In our last The Poet is In column, you asked us a lot of questions about poetry. After all, we said to just “ask us anything.”
One hundred and thirty-eight comments in the comment-box later, we decided maybe we’d choose just one of those questions to feature here and invite more questions (and our answers).
The Question, from Bethany Rohde
“How do you decide when a poem has crossed into “sentimental” territory? It seems a bit subjective to know when to call it.”
The Initial Answer, from Tania Runyan
“Bethany, that is s tough question. For me, a sentimental poem tries to force the emotion on me–tell me what to feel, I suppose, rather than lead me into sensory language that invites its own emotional response. Think of a greeting card: it must get an emotion across in a direct, brief manner while staying quite general in order to appeal to many readers. There is nothing wrong with that given a card’s purpose, of course, but how many greeting card verses do any of us remember? We remember what we feel, not what we are told to feel.”
Alright, the Poet is in. Ask us anything about sentimental poetry.
Photo by Dustin Gaffke, Creative Commons, via Flickr.
* * *
About One of Our Resident Poets
Tania Runyan has served as an editor for Every Day Poems and is the author of four books of poetry, including A Thousand Vessels and Simple Weight. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, and Southern Poetry Review. She received an NEA Literature fellowship in 2011.
In Tania’s latest title, from T. S. Poetry Press, she secured permission to work with the Billy Collins poem Introduction to Poetry. Enjoy her teamwork with Collins in How to Read a Poem…
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- Tell the Bees: A Little Chat Highlight - August 9, 2022
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Laura Brown says
It’s understandable that some poetic attempts result in sentimentality, because it was probably that emotion that made someone want to write a poem about it, both to preserve it and to share it — to convey, “This happened. You feel it too, right?”
It might be tricky to do this without being unkind, but would you care to share some sentimental examples of sentimental poems? Or maybe better, some of the sensory, invitational sort?
In understanding this, would it help to make it an exercise? Say, think of an occasion of strong feeling.Write poem about it that forces the feeling; then write one using “sensory language that invites its own response.”
L. L. Barkat says
I’ll use my own poem, so as not to be unkind 😉
This article I referenced last go ’round delves deeper, but here is the poem it features…
http://www.curatormagazine.com/llbarkat/good-art-born-inside-or-out/
“After the Fire”
Come with me to chicory
laced foundation, gutted,
where sit the stones,
burned and blackened,
like memories obscure
they stole away. I will take
your hand, lead you up
the thistled hill at back, where
stood three lilacs purpling
in rising mist. We can lean
and lift, cart soot-dust rocks
to nearby field, let greening
timothy lick them clean in
rain and wind. I will search
for new pine, iron nails, glass
to set in place. Such trifles
will not raise lost reveries
to life, but they can trace
my love, erect as grace.
***
You could peek at the article if you like, or you can just go ahead and try to identify why I consider this not a very good poem (partly due to a sentimental feel, which I will let you identify the sources of if you like 🙂 )
Laura Brown says
These lines stand out:
like memories obscure
they stole away
L. L. Barkat says
Stand out as…?
(I will add that we keep a list of “taboo words” for our Every Day Poems acquisitions guidelines. I don’t know that “memories” is on it yet, but perhaps it could be. “Grace” is another. And for some reason, in this poem, I’d say “reveries” should have been taboo. 🙂 )
L. L. Barkat says
Exception to the taboo rule:
sometimes one of those kinds of words can make a good poem title. Especially if the poem then creates an unexpected new experience or turns the concept on its head.
Laura Brown says
Stand out in the sense that these were maybe easier words that obscure rather than reveal what is trying to be said there. It was a shift from the lines before. Told me not what to feel but what meaning to make of the burnt stones, which I probably could have figured out anyway. Satisfaction of figuring out was taken from me.
And in a way, it is the converse of getting someone to draw in by holding back. It’s telling me something in a way that sort of says, “I’ll go this far and no farther.” I could be wrong about that.
