2am: Chats on Poetry When No One's Watching

meis this your poem?

Diana: nah

i wish it was mine!

me: I thought it was...

which means that at least to me, I think you have the skill to write this poemDiana: oh snap!

me: honestly, I think you have the skill to write something way deeper than this

Diana:

yea i can write deep it just doesn't sound pretty

pretty

me: not all poetry sounds pretty

you can work on that part of it

it's the complexity, the layers you offer up that are the core, the shit that really matters

because you could have a bunch of people help you make something shiny

but if the core of your piece is a kind of flimsy metaphor for something, pretty doesn't really help

Diana: I don't think I layer well either

me: from what I've seen, you can get a bunch of layers/connecting pieces into one poem

you just need to work on allowing space for each piece

making sense of how they unfold

Diana: explain that a lil further

me: like, I think your brain makes good connections between parts of your (and other people's) stories- you see the way small moments relate to some of your big bad truths. And I think good poems consist of tiny moments or stories that hold within them something heavy- a big pumping organ right in your middle

so a good poet write a good poem

by unraveling the story, the momentary scene

to get the listener/reader to the point where they realize that they're not just hearing the moment

Diana: ok i see

me: but the bigger, heavier thing hidden in it

Diana: yea

me: so, from what I've seen of your work

you have an eye for the tiny moments

you just need to not be afraid to get to the full unveiling

to sort of deconstruct them til you're down to the big bones/truths

Diana: what would the full unveiling be?

the truth?

me: the full unveiling is when the story just sort of falls to the side and you are left with what the story tells about your life/your truth

and then really good poet can like really trip you out by telling the story, peeling the story away little bit by little bit

so that you don't even realize the story is falling to the sides

and then boom

there's the real shit on the inside

and then, they end it by grabbing the story up off the floor, and rebuilding it almost instantly so that it's intact by the end of the piece

and you're not even sure what happened or the difference between what makes a moment any different from the big bad whole...

that's actually to me a huge part of what makes Rachel McKibbens so damn amazing!