Poetry Host: David Kopaska-Merkel
Oct. 31st, 2011 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jjhunter posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poetreePosted by jjhunter on David's behalf
I started writing poetry shortly before my oldest daughter was born. I figured, correctly as it turned out, that it would be much harder to find time to write fiction once I became a parent. At first my poems were truly awful. You won't see any of those this week. You will see 3 poems and an essay about poetry. I won't talk here about the poems, because I hope to find time to comment after they're posted. I will certainly be very interested in your comments about them.
I write because I want to. I am not driven by some kind of demon, as some writers are. I enjoy organizing my thoughts and putting them on paper in the same way someone else might enjoy doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. This is not to say I'm not trying to make a point with any of my poems, but most often the point of my poetry is not to make a point but to tell a story. Many are narrative poems, most often telling stories of things that have never happened. Events or situations that I imagine after contemplating an extrapolation of something I see or read about. In other words, they are science-fiction poems. In addition to writing a lot of science fiction poetry, I use my blog to post daily poems, which are the subject of the essay you'll read later in the week. Most of these are haiku, and they don't have a science-fiction element. They conform to at least some of the rules of classical haiku. They concern a moment in the natural world, they are very short (no more than 17 syllables), and there is a conceptual break between one line and the other two. Please note that I am in no way an expert on haiku!
I should say a couple of things about myself. I am a scientist, but I don't write very much science poetry. I do write some science-fiction poetry based on geological observations, because that is something I know about and think about. I've been in a wheelchair for about eight years, the result of a serious car accident, but I don't write much poetry about being disabled either. One cannot avoid being aware of one's limitations, but that has never been something I am interested in putting into words. I'm going to end with a couple of links that will lead you to more information about me.
The website about my poetry magazine: Dreams and Nightmares magazine
My blog
jjhunter on David's behalfI started writing poetry shortly before my oldest daughter was born. I figured, correctly as it turned out, that it would be much harder to find time to write fiction once I became a parent. At first my poems were truly awful. You won't see any of those this week. You will see 3 poems and an essay about poetry. I won't talk here about the poems, because I hope to find time to comment after they're posted. I will certainly be very interested in your comments about them.
I write because I want to. I am not driven by some kind of demon, as some writers are. I enjoy organizing my thoughts and putting them on paper in the same way someone else might enjoy doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. This is not to say I'm not trying to make a point with any of my poems, but most often the point of my poetry is not to make a point but to tell a story. Many are narrative poems, most often telling stories of things that have never happened. Events or situations that I imagine after contemplating an extrapolation of something I see or read about. In other words, they are science-fiction poems. In addition to writing a lot of science fiction poetry, I use my blog to post daily poems, which are the subject of the essay you'll read later in the week. Most of these are haiku, and they don't have a science-fiction element. They conform to at least some of the rules of classical haiku. They concern a moment in the natural world, they are very short (no more than 17 syllables), and there is a conceptual break between one line and the other two. Please note that I am in no way an expert on haiku!
I should say a couple of things about myself. I am a scientist, but I don't write very much science poetry. I do write some science-fiction poetry based on geological observations, because that is something I know about and think about. I've been in a wheelchair for about eight years, the result of a serious car accident, but I don't write much poetry about being disabled either. One cannot avoid being aware of one's limitations, but that has never been something I am interested in putting into words. I'm going to end with a couple of links that will lead you to more information about me.
The website about my poetry magazine: Dreams and Nightmares magazine
My blog
no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 12:01 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2011-11-01 07:58 am (UTC)Also, for other readers: Dreams and Nightmares is well worth reading. I've had a few of my poems published there. David is a thoughtful and highly selective editor. If you like dark, creepy, or just plain weird writing then you'll probably like his magazine.