And, yes, the word “memories,” bless its heart, probably does too little while being asked to do so much. And the word “grace” made me think that too. And not just because I was taken out of the poem a little pondering how grace is erect. You know what Inigo Montoya might say about grace.
Laura Brown says
About the word “grace,” I mean.
L. L. Barkat says
I think that is critical. Sentimentality in all writing (not just poems) takes something away from the reader—in terms of letting the reader make his/her own meaning.
Please add “bless” to the taboo words 🙂
Bethany Rohde says
I’m grateful that you’ve taken my question up for further exploration! This is an extremely helpful conversation to listen in on. (And I would love to hear your list of taboo words someday.) 😉 I think I see the theme though – words that convey a generality versus a specific?
Richard Maxson says
I like this poem for what it attempts, but what I think you may be hinting at as missing is of what are the reveries made. How are they connected to the obviously meaningful remains and surroundings. This makes me think of Margaret Atwood’s “Morning in the Burned House.”
With the last sentence it is clear that there was more to the “house” (?) than its mere parts. Even a few specifics would have brought that home. I’m also now recalling Frost’s “Directive.”
L. L. Barkat says
I liked what it was attempting too, but it totally missed the target. To that, I think there are several reasons one shouldn’t shy from writing a poem like this:
1. to get the initial thoughts and feelings down (like free writing)
2. to experience catharsis at the level one is ready to do so
Now, I believe that Bethany’s initial question might have come from a different purpose than either of those. I’m guessing she wants to revise, to excise the sentimentality from the first draft. That may or may not be possible. Sometimes it’s best to start with a new poem on the same theme. To your point, Richard, I think specificity is part of the key. Here is a better (though still in need of revision) poem from the time when I was trying to write about the fires (lost all my childhood homes to fires—three, count them, and two cars—but that… is another story 🙂 )
“Quick”
Who found faded yellow
brown box, jimmied
tin lid with spoon’s end
taken from our new
kitchen; the old one
spit out this blackened
package of sugar chocolate
crying for milk, pink bunny
laughing though his ear
had been eaten by flames—
who started it I wonder, who
burned down linoleum-cracked
floor, table where sister choked
on peas like we are choking our
blonde baby niece
with mealy brown powder
on a tongue crying
for milk, mama,
milk.
Richard Maxson says
What hardships to survive as a child, Laura. Even in the distance of adulthood, such events are difficult to make into poetry.
The title seems to have a double meaning, quick as in Nestles Quick and quick as in vital. The objects here seem to still have a life of sorts. This is very poignant as it is without being too sentimental. I do think quotes are unnecessary in the title. Are title quotes another thing to go on use with care list?
The indirect way both are revealed makes the poem hold me. The question of how the fire started is rich territory for expansion, the child’s view remembered and the adult’s emotional and more rational view.
Elizabeth Marshall says
L.L., this is devasting to hear, this part of your life. Writing through the emotional recovery would, i imagine be difficult yet provide continued healing.
You convey layers of remembering without using the word fire.
Quick. the expression cuts to the quick, the most sensitive place, comes to mind.
L. L. Barkat says
Elizabeth, I don’t know why it doesn’t feel big to me. Or in need of healing. Perhaps other things were far bigger, and I’m happy enough to have figured them to a palatable place. I tend to be fairly practical. If something isn’t standing in the way of relationships or my creativity or my life’s work, it may not ever get my writing attention 🙂
But I do thank you (and Richard) for your sweet compassion in this thread.
Sandra Wirfel says
Wow, powerful pain. I cannot imagine.
L. L. Barkat says
I’ve plumbed so much from my difficult childhood, in writing, Richard, that I sometimes forget there might be more worth looking into.
The fires. Yes. I have a fear that my dwellings (wherever they be at any given moment) might burn down, as you might imagine (gosh, I just started crying when I typed that!).
I put quotes only because I can’t do bold in the comment box 🙂
There are many questions behind those fires. Someday I might still write towards them.
