Are you ready for a life in poetry? Take this Quiz to find out!!!

there really is a quiz at the bottom. but read this first. or don't. i mean do whatever you want, it's your poetry quiz.

after a strict diet of panels, readings, workshops and more readings, i can safely say i have sated my "hunger" for a writing conference. it's been a good week with moderately bad food. dining hall fare is really rather atrocious. plenty of fake cheese every day of the week. for instance: cheese pizza every day of the week, tuesday - macaroni and cheese (not cheddar..think no name brand velveeta), wednesday - cheesy fiesta rice (same cheese), thursday - broccoli cheese and rice casserole (same cheese), friday - mozzerella sticks (different cheese, but i think equally disgusting). those are the things i didnt eat.

but i didnt come here for the meal plan, so on to a critique of the real thing.

the workshop- i have to give our last minute instructor bruce bond huge "props" (i dont feel comfortable using that word without quotation marks) for taking on the class with very little notice and keeping with the theme that li young lee had set out to tackle. li young lee's was Poetry and the Mind of God. bruce bond altered that a little to Poetry and the Unspeakable. So we still talked about the conscious/unconscious/psyche but in a more romantic vein. i imagine lyl would have approached it in a colder manner if that makes any sense. Even though my work, i think, could not even sit beside the shade that the Romantic umbrella casts, I thoroughly enjoyed the discussions and analysis of a few classic poems. Also, in the same way that i appreciate the experimental/languagey sensibilities that john brings to his reading of my work, i found bruce's reading of my poems to be helpful and often insightul of a different direction for the work to take. so that was good. as for the other workshop participants, i dont want to sound snooty, but i found their suggestions to be less helpful. the other participants came from a variety of backgrounds, skill levels and aesthetics. the class was split evenly in terms of age, about half were middle aged and the other half, in their early/mid twenties. there were some undergrads, some in low-res mfa programs and some stay at home moms. based on their suggestions, i felt like they were where i was at a couple of years ago. they wanted obvious poems. every last detail spelled out. i've been moving away from over explaining things. so to a lot of their suggestions, i would just smile and nod, and make "no" exclamations in my head.

readings- unfortunately, i did not attend all of the many many readings that were made available to us. there were so many crammed into a tight schedule, it was hard to figure out when we would have time to write. the most enjoyable readings: sean doolittle - a pulpy fiction, cop and crime stories guy, was an entertaining reader. plus, they dont call it pulp for nothing. and stephen dunn - he read stuff old and new and it was thoroughly engaging. i guess just like any reading, he really gave life and character to his poems. my two favorites of the night were oldies, Decorum - the one about a creative writing class debate between fucking and making love, and this other one i forget the title but it's a sweet little poem about his wife's belief that crows travel in threes and his skepticism.

the panels- the panels were mostly geared toward fiction and non-fiction writers, and they were at ten in the morning, prime time for rolling out of bed and taking a shower. so i only attended the very last panel entitled, A Life in Poetry. This was interesting but also a relative waste of time. they just seemed like very rote, surfacey questions that i've heard a hundred times. maybe if better questions had been posed it would be different. well here's a small sampling of some of the questions. Why don't you take this quiz and see if you are fit for and/or already living "A Life in Poetry."


1. What keeps you going?
a) Bad writing
b) A big cup of coffee and a tingling in my fingertips
c) Well, the world doesn't demand poetry, it's not a hot commodity, so at some level I write because I am compelled to.
d) The ideal of poetry changing lives and changing the world. Poetry can end war.
e) That beautiful and haunting, at once stale and crisp, aroma of cash.

2. What do you do when you get writer's block?
a) There's no such thing as writer's block.
b) I broaden the scope of my reading.
c) I drive a nail through my cheek, pour acid on my leg, anything to inflict pain upon myself because all poetry stems from pain and tragedy.
d) You know someone once asked William Stafford about this and he replied with three words, "lower your standard."
e) All of the above.

3. What motivates your writing?
a) Bad writing.
b) The ideal of poetry changing lives and changing the world. Poetry can end war.
c) You know, I keep journals lying around and I like to keep up with what's current in the media.
d) I drive a nail through my cheek, pour acid on my leg, anything to inflict pain upon myself because all poetry stems from pain and tragedy.
e) That beautiful and haunting, at once stale and crisp, aroma of cash.

4. When you are just starting out as a writer, how do you keep your poetry from imitating your influences too much?
a) All artists learn from and imitate the masters. If you are a classical musician you might learn from bach and beethoven. You shouldn't shy away from incorporating those influences.
b) I broaden the scope of my reading.
c) I find the more you consciously try to imitate a writer, the more that writing is your own and vice versa.
d) When I was just starting out, I didn't care what my poetry imitated, so long as it was praised and published.
e) All of the above.

5i. When you write a book, do you conceive of the entire concept at once or piece it together?
a) Conceive of the entire concept.
b) Piece it together.

5ii. Why?
a) I don't think I've ever figured out the entire concept for a book from the beginning.
b) The concept keeps changing on me, so I don't figure things out until I feel like I have 80% of it done.
c) Because I am a poet.
d) I think piecing things together at the end is a sign of laziness. No real poet approaches a book without an idea.
e) Because Billy Collins does it that way and look where it's gotten him.

6. When did you first start referring to yourself as a poet?
a) After my first book came out.
b) When I became a teacher to support my craft.
c) I always ask my creative writing classes, how many poets do we have, and no one raises their hands. Then I have to explain, look, if you've written a poem, you are a poet.
d) After I graduated with my MA/MFA/PhD.
e) Tomorrow.


See how you did in my next post!