Faculty Voices with Ron Koertge: Re-Vision Part 2

Before reading this post, be sure to check out part one to see where this poem started.

So I thought about the poem and in my own pagan way prayed about it and worked on (re-visioned)  the last third or so.

The Plane Doesn’t Crash But the Landing is So Rough

There’s a Lot of Screaming

Right next to the airport is a gentlemen’s

club where all the dancers wear Santa

hats.  I have a stiff drink, slip 20

to the topsy-turvy down girl on the pole,

then enter the freeway tentatively, like

a horse at the ocean.

Windows down, I hear John Coltrane

from the nearest Camaro and near

1st and Hill a congregation praying

from a rooftop.  

I’m not quite sure what to do with

my other life, the one that ended

on the tarmac where the ambulances

congregated.

It rides alongside me making mordant

jokes about the seatbelt.

Home at last, I park beside an electric

reindeer lying on its side and twitching.

Lighted windows.  On the shadowy

porch the smokers are changelings,

shape shifters.

We go inside together, that other life

and I.  My wife says, “Oh, there you

are.  I was starting to worry.”

Her other life looks at mine and bursts

into tears.

Ah ha.  Now the turn in the 4th stanza is a portent I can live with.  As is the new character, “my other life.”  Now there’s some accord between it, the fallen reindeer, and the shape shifting smokers. The tears in the last stanza seem more, as we say, earned.

I’m probably another draft or two away from being completely happy with it.  I’m not sure about mordant.  And there’s a chance that whole little stanza can go.  

We’ll  see.  A little more prayer, maybe some chardonnay, a good night’s sleep and anything is possible.


*Ron Koertge is a faculty member at Hamline's MFAC program. He writes poetry for everyone, fiction for young adults, and recently co-authored a young reader series. You can discover Ron's literary work by visiting his author's website or visit his faculty page to learn about him as a professor at Hamline University.

Faculty Voices with Ron Koertge: Re-Vision Part 1

Prose comes from the Latin prosa = straightforward, “without the ornaments of verse.”  Oh, dear.  ‘Ornaments’ is an awful word.  Verse as Christmas tree, similes and metaphors dangling from the branches.   

Many of the poems I write are, as many have pointed out and not always kindly, “prosey.”  Meaning easy-going and fun to read.  And they can be straightforward because I want readers to come along with me but if I really wanted to be straightforward I’d write prose.   One of my disciplines is to reward my readers with something yummy every few lines  -- a turn of phrase, an unlikely word in a likely place.  Whatever it takes to keep someone’s eyes on the page.   

Sonnet is from the Italian sonetto:  little song.  I don’t write many straight up sonnets, but all my poems are little songs:  melodies, show tunes, arias, lullabies, hymns.

Here something I’ve been working on.   Is it an aria?  A hymn?  Or  -- shudder  --  just elevator music.

The Plane Doesn’t Crash But the Landing is So Rough

There’s a Lot of Screaming

Right next to the airport is a gentlemen’s

club  where all the dancers wear Santa

hats.  I have a stiff drink, slip 20

to the topsy-turvy down girl on the pole,

then enter the freeway tentatively,  like

a horse at the ocean.    

Windows down, I hear John Coltrane

from the nearest Camaro and near

1st and Hill somebody praying

from a rooftop.  

Home at last I park beside an electric

reindeer lying on its side and twitching.

Lighted windows.  On the shadowy

porch the smokers are changelings,

shapeshifters.

It’s California, winter, but something

is blooming.  Perfume and terror.

Coming in hot to LAX, the woman

beside me clawed at my jacket.

“Tell my husband I love him,” she

cried.  Taxing to the gate she blushed,

“That  thing before?  It’s not really

true.”    But she was excited still.  

Vibrant and giddy.  Glad to be alive.  

“I’ll never forget,” she said, “the first

time he kissed me.”

There are some things in this draft that kept me interested.   The long title pushes me into the poem, the simile in the second stanza was a pleasant surprise.  I’m okay with Coltrane, the electric reindeer, the smokers but then the little song slips off-key.  Where’d that woman come from?    The last thing this piece needs is another character, much less another one with conventionally sentimental feelings.  

Come back on Thursday to see how Ron revises his poem.


*Ron Koertge is a faculty member at Hamline's MFAC program. He writes poetry for everyone, fiction for young adults, and recently co-authored a young reader series. You can discover Ron's literary work by visiting his author's website or visit his faculty page to learn about him as a professor at Hamline University.