Bethany Rohde says
L.L. Barkat,
I’m sorry you hear that you went through all of that. Unbelievable! I can’t imagine experiencing it as a child — three times over. I’m glad to hear that you feel like you have some level of peace with it all bub of course it makes complete sense that you would have that ongoing concern as well.
The image of the niece crying out in the ending of this poem is powerful.
Megan Willome says
I do think there’s a place for sentimental poetry (and other sentimental things). It may not be high art, but sometimes you need a little comfort food.
L. L. Barkat says
Favorite sentimental poem? 🙂
Simply Darlene says
I agree about there being a place (& a time) for sentimental poetry. Case in point: a few years ago I spoke at a man’s funeral. He was like a dad to me and I loved him better than if he was. I read a rhyming, emotion-laden poem that I’d penned hours after I’d learned of his passing. I’d followed no writerly rules, just my heart. The truth of words is what mattered… both to me and then later on, to his family/friends.
As a side note, a couple weeks ago, his widow called and asked my permission to use that poem as a square on a quilt being made by family of organ donors… because of him, someone else now has clear vision.
Sometimes poetry soothes, reminds, or comforts. Sometimes poetry excites, envokes, or invites. Sometimes poetry is history because the subject will never read it and the reader will never live it.
But, when poetry is at it’s best, poetry does for the reader whatever the reads needs it to do, right?
Simply Darlene says
1. show. don’t tell. <– is this the core of it?
2. an intended audience likely determines the sentimental value by the emotion(s) invoked. say a poet writes for his/her child and uses certain words, phrases, and descriptions that will ring truth; whereas, if a poet writes for a general audience, those same words, phrases, and descriptions may ring of annoyance, aye?
Simply Darlene says
* evoked. (gah! an edit feature would be nice because the stress of seeing an error whilst hitting the “submit” button is most horrid, especially on a site where the article writers, comment responders, and discussion leaders wear their grammarPants ironed and creased.)
i invoke my tired writerly rights for the need of chocolate and coffee. and a dictionary.
😉
L. L. Barkat says
Ha! Oh, please, no starched grammar pants here. Just pants. Probably jeans.
Bethany Rohde says
Glad to hear we are able to wear our Relaxed-Fit jeans here, L.L. (do I put an additional period after L.L.?)!
Laura Brown says
Third-day-worn jeans here.
I make a living knowing and handling grammar, among other tools, and I very seldom iron pants, let alone crease them.
How ’bout this. Sentimentality invokes, better poetry evokes?
Bethany Rohde says
I agree – it is the worst!
Richard Maxson says
Well said, Darlene.
Richard Maxson says
Sentiment is so difficult for me. Finding replacements for specific words like memories, reveries, grace, love, or for crying out loud even angels are cited some times. So, once in frustration I wrote a poem called “Poem Without Angels.”
L. L. Barkat says
I would like to see that poem! 🙂
Richard Maxson says
This is a dark poem (remember, it has no angels) meant to convey a world without our symbols of Hope and Faith and Love (none of which I mention). It is an old poem of mine and deserves criticism.
Poem Without Angels
Here the buildings stand,
like dandelions at the end of Summer,
heat rising from the chard
and broken serrations for a last supper.
Cut deep. You cannot gently break this bread,
and the wine is cheap.
Peeling back the flesh, a why
incision, no fresh sinew here, but keep
moving and you will find,
the heart, where the blue blood breathed
for its life of selfish rhymes.
The bees are dying. Some say
this is the way the world ends,
no honey in the rock, a sound
humming in the hollow, hiding
for its life, sipping carrion comfort.
No one remains to crucify. The silver has been claimed,
measured out in bits;
the pronouncements, in acronyms, facades
identifying the sacrifices.
The streets below, like shells,
their small imagined seas
crashing inside, persistently, against a dark shore.
Simply Darlene says
“… a sound
humming in the hollow…”
when read aloud, this bit sounds brown and empty
Simply Darlene says
good for the poem’s tone, right?
