagination. Everything students say abstractly in response to my initial question came through. But the only way, I think, for you to come through is through whatever is most alive, intense, pressing, physical, infuriating, sexy and loud in your life. No holds barred.

I try my best to write what’s coming down the pipeline. In classes, I give people prompts to get them going: “Start with ‘I want’ then write for five minutes without lifting up your pen.” Find an image, a word, a person, a Mazerati, a pair of shoes, an omelette that arouses something in you. That makes you salivate or shudder.

To start small with things near at hand is less daunting than thinking you have to write about big subjects. Big subjects will take care of themselves. Love, death, sex, biology—it’s all right in the last video you saw or the last text message. Go for the specific. If someone has broken your heart, pay attention to how exactly it hurts and when. Tell me so I can feel it. Or what it’s like to walk into a new place for the first time knowing no one. First class. First date. First junk food run. First memory of the room where you are right now. What do you notice? The practice of poetry is about noticing what you notice because that is what is important to you. Only you will write that poem that way—in your voice, with your own language.

This last point is crucial: in writing, I think that what is needed is a covenant with oneself. In order to write exactly what wants to be written, without censorship, there can be no expectation to share it with anyone. I may want to share it one minute after it’s written, but in the moment of the first draft, in order to be free I need to know it’s for no one else. You can always edit later, but there’s never another first draft. And we don’t know what that first draft has in store for us. I think if you can get a hit of this, those zones that would be free will begin to stretch and be seen.

Neil Young Songs are Really about Cars

My car is gone. Its body taped. Quietest relationship in twenty years. My small black mirror.

Went everywhere. Held everything. A whole marriage passed through. Angry driving and honeymoon driving, scenic routes, incendiary crashes, post break-up mind lapses, harangues by trucker women, cops’ caresses, insurance vigilantes, bicycles, vet visits before during and after, empty passenger seat, empty back seat, broken window, a flicker of children and new humour. Four million ice cream cones: Greg’s, Ed’s, Baskin and Jerry’s.

No longer where I was, but not yet where I want to be. Grinding between the gears. When I took my foot off the brake things went fast — the last hill of a half year. Until Frank, doctor of cars, said the suspension would fall from the body, could not take me to the highway. I took it for one last wash, bereft. I left it for kids to learn on.

Years ago the hunky man in a rustproofing shop, chimneying through smokes, urged the ultimate importance of structural integrity. To the children now for learning, for cutting out almost transparent doily bits, tea-stained metal. Weld and paint. Make new, make over. All those Neil Young songs are really about love and cars. “Rust Never Sleeps”. It’s time to go.

I’m giving my body to science.

from Permiso, Pedlar Press, 2009

Ronna Bloom:
Ronna Bloom is currently the Poet in Residence at Hart House. This engagement is part of the Poet in Community project at U of T. For information on upcoming Hart House events led by Ronna please see www.harthouse.ca/poet. More info on her latest book, Permiso, can be found at www.ronnabloom.com.