Views from my writing desk. No.1

When I lived in London in the 1980's I set myself the apprenticeship challenge of trying to write a poem every Monday, my day off, from my then job of working in a record exporting warehouse.

As my New Year's resolution for 2011 I've reset myself the challenge of trying to write a poem every Monday.

Happily, last month I wrote a four page autobiographical poem, which I'm saving up to enter in a worthwhile poetry competition and also a two and a half page portrait poem about a ficticious woman writer, after having recently read a biography of Enid Blyton.

This week I wrote a poem about a teenage girl with a semi-hoodlum boyfriend but 99% I'm going to delete the poem as the poem is too much, to my mind, "telling not showing". I'm a bit blue about the teenage girl poem not making the grade but I also like being ruthless. I remind myself that the more poems I write the more I can delete. Keep the cream I say. The bottom line is that if a poem fatigues you, seems a bit ho hum, goes over old ground, it's going to arguably be the same for the reader out there.

Be ruthless/hardcore with your own writing.

If in doubt, I encourage you to submit the undecided yay or nay poem to a magazine or three.

If all three lit magazines reject the poem, realize they are telling you that the poem is no go, a yawner, a slag heap of words that no-one needs or can use.

Currently I find myself reading only contemporary women fiction writers. I particularly find myself gravitating to their novels set during the Second World War. I remain particularly interested in the view through civilian eyes.

Reading has given me and continues to give me poems. My own creative focus remains on writing the character-driven portrait poem. To create a believable and intriguing character in a poem continues to challenge, occupy and direct my weekly writing day.

The character-driven poem allows the poet to reveal a voice, a personal history, perspectives and opinions different to their own. The character-driven poem allows a poet to get away from the I I I me me me poem. The character-driven poem encourages you to mine your imagination (theoretically inexhaustible) rather than mine your life experience (possibly over-mined).

Thus I've started on my next book of portrait poems which has a secret title. If I have a good 2011 writing-wise, I may finish writing the book of portrait poems by late 2012. Meanwhile when you are writing a poem, focus on that one poem in front of you. I understand this principle applies to world class professional tennis players. They focus on the one ball in front of them now and don't spend one speck of mental energy on future speculation, the next game.

Missing in action

Although she’s mopping the kitchen floor,
Ella is crying.

Words come out of her husband’s mouth.
Some variation of “Stop now, Ella.”
Ed’s a good man,
keeps his lawn trimmed,
stays away from liquor and the racetrack.

Neighbours bring meals.
Roast chicken, gumbo, lasagna.
Ella remembers her father saying,
“Food is love, the only way some folks can speak.”

Roland’s room.
Ella stands at its threshold,
looks again at the wall poster of Sly Stone
wearing a rainbow-coloured cap,
on stage at Woodstock,
once a hit-maker,
once a hero.

Evenings, after dinner,
sometimes Ed moves towards the record player,
then shakes his head,
knows Ella isn’t ready,
tells himself
that the quiet,
after an eight hour shift at the brewery,
is good.

Ella removes the candlestick holder
from the dining-room table,
to work further on her quilt,
the story of her sharecropper parents
told in panels,
told in thread and stitches,
their days of work and prayer
sewn into a field of cloth.

In the quilt
trees appear.
Trees in which
a girl could hide,
pretend she was a bird,
flying away from her home
of plank and tin,
flying away from the South,
following the moon-lit railway tracks
all the way to Chicago.

From his armchair,
Ed looks up from the book he’s reading.
He cannot see words
only Roland,
lying in mud,
flies crawling his face.

Ed closes his eyes
until the image leaves him.

There is Ella,
still at the dining-room table,
working on her quilt.

Ed watches the threaded needle
dive and resurface,
guided by his wife’s steady hand.

Written in a woman's hand

for T. Andrew Carter

Yellowed and chipped the teeth of Gomez,

slumped drowsy on a chair in a Veracruz cantina,

waiting

for his ship to leave port,

to descend again in coveralls

engine room steps,

ready with clipboard, rag, wrench and pliers

to check, adjust, repair or replace

each pipe, pump and filter

in an enclosed world

he understands.

Brown the eyes of Isabella

who climbed the hotel stairs with him.

Her body, a well, a breeze,

taking the dust from his tongue.

Other Isabellas

in Miami, Houston and New Orleans.

Earrings and stories—

a violent boyfriend, a backstreet abortion,

plans to go to night school.

Gomez listened —

their talk, full of undercurrents and debris.

What creatures scuttled and preyed

in that pressing darkness.

Fog. Typhoon. Iceberg. Hidden reef.

All manner of man, woman and child taken

beyond the reach of divers.

Those ghost ships, ghost faces,

seen again

from a deathbed

or in an orphan’s dreams.

Play the accordion, harmonica and guitar.

Drink bright whiskey and rum.

Search the sky and the bible again.

A Pedro Infante song on the cantina jukebox.

When it ends

Gomez looks down at the sweatband

of his Panama hat.

He’ll begin this new day

with a shave then a shoeshine,

see if there’s a letter

at the post office

from any Isabella.

Review of Beneath Our Armour and interview

Below is the link to George Anderson's review of my latest poetry collection, " Beneath Our Armour" which was shortlisted for the 2010 Victorian Premier's Award for Poetry. Also my responses to interview questions.
http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2010/11/book-review-peter-bakowski-beneath-our_3726.html

Choose your moment

Before you lecture a thirsty person,

give them water.

Nature does what nature does

Either tortoises live long lives because they don’t hurry

or they don’t hurry because they live long lives.

Don't join the inflexible

If you’re rigid in your thinking,
you’re not really thinking.