Bethany Rohde says
“The streets below, like shells,
their small imagined seas
crashing inside” What a vivid image.
Sandra Wirfel says
“cut deep. You cannot gently break this bread, and the wine iss cheap” Makes me thing of a Catholic mass.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Richard,so much to love here. Im left with a feeling of brokeness, death/divorce, uprooting, and yes darkness.
It does not give me the sense of senimentality but rather raw reality.
I read no angels as meaning “no saints” perhaps because of the bits of silver being taken ir divided up. Spoils of war.
Yes, for me a hear war and tragedy.
Not sentimentality.
Brilliant. I only see one thing to consider changing. Not certain how to incoorporate the change though.
powerful.
Maureen Doallas says
Richard, I believe in offering honest criticism. Among this poem’s difficulties (and I would have to say they are substantial) are its mixed metaphors and lack of clarity of subject. Sometimes the poem is directed toward an unknown 2nd person “you”; other times I’m not at all sure who is the intended recipient. The unmistakable religious imagery (last supper, bread and wine, crucify) isn’t supported by what comes before or after it (“No one remains to crucify. The silver….”). We go from “the buildings stand” (what buildings are these, where are we?), to bad wine and bread hard to break (there’s a tonal shift in how these lines are written), to “Peeling back the flesh” (whose? how did this come about?), to dying bees as signal of the world’s end, to “pronouncements” (whose, why issued?), to “seas /crashing inside” without knowing what is the source of such imagery and emotions. The poem seems to be creating an apocalyptic scene but it doesn’t function within a coherent context. The excess that we talk about with sentimental poetry is reflected in such phrasing as “sipping carrion” and “persistently, against a dark shore”. I do like some of the sonic quality but that doesn’t save this poem.
I think you are brave to put this forth and invite comment. While I would not call the poem successful, it is instructive. Thank you for being so good a sport.
L. L. Barkat says
Maureen, you’ve said what I would say 🙂
I would add that this is an awesome free write poem that could then perhaps be split into new, separate poems that then go through their own sets of free writes and revisions. 🙂
Maureen Doallas says
I agree, L.L.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Is banning a word from a poem a bit like forbidding a color from a painter’s color wheel. (i dont like any art which has a brush stroke of black on the canvas- for the sake of argument. In fact I love black 🙂 ).
Does that tell the poet “you are not able to wrap your poem as a package into an un -sentimental piece of art because you used THAT word.”
L. L. Barkat says
I like this, from poet Dave Wheeler. Yes, sometimes banning is in order for a time…
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2012/06/08/taboo-writing-the-trees/
Elizabeth Marshall says
Speed reading Dave’s words, nodding yes yes. Is yes a banned word.
L.L. you banned me from an activity once. Do you recall? I have a difficult time self-analyzing aka navel gazing my own writing.
But I think that ban was effective in shifting my voice.
is voice banned?
I like the ban bandwagon. I may have a leg in.
L. L. Barkat says
Was that an editing exercise we were doing?
Yes is a good word, Elizabeth 🙂
These are not simple conversations, because they cause each of us to evaluate our own style. Me included. That’s why I put my less-than poem there. I want it to be clear that this is something every writer needs to attend to—self-analysis, revision.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Well said.
Agreed.
It is helpful to attend to it within a trusted group of co-attenders such as are found in this community.
I love your term less-than poems. I look foward to applying new standards to old poems with a revisionist’s eye.
This is valuable advise and a worthwhile discussion.
grateful for you, L.L.
Maureen Doallas says
I recall how Millay and Teasdale, being poets who were women, were accused of being “sentimental” because they dared write of feeling (everyone, of course, knowing that women were given to hysteria!).
“Sentimental” has taken on such pejorative meaning but at its root “sentiment” means simply “to feel”.
We create a Hallmark Card Effect by being excessive, going on at length with invocations of what I call “The Capitals” (Love, Grace, etc.), so that the emotion the poet expresses cannot be bridged, that is, experienced or “owned” by the reader. The emotion becomes affectation.
