Interview with Belle Waring and Dawn Reno's Online Creative Writing Class

(hellos and introductions cut. . .)

Dawn Reno: Okay, Steve, you start.

Steve: Sure.

Steve: Can you recommend any resources to start learning scansion?

Dawn Reno: I'll try to remember the list -- can't get into Blacboard? Belle, are you ready?

Belle Waring: Yes, Paul Fussell has a good book called Poetic Form, Poetic Meter. What about scansion do you find difficult?

Steve: It's hard for me to map the stressed vrs. unstressed syllables, in particular.

Steve: Are accents accounted for at all in scansion?

Belle Waring: The thing to remember about scansion is that if you are a native English speaker you already know it, or rather you have an ear for it that will let you apply the principles easily. Start with a simple word. Take SIMPLE. Where is the stress? You already know this. It's on the first syllable. This is easy even if you don't know how to say the word, you look it up in the dictionary, and voila. Just do to all the words in the line exactly what the dictionary does: unstressed and stressed. Then here's the secret: YOU LOOK FOR THE PATTERN. It is hard to show you this without a blackboard, so start with somebody like Dickinson or Keats, or Frost. Somebody you can trust, metrically speaking. Yes, accents are accounted for. Accents are the heart of scansion. English comes from Anglo Saxon and our prosody is accentual-syllabic, so we count both accents AND syllables. This is a lot easier than it sounds.

Steve: Thanks alot :o) I just have one more prepared.

Nicole: next?

Stormy: How long did it take you to effectively learn to write poetry, and is it something that you've always wanted to do, or do you do it because you are good at it? Or is every poem different, like starting new?

Dawn Reno: Wow . . . that makes it a lot easier than I've always considered. Scansion's been as difficult for me as iambic pentameter.

Belle Waring: THere is just one PS to my little mini lecture on scansion. Some words can be scanned depended on how you wish to emphasize them. Slang words, Popular or colloquial speech, neologisms. Take a vulgarism: "Oh, that's bullshit." the vulgar word has the accent on the first syllable. Except if you make it on the second syllable. But most of the time you can figure it out easily. Now if you look at Fussell, he gives a lot of examples, and he also looks at how poets defy, or play with the metrical conventions. How they will have four iambs in a line (four feet of stress/unstress) and then throw in an trochee at the beginning. Keats is famous for this. See the last line of "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"--it goes: "Silent, upon a peak in Darien." SI lent. the accent is on the first syllable. But: up ON. the accent is on the second syllable. Maybe you are having trouble because your ear is better than you think, and you are trying to make everything completely regular, and most poets (in English ) will vary the meter for surprise, or if the feeling demands it.

Steve: That makes good sound sense.

Betsey: Next question?

Belle Waring: The main thing is to see the patterns of stress, and let your ear tell you what kind of emotion or tension this invokes. You can always memorize the names of the feet (they tend to be Greek) and then the number of the feet (ditto) and then it becomes very logical, like musical notation. THe main thing is to know that there are techniques in poetry, given to us by our Greek/Anglo-Saxon/African/Arabic/Spanish/whatever ancestors, and they developed them over time to invoke pity, terror, compassion, tension, grief, love, remorse, jubilation--

Dawn Reno: Stormy already asked the next question -- scroll down to see it.

Justin: wow, 15 minutes per question?

Stormy: How long did it take you to effectively learn to write poetry, and is it something that you have always wanted to do, or is it something that you are just good at?

Nicole: that's what I was thinking Justin. lol

Tommy: Erin might as well take a nap

Belle Waring: Stormy, I started when I was a kid. I didn't/don't do it because I'm good at it, which is arguable, but because if I don't write I'm hell to live with.

Erin: good idea

Nicole: lol Tommy

Dawn Reno: Don't go to sleep yourself, Tommy. You're up after Stormy!

Dawn Reno: I know that feeling, Belle.

Tommy: I'm awake

Stormy: maybe I should write. Haha

Tommy: Sorry Belle, didn't mean to sound rude

Dawn Reno: Tommy's a comic, Belle ;-)

Tommy: I get the sense that you have a good musical background for your writing. Am I right? Secondly, do you feel music plays any role in your writing?

Linda Gross: An hour is definitely not going to be enough. Is there any hope of going over?

Belle Waring: Sorry I lost the message. Hang on.

Betsey: We have to keep it to an hour...we might just have to speed up a bit...I'm sorry.

Belle Waring: Tommy, my mom was a singer, and my Pop read me poetry. My grandma was Welsh--they have good singing voices so maybe that's part of what I got, just the ear, not the singing voice. My mom played jazz and classical all the time. And my pop read me shakespeare and Coleridge. You are down south where there are lots of storytellers so keep your ears open. Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:25 pm
Carol: Belle, to me poetry is a very very personal thing. I use it to get out all my emotions that are just bubbling to the surface, but sometimes i wish to write even though there are no MAJOR emotions flowing, and i have trouble with this. Where do you get your inspiration and what do you do when you hit a block in the road?

