A second open letter to Kathy Charles and other writers/poets

Dear Kathy,

I've recently read some of your blog posts. Here are some literary tennis balls I'm hitting over the net to you and other writers/poets:-

TITLING YOUR BOOK

From twenty years of working in record stores, bookshops and CD stores and visiting public libraries around the world, I believe/know it in my bones that it's very important for an author to really think about the title of their book. You want to make that title one that will make the browser take it down from the shelf - make that title "a grabber".

As my track record shows I take a minimum of three years to realize a book of poems. When I've broken the ice and written the first poem of the next book, I'm already thinking of a title. Before I nailed BENEATH OUR ARMOUR as the title of my latest book, I wrestled for over two years with several working titles - "Inner Weather", "The Weather Inside" and "The Weather Inside A Person" - I did a Google search and found out an American poet has written a collection titled "Inner Weather" and an American recording artist has released a CD titled "The Weather Inside"

I encourage you to really to walk around, rub your chin and indian-wrestle with the title of your next book. Make it original. Make it yours.

I consider titles to be very important - part of their attraction and shelf-life.

Realize your next book, but while you are writing it, think about its title night and day.

WRITING ABOUT DARK SUBJECT MATTER

In the twenty-first century, serial killers, hit-men, war, acts driven by revenge, prejudice and greed exist and continue. Writing is about illuminating and exploring in order to understand,

to understand oneself/one's selves and others.

The media presents us with the shocking headlines and deeds. It will be the fiction writer, the investigative journalist, the poet, who delves deeper, and in doing so must try to enter the head space of perpetrator/assassin and victim.

A writer/poet/painter/photographer goes with their obsessions. That is their arena, their mine, the territory they are impelled to enter/re-enter. They must convey their honest responses of intrigue, repulsion, guilt, moral see-sawing/reckoning, shame.

For example of an honest responder go to the books of Primo Levi.

My Dad, once said "Why can't you write a nice poem about how the bees make honey?". I never have but I've written a poem about my father taking me to my first public library (a giant honey jar).

CONCENTRATING ON THE POEM/THE BOOK YOU'RE WRITING NOW

Forget that you've written a published book. Concentrate on the book you're writing now. I encourage you not to allow or listen to voices saying "Is this next book going to be as good as my last one?"

Roger Federer concentrates on the ball in front of him. He's not thinking of past sets/past victories and defeats. He's concentrating solely on the ball in front of him right now.

Robert Frost did say "Make your next poem different from your last"

By this he means don't rest on your laurels, don't fall back on phrases/scenes/outlooks/symbols you've used before.

Forget about your past book, it have left the 'hood, have taken on a life of its own.

WRITING ABOUT REAL AND IMAGINED PEOPLE

I reckon the autobiographical is the indisputable diving board for most fiction.

Having written poems about real people, my parents, in BENEATH OUR ARMOUR and DAYS THAT WE COULDN'T REHEARSE I have resisted diluting and cosmetically altering them.

I would encourage you to write about real people. Certainly you can change their names or have them without name '"the couple who lived next door..."

One can get powerful 'knock your socks off" writing out of writing about real people. Certainly use your intuition and maybe give a certain character one, two or three attributes, mannerisms and philosophies that the real person mightn't have, to throw them the curve ball of a smelly herring.

Writing about imaginary people in a poem/novel is addictive. Giving them a back story, unpacking their suitcases to the reader's eye, giving them an obsession/tic, a world-weary/wacko film noir outlook is exciting for the writer - if your character excites/repulses/intrigues you and you can reveal them empathetically, then you're on to a winner.

CLARITY

If someone chisels on my tombstone, "He wrote clearly" I'll be a happy corpse.

Writing clearly is the lighthouse by which I steer my craft. I want to write as clearly as possible. Charles Bukowski said "Writing is painting". Those three words are written on the inside of my lower front teeth. I'm trying to be visual in my writing without over-describing. Over-describing is the sleeping pill of writing.

Hope the above is useful.