Bethany Rohde says
“We create a Hallmark Card Effect by being excessive, going on at length with invocations of whath I call ‘The Capitals’…” This point of being excessive is clarifying, thank you!
Richard Maxson says
Millay wrote about love so well. Recall her sonnet: “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why”
(this one calls to mind Elizabeth’s “Love Dementia”)
and one of my favorite poems by her:
“An Ancient Gesture”
So it is how the poet envelopes these words in experience that leaves it up to the reader to re-experience, so to speak?
Elizabeth Marshall says
I cringe to think my twitter handle contains a banned word. Yikes.
Maureen, interesting insight. Look forward to hearing more from you on this.
Richard Maxson says
Here is a sentimental poem I wrote 5 years ago about my Fathers funeral 8 years ago. I tried to present the sentiment indirectly as Laura did in “Quick.” I offer this as material for this discussion
Still Life
—for my father
I remember saying my last structured prayer,
you dead with the amazing flower sprays,
sunlight through the stained glass, brush strokes
across the white lilies like a canvas of Klee’s.
“Man’s time dissolves in ashes,” I repeated,
as the sun and clouds conspired to make
the red pulse over the cross of carnations
and through the veins of the marble floor.
No one planned the wild buttercups in that field.
I brought no bouquets, nor did I kneel, but lay
down in your golden days and painted you
in my mind, relieved of all your hidden colors.
Simply Darlene says
i’ve read it through a few times. some words have double meanings (and not only the inanimate things you’ve brought to life, but others) — changing the tone, depending on the intent of the reader’s heart.
writing that leaves enough room for the reader’s imagination to claim bits as their own, is my favorite. i don’t fancy being told, told, told. it’s as if i’m being scolded.
richard, i was alongside you on the floor – because that’s where i landed when i passed out at my grandpa’s service.
Sandra Wirfel says
“veins of the marble floor” nice viual.
Bethany Rohde says
Richard,
The first line is intriguing and the last line is fascinating: “all your hidden colors.”
What specifically seems sentimental to you in this poem? I wouldn’t have put it in that category on my first reading (or second). Is it the word, “relieved” because it gives us the speaker’s reaction without just showing it to us? (Thanks for your patience with me here.)
Richard Maxson says
I thought it sentimental, because the experience it portrays was so emotional. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the term sentimental.
Bethany Rohde says
Richard, I’m probably the one misunderstanding the term. 😉
I was thinking a poem could take place in an emotional situation (like a funeral for a family member) and still avoid sentimentality? (Is this right?)
That perhaps it only crosses over the “sentimental” line when it tells the reader what to feel (like the poem I mentioned writing below) by naming the feeling, “When you find out what he was like, You will be crushed by his kindness…” Or by being too direct and too vague simultaneously: “He was the greatest father ever!” Instead of just showing an act of his kindness in detail without the personal commentary, and perhaps the reader feels the crushing or they don’t. I should just put my super-sentimental poem here.
This is a safe place, right?
Maureen Doallas says
Richard, one of the things I particularly like about this poem is the relationships you draw between light and colors, colors that have significance as symbols. You underscore the sense of time seeming to stand still, even as life goes on. The power of observance in the presence of death is strong. That is what gives the poem what Laura calls its “tension”. I feel that tension in the title, too.
I wondered what might happen if the poem were written in another tense, with some of the details and line endings rearranged. With your very kind indulgence, given so tender a memory:
Still Life for My Father
I remember my last prayer, you
dead, the sunlight through the stained glass
making brush strokes across the canvas
of white lilies.
“Man’s time dissolves in ashes,” I repeat,
clouds conspiring with sun to race the pulse
of carnation red running through the veins
of the marble floor.
No one plans wild buttercups in that field.
I bring no bouquets. I do not kneel. I lie down
in your golden days and paint
you, my mind relieved of all
your hidden colors.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Here is a sentimental poem. i attempted to sterilize the poem in an effort to remain less sentimental. Repeating and repeating, well for obvious reasons.