Recite a Poem as You Dress

Today author and MFAC faculty member Ron Koertge* talks about a recent email he received from his colleague, Anne Ursu, on the topic of poetry and how it helps kids with autism.  Ron takes this idea a step further and talks about how we all could benefit from a little more poetry to help organize our busy lives and minds.

Recently Anne Ursu sent Chris Heppermann and me some information about a workshop she attended. It focused on kids with autism. Here is a paragraph from Anne’s e-mail: “They said poetry was really effective with these kids who had intense interests in things, who were able to respond really well to form, who could use and see language in profound ways, who have a natural ability for metaphor and deep empathy. They described formal poetry as organizing for the mind.”



I could immediately see how this would work. For me, fixed forms (sonnet, villanelle, sestina, etc.) quiet the mind and organize a hash of emotions into a tastier meal with maybe an arresting simile at the end for dessert. 

I’ve taught dozens and dozens of workshops and in most of those I insisted on fixed forms, since one of the dangers of traditional workshops is having them turn into therapy sessions where someone writes a sprawling free verse poem about her divorce and everyone starts clucking and telling their divorce stories. Some of the aggrieved hook up, there’s a quick wedding ceremony, couples counseling, and another divorce. And all this before the break! Okay, I made that last part up, but the point is the poem as a poem has been forgotten.

Let’s think about a poem that is basically a complaint – nobody understands me so I’m going to go up on Echo Mountain and cry. Everybody’s written this, especially in some hideously expensive journal with a leather cover and a silver clasp.

Take that poem with all its legitimate angst (it’s truly dispiriting to be misunderstood) and invite it into a simple form like the sonnet. Immediately meter comes into play; that makes the incident or experience more melodious; even if that melody turns out to be strident and cacophonous and would generally make Phillip Glass happy, the sounds are still organized in a way lots of free verse isn’t. 

Next comes rhyme and right after that the search for synonyms. Lots of young poets say things like, “Well, rhyme won’t let me say what I mean.” Here’s what I tell them: “Good. I know what you mean. Say something that doesn’t bore the crap out of me. Don’t rhyme misunderstood with childhood. Everybody does that. Rhyme it with Hollywood and see where that takes you.”

Here’s another sentence or two from Anne’s e-mail: “He told a story of an autistic teenager who could only tie his shoes when he recited William Blake – he needed the meter to organize his mind enough to get the executive functioning to perform the motor task.”

I wish everybody – not just kids – would recite poems as they dressed. Imagine a neighborhood where poetry soared out of bedroom windows as folks laced and buttoned and zipped before the work day began. I’d live there for sure. Wouldn’t you?

 P.S. Don’t get me wrong – poetry can be used as therapy and a poem can be purging. Just don’t purge around me when I’m wearing my good pants.


*Ron Koertge is a faculty member at Hamline's MFAC program.  He writes poetry for everyone, fiction for young adults, and most recently co-authored a young reader series (Backyard Witch) with Hamline alum Chris Heppermann. Book # 1 of that series -Backyard Witch: Sadie’s Story - is out now (read the publication interview). His latest work also includes The Ogre’s Wife, Coaltown Jesus, and the unforgettable Sex World - some of the fastest flash fiction in the world.

You can learn more about Ron's work by visiting his website or visit his faculty page to learn about him as a professor at Hamline University.

Happy Thanksgiving

My enduring contribution to American verse is a Thanksgiving poem I wrote when I was 9. This, I can say definitively, is the best poem I have ever written.

There you are, plump and juicy
My innocent little turkey Lucy
We'll feed you up
Nice and plump
So on Thanksgiving we can dine on your tasty rump....


And it goes on. It may not surprise you that I became a vegetarian some years later. This Thanksgiving I will be in charge of the Tofurky. I thought perhaps this image might inspire a sonnet in Marsha Q.



I like cooking because it satisfies my need to be creative without having to write anything. Pie is my superpower; my secret is to find a good recipe and follow it. Here's the best pumpkin pie recipe there is. We'll also be having Leek and Wild Mushroom Stuffing, Spiced Cranberry Sauce with Zinfandel (Halve the sugar, seriously), Green Beans with Crispy Shallots, and mashed sweet potatoes.

This is a good time to give thanks for everyone I've met at Hamline. It's such a wonderful feeling to show up for residency and realize, All of these people write children's books! What a lovely thing to have such a community. Happy Thanksgiving, all.