JANET BUCK

Welcome to the Classroom Issue of PoetryRepairShop

John Donne said “No man is an island” and this issue of PoetryRepairShop is here to apply that truth to the world of poetry. I wrote to a number of accomplished contemporary poets and asked them to share their wisdom and guidance as well as introduce a writer for whom they've been a kind of steering wheel. There is often a thin line between the “teacher” and “student” because we all pass something along and pick up something valuable in the context of each discussion. The classroom here is not the traditional academic forum of ordered chairs, dusty blackboards, and yellowed lecture notes. It is the occasion of one poet helping another to write a poem that soars through clouds of mediocrity and leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Poets in general have a bad reputation for being insular and withdrawn. We think of Dickinson wiling away the hours in her attic; we think of Plath and Sexton retreating through suicide; we think of Arnold's melancholy sea and the chill of the English Moors. But, writing need not be such an isolated task. Here you will find a collection of poets who are openhearted and willing to share their time and energy with others, writers who delight in the accomplishments of their peers. Publication to them is not a contest or a race, but an opportunity for dialogue in a world full of distances and lonely roads.

Ray Foreman, editor of the Clark Street Review, warns us against what he calls “sweetheart poetry groups,” the sort of environment that is all back patting and little else. We need serious critique as well as encouragement. Phyllis Green reminds us that poetry is all about connection and leaving an impact on the world. Grace Cavalieri offers some wonderful strategies for finding the narrative poetry that is alive and kicking in each and every soul. Ruth Daigon and Susan Terris contribute a more personal investigation of “student/teacher” chemistry. In other cases, the lesson is simply in the context of one poem/poet rubbing off on another.

As a writer, I am deeply indebted to the Internet writing world – it has become a second family to me – a banister on which to lean as I walk my stairwells of nagging ghosts. I wish I could say that years of graduate school taught me to write, but this isn't the case. The learning process took shape from avid reading, from editorial comments, from workshopping, and from little clues dropped on my foot. I'll never forget what one editor told me early on: “Count the number of times you've used the words 'like' and 'as' in a poem … and you'll discover you've just set a somewhat irritating world's record.” He was right, so now I scan each piece for such obvious flaws.

Guidance comes in a whole array of forms – from curt rejection slips to unequivocal praise. The mentoring movement has fortunately been buoyed by the presence of the Internet. Workshop dust is a blessing on every writer's desk and I feel badly for poets of previous eras who had so little access to critique and camaraderie. In this issue, you will meet many different approaches to the craft of poetry – all of them unique, insightful, and well worth reading again and again.

copyright 2003 JANET BUCK

JANET BUCK

Metaphors of Fog

It was a small box of oceans you were 
centered there on the living room rug
cornered by dirty glass.
The stench of floating death
in guppies belly up and through.
Rocks and reefs were tripping me -
I wanted the water clear.
I tried to take a bath in this,
but couldn’t stay with rivers
on their way to ice.

I hurried off to fix a meal
you wouldn’t eat,
iron shirts you wouldn’t wear,
dust a row of ivory keys
on baby grands already tossed 
from the side of the ship, the music now 
percussions of our silences.
My weakness was the only light
in ripples of the muddy fog.
Bubbles, few and far between,
then gone - so quickly
as a match goes out.

Sometimes clocks refuse the dials 
that circle with the ending’s hand;
tickets to a closing play
were menus I refused to read.
I should have been there
when trilling flutes of lungs expired,
when heartbeats turned a stony fist.
My strength was called to podiums -
and I, the poet, owned no words.

copyright JANET BUCK