Love, Dementia
Remember.
You loved, remember
When, you loved
How you were loved
When love was first
Born in you
Your first born
Loves you, remember
When you loved
Young love was born in you
Once, remember
Love,
Dementia
Bethany Rohde says
Elizabeth, sentimental or not — that teared me up. I wonder if it might strenthen the poem to leave off the closing?
Bethany Rohde says
*strengthen
Sandra Wirfel says
Reminded me of teenage angst, all those years crushing over boys, writing heartfelt poetry, and never showing anyone, wondering what was wrong with me that none of the guys ever noticed me. Wish I had one of those poems now to share.
Richard Maxson says
This is a sad, sentimental poem. I agree with Bethany about the last two words that repeat the title. What came to mind with your writing about “Your first born/Loves you” was how children can remind us of that innocent love we all experience—love without baggage—love that needs no one’s approval.
I thought the title worked well to indicate a slow, almost unaware loss as dementia makes its way.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Richard, Sandra & Bethany — so appreciate you all and your feedback. Tremendously helpful. Agree with the suggested change. Thanks!
Maureen Doallas says
Elizabeth,
It’s a challenge to write publicly about illness, whether one’s own or that of someone we love; often, I think, it’s hardest when it’s the latter, because feelings are so close to the surface and so complex. Illness poems are equally difficult to read, because so many of us have experience first-hand, as with cancer. One of the things I discovered when my brother died was that sibling loss was not given much attention; the literature wasn’t there to take comfort in. (That may have changed in the last six years.)
What helps me in writing or reading a poem on the subject of illness is an epigraph, a painting, concrete imagery, unexpected similes or metaphors: the mind as maze, the body has a network of broken neural pathways, the way a potato is cut, the folding of a shirt, how a doctor doesn’t look you in the eye, a piece of broken thread.
I wrote an essay in 2012 (it’s still up on my blog) called The Poetry of Illness. I’ve read a lot on the subject, and still do (Christian Wiman most recently).
There’s irony in your poem’s title. How might you counter that with an example that speaks to the emotion of love?
You might find of interest Holly Hughes’s anthology “Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease”. Most of the writers are medical professionals or caregivers, and poet Tess Gallagher (whose work I like) contributed an introduction. Another, edited by Anna Evans, is “Forgetting Home”; Angela Alaimo O’Donnell has a poem in that one.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Maureen, yes, I hear you. The original poem as it reads ^^ is spartan, sparse, childlike and confusing, using punctuation to cut the words’ mean with duplicity. It reads like Dick and Jane or an early reader. Dementia presents in the way, often…at least in mom’s case. The double meaning implicit in the last line, is that of a letter writer, the disease talking.
This is all ineffectual in my poem. I would like to rewrite with your input.
Maureen Doallas says
Spartan and sparse are ok; and don’t discount using some aspect of “early reader” as a way into your poems meaning. The idea is to use your experience, to set up a circumstance in which the love (or other emotion) shines through without necessarily having to state and restate it.
I mention those anthologies because seeing how others use and relate experience through words can be so helpful.
Elizabeth Marshall says
love, dementia ( rev. one)
Buried in the marrow
Of boney hand
veiled
now
by
your translucent skin
faint,recalling, thinly veined
any vow you made
faded fossils of retelling
rooted thick and burrowed deep
like the Jerusalem artichokes
you relished
love,
cataloged each variety
naming as you lived
all remembering
remains
buried in your fragile
frame
Bethany Rohde says
Maureen,
My condolances to you on the loss of your brother.
One of the most healing anthologies I have found during this last year has been, The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing. The editor, Keving Young, organizes it by the stages of grief. The index categorizes the poems by relationship to the deceased. So there is a guide to find the poems concerning “Mothers,” “Spouses,” and “Siblings.” I don’t know if you’ve already seen it or if you are still looking for something like that, but just thought I would mention it.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Losing-Poems-Healing/dp/1608194663
Maureen Doallas says
Thank you, Bethany. I do know of Kevin Young’s collection. He’s a excellent writer and editor.
