I’m in the middle of a second draft of a verse novel at the moment. I’ve never written a verse novel before, and I spend about half the time feeling like I have no idea what I’m doing, and the other half enjoying the change of pace. A few weeks ago I was listening to Karen Comer – author of the verse novel Grace Notes – being interviewed on the Better Words podcast. She described herself as a ‘fragment writer’, and that phrase really stuck in my mind. Writing a verse novel is a fragmented process; stitching together snippets of a story, moving them and adjusting them so that – together – they form some kind of coherent whole. Virginia Woolf said – ‘Arrange whatever pieces come your way.’ That’s what I feel like I’ve been doing lately; arranging pieces, laying out the scraps and fragments of this story. I’ve got the pieces there, in the form of a fairly detailed outline. Now – as I rewrite – I’m focusing on the poetry. This post is an attempt to get back into that poetic headspace.
Last year I wrote this post about my favourite verse novels. Today I’d like to acknowledge three non-fiction books that have helped me navigate this new form: The Craft of Poetry by Lucy Newlyn, A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver, and Inside the Verse Novel – a collection of interviews with writers compiled by Linda Weste.
Newlyn’s book The Craft of Poetry is a unique and fascinating read. A study of poetic forms written in verse, set in a small English village. Each poem is titled according to the form or technique it exemplifies – Epic, Satire, Ballad, Free verse, Alliteration, Analogy, Hyperbole, Metaphor, and so on. A beautiful and comprehensive handbook that showcases the many styles and possibilities of poetry.
I discovered Mary Oliver’s Poetry Handbook at my favourite Canadian bookstore while we were visiting family for Christmas. A guide, written in prose, to the craft of poetry; the nuts and bolts of poetic language, and how it can be used to express ourselves. In the Introduction, Oliver notes that this book ‘is written to empower the beginning writer who stands between two marvelous and complex things – an experience … and the urge to tell about it in the best possible conjunction of words.’ This, I feel, is the constant striving of any writer: to better learn how to translate our thoughts into language. Here are some other thoughts from Oliver’s book that resonated with me:
- ‘[L]anguage … is the medium that will be quick and living – the serviceable clay of one’s thoughts.’
- ‘To make a poem, we must make sounds. Not random sounds, but chosen sounds . . . Sounds differ. Sounds matter.’
- ‘[W]ords have not only a definition and possibly a connotation, but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.’
- ‘Rhythm underlies everything.’
- ‘The task of the meditation is to put disorder into order.’
- ‘Figurative language can give shape to the difficult and the painful. It can make visible and “felt” that which is invisible and “unfeelable.”‘
Finally, I have taken inspiration and encouragement from Linda Weste’s interviews with twenty-two verse novelists (including herself) in the book Inside the Verse Novel: Writers On Writing. Below are some of the thoughts and pieces of advice I’d like to keep in mind:
- ‘[T]he world needs more verse novels as the world becomes more needy of stillness, reflection.’ – Fred D’Aguiar
- ‘[Words] love to serve a story . . . concentration, focusing on what happens while avoiding explanation, intensifies the reader’s experience.’ – Adam Foulds
- ‘Poetry is a medium where your reader will accept a line as a mountain.’ – Brad Leithauser
- ‘[T]he mind links images to make meaning.’ – Christine Evans
- ‘I have obsessions rather than ideas.’ – Alan Wearne
- ‘[N]arrative will be strengthened by rhythm.’ – Alice Jolly
Karen Comer, speaking on Better Words, also reminded me of this wonderful quote from Tom Stoppard: ‘Poetry is the simultaneous compression of language and expansion of meaning.’ This is what I need to remember as I move forward with my second draft: to compress the language and expand the meaning. To discover the fragments and rhythms of words that will best express the essence of the story I want to tell. To feel that I really don’t know what I’m doing, but to enjoy the process of learning with each word I choose to put down.
Scraps & Fragments 