Course:The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert

CRWR 501P 003
Advanced Writing of Poetry
	Instructor:Dr. Bronwen Tate; Email: Bronwen.tate@ubc.ca; Office: Buchanan E #456;
Important Course Pages
	Inspirations & Influences;
Categories
	Sources of Inspiration and Influence Aardvark Book of Poems Book of Poems by a Living Poet Choufleur Conflicted, Ambivalent, or Antagonistic Feelings CRWR 501 People Encountered Before Twelve Essay Fiction Films Fox Gemini Music Orchid Otis Places Poem Composed Before 1945 Poetic Prose Sadcactussometimesblooms Song, Painting, Film, Etc. Souris Yarrow Yellow Silver

The Word Pretty is a collection of lyrical essays by Elisa Gabbert, with a focus on the experience and observations on writing, reading, living, and memory. In her chapter “Aphorism are essays”, I think she provides an answer to one of my long-held questions: how much distance can I put between I the writer, and I the narrator in poetry? She writes and she quotes Wallace Steven’s Adagia.

“Part of the job, I think, of the aphorist is to write statements that even she does not necessarily agree with. In my thinking about aphorisms, I have returned often to Wallace Stevens’ Adagia (as in adage), a list of aphoristic statements mostly about art and poetry. For example:

Poetry is not personal.

Life cannot be based on a thesis, since by nature, it is based on instinct. A thesis, however, is usually present and living is the struggle between thesis and instinct.

Ethics are no more a part of poetry than what they are of painting.

Poetry is the expression of the experience of poetry.”

This is what started to allow me to push myself over the boundaries and the thresholds of my poems. I’m starting to allow the ‘I’ in my poems to move away from the I who holds the pen, and allowing it to take a personality, history, and belief of its own. And so far, it has proven an interesting experiment. While I disagree with the phrase, “ethics are no more a part of poetry than what they are of painting”, I am still trying to see how uncomfortable I can get in writing. Can the poet be squirming in their seats as they write? Or is it against the intentions of poetry to further the distance between writer/poem, or reader/poem, because we do consider the general audience and our similar (if not completely the same) world views? What will happen if I allow the narrator (or to an extension, a character in fiction) in poems to hold completely opposite beliefs from my own? Will I be condemning myself for thinking about their ethical terms, trying to step in their shoes? Or will it be part of a maneuver in poetry, where doing it with awareness makes a difference?

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