L. L. Barkat says
One of the things I like about this initial poem is the “round and round” feel to it. Your instinct sent you there.
Sometimes I take such instinct and consider what I might have in my poetry tool box, to help it take form. In fact, I might even choose a form poem to do the job.
So, in this case, I might do a second draft using the villanelle or, if I am feeling really ambitious, I might choose the sestina. Both have that round and round feeling. Neither are easy to write, but then, dementia is no easy topic. So perhaps the two would fit together.
Like Bethany, I thought the poem could perhaps stand simply by removing “Love, Dementia” from the end, which oddly had suddenly made the poem comic just when I was wanting to sit with that last thought of “Once, remember,” which for me becomes almost a plea to your mom, a shorthand to say, “Please, for once, remember.”
So many ways to write a poem. Here’s just another two cents 🙂
Elizabeth Marshall says
Villanelles and sestinas are oddly two forms I have felt extremely comforted by, both when I am the one holding the pen and when reading another’s words in the forms.
Perhaps I should go back to them more often.
I gravitate toward repeating, restating, echoing and the word and. Reverberations.
I hear how this poem sound to you which helps my poetry.
Your two cents worth is its own currency. And more like silver to me.
L. L. Barkat says
Scroll to the end of this post for villanelle instruction 🙂
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2011/12/02/i-see-you-in-there-the-villanelle/
Elizabeth Marshall says
Thank you.
My poetry instructor Richard Garcia, introduced me to the forms. I have pages of prescriptive material for writing both — and I have the ones I wrote and his feedback. You are prompting me to revist my notes.
But of course the link you provided will be my go to for this next excercise.
Who knows. Perhaps one day I will dare to share my villanelles. If I can first learn to spell it. 🙂
Elizabeth Marshall says
Or was it the Pantoum I was fond of. There are slight nuances in the repeating required of these 3 forms. Yes? sending myself to poetry class today. Home educating Elizabeth. She’s a tough nut.
Monica Sharman says
Couldn’t resist telling Tania that I actually do remember one greeting card:
“Don’t kiss your honey
when your nose is runny.
You may think it’s funny…”
[open card]
“but it’s snot.”
Simply Darlene says
righto! we need some funny and gross in the sentimental discussion.
Bethany Rohde says
Thanks for the giggle, Monica. 😉
Sandra Wirfel says
Funny.
L. L. Barkat says
Richard, you are generous to offer us a poem about your father, to discuss. If it was mine to edit (and I didn’t mind taking a little poetic license with some of the details), it might become:
Still Life
I remember saying my last “Our Father,”
you dead, arced with flower sprays,
daylight pushed through the stained glass, brushed
itself across white lilies like a canvas of Klee’s.
“Man’s time dissolves in ashes,” I repeated,
as the sun and the clouds conspired to make
a red pulse over a cross of carnations
and through the veins of the marble floor.
No one planned the wild buttercups in that field.
I brought no bouquet, nor did I kneel, but lay
down in your golden days and painted you to mind,
relieved of all your hidden colors.
***
Again, thanks for inviting critique of this most private poem you made public. I think perhaps the title says it all. There is tension here—at least I sense it in the words.
Richard Maxson says
I think “Our Father” is an added dimension. I also liked the variation from mine in the first stanza.
I had two fears about this poem when I wrote it and finally let it be. The first was the title being inappropriate. The second was what I interpreted as sentiment in the light and color metaphors, that they were forced.
L. L. Barkat says
What I like about “Our Father” is that it can go both ways: love versus fear or love versus distaste. Even if your own feelings for your father only tended towards love, a reader could be invited to take it the direction she/he wants to.
I think your fears about the poem were truer in the original, because it lacked the necessary tension at the end and had two instances of “sun” and the verb “pushed” was absent.
