So, I’ve discovered I can write poems. Sort of. They may not be great but I can write them. The problem is, I only seem to be able to write poems that are very personal to me. Trying to write from an outside stimulus - for example an exercise in the BRB - I can only come up with utter dross. So why are my more meaningful poems all about me? It makes me feel self-obsessed to be so introspective. I have things I want to write about which aren’t aspects of explorations of myself, so why – particularly with poems – does it all seem to come out as me, me, me? I found a quote from Vicki Feaver the other day, that said:
‘in a good poem the poet disappears. That's what the struggle with language is all about. The point is that in the finished poem you don't lay yourself bare. You create a strongbox of words.’
I don’t feel a have a strongbox of words; I have something more akin to a semi-transparent veil.
I borrowed the majority of Brixton and the Carnegie libraries stock of modern poetry yesterday. I then spent the majority of the day leafing through a poetry anthology Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times (thanks for the recommendation WT-G, if you ever read this). In it I reread poets I knew I admired (Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Wallace Stevens, Adrienne Rich, Carol Ann Duffy) and discovered new ones. In particular, based just on what I’ve read in this collection, Sharon Olds, John Ash, Charles Boyle and Peter Porter.
Edited to add: the interview with Vicki Feaver the quote is taken from is published here:
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=3900
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I think what Vicki Feaver means is that the ego of the poet disappears - the bit that is saying 'look at me, writing a poem aren't I clever, don't you just love it'. Not that the soul of the poet should vanish - I think poetry is intensely personal. I mean, we understand, through their work, the different personalities of, say, Larkin from Dylan Thomas.New comment
Yes, I think that's part of it - and not just egoism but self-consciousness which can be inhibiting. But I also think she's implying that in the finished poem the poet isn't exposed in the sense that the personal emotion is somehow transformed into something else through the act of writing, revising, forming etc. That's what I don't think I'm capable of doing yet.