Serial Poetry, Shared Worlds and I
Oct. 24th, 2012 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marina_bonomi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poetreeGreetings to all
My name is Marina, Elizabeth has invited me as guest poster for today. I write poetry in a few genres, from haiku to nursery rhymes, in Italian (my native tongue) and English.
My involvement with serial poetry is multiple: I started as a patron in Elizabeth’s fishbowl, leaving a prompt that sparked the Origami Mage series, with time I got involved in more series: Fiorenza the Wisewoman, The Steamsmith, and Kungfu Robots either as a prompter or as research helper or both, most recently I became a contributor in the Silk Road Allies project, my works there include Cai Luoma and the Parthians, Thinking of Home While on a Mission in the West , and A Zhang Wei among others.
I am, in a way, a reluctant poet. My love affair with poetry began hearing my grandfather recite by hearth cantos from the Divine Comedy, my interest in other classical works of Italian poetry was sparked by my mother’s memories about listening to an elderly man who used to regale the village children with snatches of poems and stories about the adventures of Charlemagne’s Paladins. The works on which I cut my teeth, the ones that were part of the common knowledge in my country and those that I came to know and love later : The Divine Comedy, the Aeneid, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Jerusalem Delivered, the Nibelungenlied, the Kalevala, the Poetic Edda, are narrative poetry, many are collations of pre-existing works selected and reworked by one or more authors. That was what spoke to me and, by and at large, I couldn’t find their like in contemporary poetry.
It seemed to me that, with time, poetry had become more solitary, that poets had moved away from writing for their people tapping from the common well of myths and experiences and had become more intellectual, soaring higher, possibly, but becoming at the same time too detached, too rarefied for me to follow.
I realize the implications of national myths and their use in propaganda, and the backlash of the Second World War and the horrid misuse of the ancient legends, all legitimate reasons for wanting to move away from them. Fact is that, on the whole, I kept just a passing interest in contemporary Western poetry until I happened across Elizabeth’s works and I realized that somebody was still writing poems that told stories, and not only isolated stories but cycles with an overarching plot and complex themes weaved in, and that I wasn’t the only one left who enjoyed them.
The step from reader to contributor was long in coming, but The Lost and Found Legion gave me an idea, the result was Cai Luoma and the Parthians, narrating an episode in the travel of the Chinese ambassador to Rome. We three then talked about the possibility of the setting as a shared world, the framework, canon and so on. I can say that it is a sandbox I love playing into.
Some might find a shared world too confining, I love the interplay, the conversations that spark different ideas in everybody involved, the themes that weave themselves (or so it seems) in and out of our works, the different eras each of us feels more at ease in, the individual angles from which each of us may see the same episode or suggestion and how the world (even though very young, yet) grows richer both in material and opportunities with every new piece one of us writes.
My name is Marina, Elizabeth has invited me as guest poster for today. I write poetry in a few genres, from haiku to nursery rhymes, in Italian (my native tongue) and English.
My involvement with serial poetry is multiple: I started as a patron in Elizabeth’s fishbowl, leaving a prompt that sparked the Origami Mage series, with time I got involved in more series: Fiorenza the Wisewoman, The Steamsmith, and Kungfu Robots either as a prompter or as research helper or both, most recently I became a contributor in the Silk Road Allies project, my works there include Cai Luoma and the Parthians, Thinking of Home While on a Mission in the West , and A Zhang Wei among others.
I am, in a way, a reluctant poet. My love affair with poetry began hearing my grandfather recite by hearth cantos from the Divine Comedy, my interest in other classical works of Italian poetry was sparked by my mother’s memories about listening to an elderly man who used to regale the village children with snatches of poems and stories about the adventures of Charlemagne’s Paladins. The works on which I cut my teeth, the ones that were part of the common knowledge in my country and those that I came to know and love later : The Divine Comedy, the Aeneid, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Jerusalem Delivered, the Nibelungenlied, the Kalevala, the Poetic Edda, are narrative poetry, many are collations of pre-existing works selected and reworked by one or more authors. That was what spoke to me and, by and at large, I couldn’t find their like in contemporary poetry.
It seemed to me that, with time, poetry had become more solitary, that poets had moved away from writing for their people tapping from the common well of myths and experiences and had become more intellectual, soaring higher, possibly, but becoming at the same time too detached, too rarefied for me to follow.
I realize the implications of national myths and their use in propaganda, and the backlash of the Second World War and the horrid misuse of the ancient legends, all legitimate reasons for wanting to move away from them. Fact is that, on the whole, I kept just a passing interest in contemporary Western poetry until I happened across Elizabeth’s works and I realized that somebody was still writing poems that told stories, and not only isolated stories but cycles with an overarching plot and complex themes weaved in, and that I wasn’t the only one left who enjoyed them.
The step from reader to contributor was long in coming, but The Lost and Found Legion gave me an idea, the result was Cai Luoma and the Parthians, narrating an episode in the travel of the Chinese ambassador to Rome. We three then talked about the possibility of the setting as a shared world, the framework, canon and so on. I can say that it is a sandbox I love playing into.
Some might find a shared world too confining, I love the interplay, the conversations that spark different ideas in everybody involved, the themes that weave themselves (or so it seems) in and out of our works, the different eras each of us feels more at ease in, the individual angles from which each of us may see the same episode or suggestion and how the world (even though very young, yet) grows richer both in material and opportunities with every new piece one of us writes.
Thank you!
Date: 2012-10-25 04:34 am (UTC)>>The works on which I cut my teeth, the ones that were part of the common knowledge in my country and those that I came to know and love later<<
I grew up with classics like Rudyard Kipling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dr. Seuss, and Shel Silverstein. Then I got into school, looked at the books, and said, "Wow, this is CRUD. There is no music in it." I could tell quickly that the poems were flawed or lacking in rhyme or meter. It took me a lot longer to identify and articulate the many other techniques used by master-linguist poets. But one of the sweetest compliments for my poetry that I've ever received was "Heinlein by way of Kipling" in regards to "One Ship Tall."
Not all poetry has to be narrative, but it does need to speak clearly to the reader. There's a difference between mysterious and muddy. It can be about the everyday or the epic, but it should have meaning. You look at my book of nature poetry, about half that is inspired by where I live or places I've personally visited, and the other half is places I've read about or researched otherwise. You look at my narrative poetry, it's full of details or plotlets that people have told me, like gathering wool from a fence to spin into yarn.
There are lots of reasons to write poetry -- for personal amusement, for memory, for art -- but if you want it to be powerful then it has to distill the world into a tight, strong ply that won't unravel at the first tug. Most contemporary poetry is just ... fluff.
>>I realize the implications of national myths and their use in propaganda, and the backlash of the Second World War and the horrid misuse of the ancient legends, all legitimate reasons for wanting to move away from them.<<
Everything powerful can be abused. Theology is no less susceptible than entheogens and the results are about as bad.
>>Some might find a shared world too confining, I love the interplay, the conversations that spark different ideas in everybody involved<<
I think it depends on the project and the people. Some are too confining for my taste. Others are more flexible or just more knowledgeable. Ellen Million designed Torn World using her experience of what worked and what didn't from previous projects. I suggested parameters for Silk Road Allies using that, plus my previous research into shared worlds, but also considering that we just happened to have several high-caliber experts -- not a resource that many shared worlds enjoy. So each one is going to be unique, and that's a good thing. You can't force it, and you can't copy it; that never works out well. You have to think about your resources and what things you enjoy, then try to create a framework that will support that.
I've really enjoyed hearing about your journey from reader to patron to poet, too!