Tommy: Thanks, I'll be sure to keep my ears open.

Heather: Good question Carol. I'm like that too. Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:27 pm
Belle Waring: Well, I guess it might help to think of poetry not just as self expression but as art with words. That means you sit down to write whether you are feeling "major" or not. This is where forms other than the lyric come in. Try telling the story--in verse--of your grandparents' lives (for example).

Carol: the only thing about that is my art is self expression as well

Dawn Reno: That's a good idea for you, Nicole!

Belle Waring: These things are not mutually exclusive.

Amanda: Sorry I'm late, I had computer trouble, again.

Belle Waring: I think too that as one gets older (older than 30) one wants to express not only one's own feelings but one's gratitude towards people who have helped one make it through. That could be anyone, not just grandparents. One wants to name things-- perhaps indelibly--that are beautiful and true.

Carol: thank you...i'm glad i got to meet you, but unfortunately i must go now....i apologize for my early retreat.

Nicole: my turn?

Ada Snellgrove: Carol aked my question...Where do you get your inspiration when you feel there's nothing left to write about? So I'll ask...In almost all your poems you mention the death of someone, mostly children...Why? `

Nicole: Ada you took mine...about death

Belle Waring: Ada and Nicole, I don't think you read the book as closely as one might wish. It's true, there are a lot of elegies in the book, but they are not all about death. There are lots of love poems. Did you read my bio? Did you see what I was doing for a living?

Belle Waring: Anyway, inspiration is overrated. I think that people do get sufficiently inspired over the course of the day but they don't have time to write it down. They have to work and take care of their kids. The question is not inspiration, but time. THe main thing is not to do things that kill off inspiration. Watching a lot of TV will kill it, I promise you...

Amanda: whos' up next?

Nicole: I really liked Eleventh Day of Rain and could really relate, especially lines 15 and 16. I wondered, in "Look", was it about a woman either contemplating suicide or actually committing suicide?

Nicole: Jumping from a balcony?

Linda Gross: It might help if everyone has a question typed and ready to enter.

Dawn Reno: Michelle's up next.

Bethany: (Amanda we're going in reverse Alpha order)

Michelle: First, I would like to say I enjoyed your book. It was the first collection of poetry I have read. I found most of your poems interesting and intriguing, but to be honest, some flew completely over my head. ONe of particular interest to me was, "It was My First Nursing JOb." To many it is quite appalling, but I believe such atrocities happen. What was your inspiration for that poem? Did it really happen? Your poem, "Eleventh Day of Rain," I analyzed it for our class disscussion. Is the poem about a girl who admires someone from a far? I really related with that poem. Why did you refer to the fingers as long as cats? Also, why the title? Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:38 pm
Belle Waring: No, no suicide. The woman is just hanging out. The speaker in "Look" is filled with wonder and hope but it's all shot through with a kind of rueful splendor, cause she's outside during the "blue hour" just after sunset, and she's writing to a guy who's being a jerk. In "Eleventh Day," I don't remember lines 15 and 16, so you have to help me there.

Amanda: (I know, does that mean that since I'm late, I'm last?)

Michelle: First, I would like to say I enjoyed your book. It was the first collection of poetry I have read. I found most of your poems interesting and intriguing, but to be honest, some flew completely over my head. ONe of particular interest to me was, "It was My First Nursing JOb." To many it is quite appalling, but I believe such atrocities happen. What was your inspiration for that poem? Did it really happen? Your poem, "Eleventh Day of Rain," I analyzed it for our class disscussion. Is the poem about a girl who admires someone from a far? I really related with that poem. Why did you refer to the fingers as long as cats? Also, why the title? Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:39 pm
Dawn Reno: Okay, is this Amanda Mecusker or Amanda Willis speaking?

Nicole: Lines 15 and 16: This might be the very day I see you/ because I've neglected to wash my hair

Belle Waring: Yes, in "My First Nursing Job," it really happened. In "Eleventh Day" it's about a guy who lets a woman slip through his fingers. He's a jerk. She's chiding him. She's telling him to get his act together ("Don't blast yourself.") She's telling him this in her mind. And the fingers long as cats--he's a graceful guy.

Belle Waring: Nicole: the hair. You always run into somebody you have a crush on when you haven't washed your hair or feel shlumpy. Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:42 pm
Nicole: I know about the hair. Michelle and I both said we've been there, done that! lol

Linda Gross: Up next is Heather, Justin, Bethany, Linda, Erin and Amanda

John Robinson: don't forget john

Michelle: JOhn you were suppossed to go before me....sorry

Amanda: I'm guessin' the Amanda on te end is Willis

Dawn Reno: John, you're up next -- sorry!

Nicole: Amanda Mecusker isn't here

Betsey: We have about 15 minutes left.

John Robinson: thats ok i saw it got a little confussed there

Linda Gross: Sorry guys - I was off the chat line. :-)

Belle Waring: If no one has a question...