Every good wish,

Peter Bakowski

An open letter to Kathy Charles and other writers/poets

Dear Kathy, I read HOLLYWOOD ENDING in two sittings. Reading it has made me order as an inter-library loan, DAY OF THE LOCUST to re-read. It also made me think about the welfare hotel where I lived (not on welfare) in downtown LA in the 1980's, catching LA buses, admiring the labels of NIGHT TRAIN (white wine) more than the contents and lining up at downtown soup kitchens. Looking at your blog has also reminded me of a weekend in London where I read three John Fante novels in one sitting, 14 hours straight and a weekend in Paris where I read three Earle Stanley Gardner novels in one sitting. I've been writing poetry exclusively for 26 years and it's still a case of facing the blank page non-anxiously - non-anxious about time and non-anxious about one's capabilities - to remind yourself "I've written before, I'll write again, I've been published, I've received praise for my writing". Charles Bukowski said "A writer should be writing". Also on his gravestone the epitaph is "Don't try" - by this I reckon he meant "When writing a novel, don't make a big deal about it and say "I'm writing a Novel" I reckon facing the blank page is a admixture of focus and calm. In the physical, emotional act of writing, you learn. Personally I've got to toil and discard, toil and discard, before I realize the engine, the guts of the piece of writing, the writing "steered" by the burning reason for that piece and in that writing I'm always checking the rear view mirror, asking "What am I trying to say in this piece of writing about people and life and have I said it clearly and strongly?" When facing the blank page I have my three P's - positivity, practice, perseverance. Often I see each line/each stanza as a hurdle. I stay at the writing desk until I hurdle that line, that paragraph/that stanza. A piece of writing has to have a beginning, a middle and an end - any section can be sparse but not skeletal, not uninteresting scaffolding through which a cold wind yawns - there has to be a world/a tableau created and the reader at best succumbs, is right there in that world for the whole revelatory, symphonic ride. Writing is about devotion, devoting protected time to writing for the whole of your life. It is anchor, flying carpet, mirror, diving board, coal miner's shovel. I encourage you to not lose one minute's sleep about similes. For close to a decade I've refrained from using the word "like" - "x" was like a picnic table etc" because I find the majority of similes are not plausible/believable/they don't work. Flannery O'Connor talked about "a reader" looking over her shoulder whenever she wrote lazily/inaccurately, saying/screeching "I don't buy it" You can write a lifetime's worth of books without using one simile. When you are feeling despondent or have the "difficult follow-up book" syndrome remember those three P's - positivity, practice, perseverance. US President, Harry S. Truman said "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen" - When writing is extra-difficult/daunting I say "I want to stay in the kitchen of writing" Every good wish to you and yours, Peter Bakowski

What writing poetry requires

It requires regular (preferably weekly) practice. Facing the blank page regularly. What to leave behind? Negative or excusing inner voices saying, repeating “I can’t write today”, “I’ve no ideas”, I’ve got a backlog of other things to do”.

The poet is threatened by time, the telephone, the internet inbox, the lure of sunshine and walking outside away from bullring of the blank page.

The blank page is daunting but not writing induces guilt, despondency, erosion of our compass and rudder.

Facing the blank page is where we learn…and what is knowledge? –an attempt to pierce fog, murk, swamp, darkness, to reveal, to illuminate and by doing so we set an example.

The poets we admire, they have written their poems. Look at their poems, the choice and order of their words, but the narrator in your poems should be you, or one of your selves that has key, amusing or thought-provoking things to show or convey.

Writing a poem involves focus and calm simultaneously, even if the subject matter may be difficult and costly.

Writing poetry involves control and sometimes letting go of the steering wheel .

Writing poetry involves gathering what people say, how they look, what they do or refrain from doing.

Writing poetry involves noticing the shape and veins on a leaf, what the sea, night-time, and waking today, holds and means.

Writing poetry involves sifting, selecting, deciding which paints and brushstrokes to try,

which to retain.

Writing poetry involves thinking about people and life, thinking about important questions.

Reading and writing go together. Reading contemporary poetry, history, crime fiction and biographies, have given and continue to give me nourishment. Images, facts, pictures, characters, personalities from this pleasurable reading have given me many seeds for poems.

Much writing is a mix of personal/historical fact and the imagination. Both careful and vigorous mixing of fact and imagination has given and continues to give us engaging pieces of writing.

Literature survives due to our writers utilizing image and story. To ignore image and story is to have a hulk of words without windows, an engine or a colourful driver.

Tell the reader, the listener, the truth of your life, how you have perceived yourself, those around you, your neighbourhood and country, this spinning and phenomenal earth.

Writing involves courage, crossing the tundra of the blank page, but you can turn that blank page into a dancehall, a boudoir, the Amazon river, a mirror.

Writing is about the reality of putting words on paper or on a computer screen. I’ve written this today. Now I can move on to the next piece of writing, my next appointment with putting one word foot in front of the other, something that toddlers, pilgrims, explorers and sages do.

October in the railroad earth of Melbourne 2009

Reading Jack Kerouac at the age of eighteen, made me want to hit the road. In the early 1980's I hit the road for seven years. October in the northern hemisphere remains a cherished month. October 15 is my birthdate and also my mother's birthdate.

As a poet I remain enthralled by the duality of the world - between work focus and the equally necessary times when we take a nap, sit on a park bench or "goof off".

