Couple of modest little poems

No perfect poems,

I don’t write them,

Don’t expect them of others.

I just want poems showing the work of human hands,

Dirt in the fingernails,

Tongue, touch, sound, imperfect mind,

Passion—

They don’t have to be perfect.

Perfect is the enemy.

Perfect paralyzes perfectly.

Perfect is the end

Of poetry.

[Bob Coughlin / September 10, 2014]

The above poem is in response to a brilliant friend who is almost too good a critic. I would think he would be paralyzed in his own writing! The idea for the poem also came from Anne Lamott's brilliant book, Bird by Bird, the best book for someone hoping to become a writer.

A Letter from Jesus: I’m Not Your Damned Lord and Personal Savior

Listen:

I’m tired of you saying that I am your “Lord and Personal Savior.”

First of all, I’m not your damn Lord.

There are no more Lords, thank God!

The feudal system is dead, and good riddance. I’m not your Lord.

And this Personal Savior crap.

I’m no one’s Personal Savior.

Didn’t I make it clear that salvation is about community—

Family, tribe, community.

Remember “when two or more are gathered?”

That was one of my clues.

I lived and died for the Community.

So enough of this crap already.

I wish you’d just hold hands in a circle

And say, “Thank you for my family, friends, co-workers . . .

We bless each other.”

Yours Truly,

Yeshua

[Bob Coughlin / September 3, 2014]


Well, I haven't written many poems like this! At first glance, it seems blasphemous. But underlying the poem are some serious theological ideas. It was fun trying to write in the voice of Jesus (and a Jesus not too often seen in Church). I am not a blasphemous person; I'm serious about religion. Let's just say that Jesus and I had something important to say, and we put those points into this poem.

Sunday Breakfast in a White Oak at Lakeside

Still groggy, carrying my morning coffee to the pier,

I notice something strange in the periphery—

Then my eyes lock on to a bald eagle,

Just twenty feet above my head,

Flying slowly over the Lakeside Pavilion,

A small bunny in its talons, still writhing.

For a second I can’t believe what I am seeing,

Wonder if some kid is flying a kite.

But no, it’s an eagle, in an unexpected place,

Now climbing to the big white oak on the shoreline,

To eat breakfast.

[Bob Coughlin / September 7, 2014]

This poem is based on something I actually saw one recent Sunday morning at Lakeside, Ohio's Chautauqua, on the Marblehead Peninsula, near Sandusky and Port Clinton.

Lakeside's Pavilion, where I saw the bald eagle

How Do You Become a Good Writer?

If you want to be a good writer you need to do the following:

a. Read a lot--especially the kinds of things you want to write. I myself am especially interested in writing poetry, biography, and memoir. So that's what I need to be reading. It's also important to be reading good-quality material. How do you know what is good quality poetry, biography, memoir, or fiction? You begin to recognize quality when you do a lot of reading, but you also need help from teachers and friends. It is very hard to get a sense of quality all by yourself.

b. Write a lot. You need to write regularly and for an audience if possible. Try to write every day. You don't have to show everything you write to others (some things should be shredded and burned, especially what Anne Lamott calls "shitty first drafts"). Sometimes you will need some sort of memory-erasing procedure for your crappy work (which everyone creates). If you share crappy work, do it only with generous and forgiving friends (I have a few I can share with). Even then, you might have to put them through a memory-erasing procedure! Or they may never love you again.

Stories and poems can take considerable time and psychic effort to write. Still, you will have time to write diary and journal entries, emails, and blogs besides the stories and poems you are working on. Don't underestimate the power of emails and blogs for improving your writing skill. Emails demand an audience and often allow you to experiment with attitudes, ideas, voice, techniques. You can try to be humorous (very difficult--often fails!). You can try to communicate clearly--it's hard. You have to keep working at it. Blogs are normally public, but they give you the opportunity to edit and delete entries--even long after the original posting date. Blogs often allow for comments from readers and you can manage and delete comments if you wish (or you can disallow them). Anyway, I am pretty sure I have greatly improved my writing by blogging and writing emails to my friends and family.

c. Try to get feedback on your writing, both from friends and peers, and from teachers, mentors, or masters. You give them generous yet honest feedback, and they give you the same. You accept criticism (but don't believe all of it). You try out their ideas and see how their suggestions turn out.

In the end, you hold on to your confidence and your powerful sense that you have something to say, something to share with the world. And you will improve and join the great conversation that is writing. I have seen very mediocre writers become excellent writers by following the advice given above.

Finally, read two books: Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, and Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. These brilliant, humane, and very funny books will help you grow as a writer.

Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird"

If there's one book I would advise an aspiring writer to read, think about, laugh over, and reread, it would be Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I just read one of the early chapters in the book ("Getting Started") and in that chapter Anne writes: "Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O'Connor said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life."

I have an amazing memory for my childhood years and have written many things about them. One provocative incident came to mind today and I've decided to write it down to see if it could go anywhere.

This incident happened around 4th or 5th grade at St. William's School in Euclid, circa 1958. It has just occurred to me that I'm afraid to write everything that happened--at least in a nonfiction context. There is one sensitive issue that still causes me pain, that I'm unwilling to reveal. Maybe that part of the story needs the mask that fiction provides. We'll see.[will continue]