Dawn Reno: Let's get some questions in here ;-)

Heather: Ok, I guess I'll go.

Justin: Belle, Do you have a favorite pome from "Dark Blonde?" And what is your favorite poem? Is it one you've written? Or one by another writer?

Erin: who is the person/persons who inspires you.

Erin: I skipped

Belle Waring: My favorite poem? Hm. Not one I've written. I like some things I memorized when I was a kid: Keats, mostly, and some of the scenes from Hamlet, but a play isn't exactly a poem. I love a poem called "A Way to Love God," by Robert Penn Warren, but it is terribly difficult. ANd I love "For days, I have felt a terrible, political need to love," by Cesar Vallejo (Tr. Eschleman).

John Robinson: Are you ever tempted to clarify a stanza in your poems. Do you worry that maybe you used to few words, or the reader want understand part of your poem destroying the meaning for the whole poem..........

Belle Waring: THe person who inspires me? Do you mean in my life or what writer inspires me?

Erin: both

Dawn Reno: We have less than five minutes. Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:53 pm
Belle Waring: John, this is actually a very good question. I walk a line between experimentation, going "out there" and writing in a way that the average intelligent reader can understand. I have struggled with this question.

Bethany: I'm desperatly trying to come up with something intelligent to ask. I was going to ask the questions Michelle asked about "My First Nursing Job" so here goes... Are most of your poems dreamed up or are they mostly all experiences you've had or atleast partly true to life?

Heather: I really enjoyed your poems, Belle. But when I write, I usually just think about the words I want to use, never to the meter of the poem. Do you think this is a bad thing to do?

Amanda: How do you find the rhyme schemes and rhythms for your poetry? Also, have you ever thought about writing lyrics for songs? Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:53 pm
Nicole: Good question John, Just the one I couldn't come up with! I wondered that too.

Belle Waring: My grandparents inspired me, my sweetheart inspires me, and there are lots of heroes too numerous to count.

Linda Gross: It took reading through the entire book of poems to appreciate the humor in your writing. At first many seemed rather dark or unpleasant topics. You really write to the bare bones. How have you developed this style?

Nicole: One question. Belle, I know you work in D.C. but where are you from originally? Where did you grow up?

Nicole: Sorry I thought we were done since Amanda went.

Belle Waring: Heather, you can try to focus on sound patternings, just to try something different. Not everyone is cut out to make music. Just read a lot, and see if you can find a kindred spirit, and then try to do what they have done, but in your own way. Linda: I learned from nurses notes to be concise. Thanks for seeing the humor. It may be gallows humor but it is there. Nicole: I grew up in Virginia and Washington, DC.

Bethany: I'm desperatly trying to come up with something intelligent to ask. I was going to ask the questions Michelle asked about "My First Nursing Job" so here goes... Are most of your poems dreamed up or are they mostly all experiences you've had or atleast partly true to life?

Amanda: orry we bombarded you with q's. Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:58 pm
John Robinson: Linda my son mathew was wondering if you are his teacher in 3rd block at sms???

Belle Waring: Bethany, they are both real (they happened) and they are invented (I imagined them). Most of them are a combination of both. This touches on an important issue, which is that poetry DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LITERALLY TRUE. YOU CAN MAKE STUFF UP. Take the freedom that fiction writers assume as a matter of course. Have fun with it.

Amanda, you didn't bombard me. It was fun. Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:59 pm
Betsey: We need to start wrapping up; I'm sorry that we're short on time, guys!

Linda Gross: Are you talking about Mathew?

Nicole: Belle. What is the illustration on the front of the book? What is the woman doing?

Dawn Reno: Thank you, Belle. It was great, as always! If you talk to Tony, tell him he owes me an email ;-)

John Robinson: Mathew Robinson

Heather: Belle, you have other books of poetry out, right?

Betsey: Thank you everybody, and a special thanks to Belle!!! I'll e-mail the transcript to Dawn and everybody who registered. Thanks again...have a great night!

Belle Waring: That is a paintin gby Balthus. She is playing Solitaire. It looks to me like she is telling her fortune. THen she is going to go out and blow up a Nazi troop train.

Thanks Dawn, Betsey, and class. Dawn, I'll tell Tony you said Hi.

Bethany: Goodbye
M

Linda Gross: Absolutely!

Dawn Reno: Good night, everyone. Thanks for coming!

Erin: Thank you Belle, enjoyed the chat

Belle Waring: Heather: Refuge was out in 1990 from University of Pittsburgh press.

Linda Gross: Thanks so much Ms. Waring.

Stormy: bye

John Robinson: Well then he said to tell you hello and he will see you tomorrow...

Heather: Cool!

Nicole: Thanks Belle

Justin: Thanks. Bye.

Stormy: Thank you

Heather: Thanks Belle!

John Robinson: good night Ms. Warning

Nicole: Bye everyone

Amanda: See ya later!

Michelle: bye