Time is part of that duality - when time is a prison guard and we cower under his truncheon or on the other side of the day's mirror when we sit in a green field and are made quiet in watching the wind chess move the clouds.

The way we spend time can not always be called wise. Offering our love to someone who can't reciprocate it is a "waste" of time but only if we don't learn, move out of the dust and our begging clothes.

Earlier this month I sold a copy of my latest volume of poems, "Beneath Our Armour" to Elvis Costello. Have found myself re-listening to his recording "Painted From Memory" and also re-hearing in my head his song "Alison" I think the heightened knockout singing performances are when the singer isn't acting, singing from a persona. Two examples of the singer revealing himself are Bob Dylan's "I Threw It All Away" and his "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." Please note that Elvis Costello has been known to sing "I Threw It All Away" live.

Let's go for the song and the poem that we have to write because our heart has had a match lit underneath it.

Why I haven't suicided

To me being suicidal is when a person cannot see any ladder up/a life preserver they can grasp. I didn't suicide when extremely lonely in London in the 1980's because I considered to do so would be a slap in the face to surgeons that saved my life via heart surgery. To a degree I feel that suicide is "unnatural" - to the best of my knowledge animals don't suicide. To a degree I consider suicide a middle class "indulgence" - most people who suicide aren't without food, shelter, warm clothing. Continuing, striving, having "hope" is certainly a hard and thorny road. The extremely difficult parts of our lives, in surviving them, we learn and knowledge is an anchor. My poem, "Self-portrait with beliefs, 19 October 1997" contains the lines "In fact, I'd say/that curiosity/is my best friend..." Falling in love with the map of the world at the age of six has given me a reason to continue. Reading books in rooms throughout the world saved my life. A suicide is a warning, an event to stop you in your tracks to grieve and think. Sometimes we must stop our rushing and see and absorb again how miraculous is a bird poised on roof guttering beyond our kitchen window.

Writing a parent poem

There is the immediate moment and there is the past, which in literature has been compared to an ocean, a hall of mirrors, another country. Whatever it is, it is worthy of exploration. In remembering, let’s remember the heightened moment – our first reading of a certain book, a reoccurring childhood nightmare, seeing a parent cry, the trouncing of a bully.

To write a poem about a parent or both parents is a vital challenge. It requires honesty, that the writer remembers correctly, that the writer rigorously refrains from diluting/defusing events and words spoken. A parent poem requires exposure, to put family members on the stage.

The parent poem is invaluable to both the writer and the reader. By revealing the personal, frankly and vividly, the writer holds high a lantern, illuminates human lives, be they exemplary, imperfect or scarred. The best autobiographical writing finds the riveted reader saying out loud “Yes, yes, I’ve felt exactly like that!”

The parent poem is needed. Whether it’s a homage or a leap through fire you’ll only learn through writing it.

When your parents are divorcing

At parties in the Eastern surburbs of Melbourne in the late 1960's/early 1970's my Polish father, flirted compulsively, fueled by Polish and Russian vodka. At these parties, my mother sat on a sofa studying the hem of a lampshade. In the family car on the way home my mother's valid accusations would start. My Dad claimed/shouted that he should be allowed to be himself, that he was gregarious by nature, loved friends, drinking and dancing. 

My father felt tethered, that Mum was a less than warm-blooded German anchored to the three "C"s - children, cooking and church. At these parties my mother felt humiliated, ashamed, by her husband's close dancing and laughter with the wives and girlfriends of others. She felt neglected, unnoticed, unconsidered, wringing her hands on that sofa.

Back at the family home, often at 1 or 2 a.m. the fighting continued in the kitchen to the sounds of Dad throwing a bowl or plate against the wall. Mum shouted at Dad to "go to hell, go to the devil" in German. Sometimes he hit/slapped Mum and then, slamming the front door of the house, drove off in the family car, returning at dawn or later.

I was 17/18 at the time and the known universe had a huge crack in it. There was no-one for my younger brother or I to turn to for counsel. Both parents were stunned and exhausted combatants in the tawdry boxing ring of their marriage.

Their temperaments were different and ultimately a ruinous match. My Dad's flirting which he rationalized as "harmless flirting" further eroded my mother's self-esteem, which has never been high or healthy. I see them now as victims. My father, not having a proper role model, because his father died young, beaten to death in a WWII concentration camp. My mother, immediately after WWII, urged by her parents to leave Poland, escaped to the West, which she did at the immeasurable cost of never of seeing either of them again.

I've written two poems about my parents' divorce - The Children of Divorce which appears in my third collection Days That We Couldn't Rehearse and At 10 Rosebank Terrace, Lower Templestowe which appears in my fourth collection, Beneath Our Armour.

Besides victims there are survivors, some who may learn/glean something from trauma - poems andautobiographies in print and film.