By breaking the last lines of the last stanza differently, the tension is heightened. Also, by painting him “to mind” instead of “in [your] mind” the phrase suddenly invites inquiry. Was this a good relationship? A mixed-emotion relationship? “To mind” allows that inquiry to take hold. As does “pushed.”
Well, sometime you will have to tell me where the feelings really lie. 🙂
Richard Maxson says
My Father and I had a trying relationship. He had no Father so he had a difficult time (especially years ago) weighing discipline with affection. Many fathers in the 40s and 50s only had the lessons from our culture then of “spare the rod, spoil the child.” This was especially true for boys. My sister has a hard time understanding what it was like being a boy with a strict, often violent (by today’s standards) Father. He was truly a stained glass artist; he drew the scenes on craft paper, cut the glass to shape, mixed the colors, silk screened the glass and fired it in a kiln in our basement. He always referred to himself as a glazer only and nearly totally depreciated his artistry.
Bethany Rohde says
Here’s my deal with this topic. When I experienced a terrible loss I wrote some poetry that I now see as sentimental. With God’s help, I did unlock my journal in response to the words of four authors. One was Auden in “Funeral Blues.” It profoundly resonated with my outrage, especially stanza three.
http://allpoetry.com/Funeral-Blues
I could “Amen” that. Out of that vein, I wrote a poem that was 100% cathartic. I was/am newer to the finer world of poetry. I just knew this situation was unacceptable and I was definitely screaming it.
I see now that my poem is sentimental. This is embarrassing. (Although I did get positive feedback from one editor who wanted it on his site.)
So I appreciate what you guys are saying about writing out a first poem – like a freewrite, and then perhaps creating a completely new poem that is unsentimental to put out to the poetry world. It is just having eyes to see when it crosses over from one to another that can be tricky. Which is just one reason why an excellent, supportive poetry community is so enriching.
L. L. Barkat says
It comes to purpose and audience, doesn’t it, Bethany?
There should be no rules, no constraints on what we write in grief.
Writing in hopes of getting published or even sharing in a public forum (depending on its purpose) is a whole different matter.
I think we should be free to choose our purpose and our audience, and come to greater and greater wisdom about the differences between them.
Bethany Rohde says
Absolutely.
Thank you for that, L.L. Barkat.
Richard Maxson says
This is so true about what we write in grief. There is a poem by Robinson Jeffers called “The House Dog’s Grave.” I’ve always held it up as the line to walk when writing out of grief.
I can never read this poem without tearing up.
Bethany Rohde says
Do you think that “Funeral Blues” borders on sentimenatlism with lines like: “I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong”?
Maureen Doallas says
For me, what saves that line is what immediately follows: “I was wrong.” That plain-spoken challenge to the sentiment is such an honest line, it becomes disarming.
Bethany Rohde says
Yes. I can see that. Good point.
Elizabeth Marshall says
two definitions:
Emotional idealism.
Refined feeling,
delicate sensibilty especially as expressed in a work of art.
(Need to recheck source of online dictionary).
Sandra Wirfel says
I like those definitions.
Maureen Doallas says
It’s so interesting how different people try to define the term.
(1) Frances Mayes (she of “Under the Tuscan Sun”) in “The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems”:
“The blood relative of melodrama is sentimentality. Because poems often deal with emotions, they constantly risk becoming sentimental. Where is the balance between good poetry and simply getting something off one’s chest? Sentimentality is a knee-jerk emotion. The passion goes purple. You can see that the poet may indeed feel such emotion, but you [the word you is italicized] certainly have no reason to. James Joyce defined sentimentality as “unearned emotion.” The writer assumes you agree and does not trouble to present the individual case. The sure sign of sentimentality is oversimplification. Watery nostalgia or pure corniness results. [Here Mayes references a popular Civil War poem, “Somebody’s Darling”, which Mayes says “batters out its one message over and over.”]
(2) James Baldwin’s remarkable perspective, from his essay “Everybody’s Protest Novel”, about “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”:
“Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.”
(3) “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Poetry”:
“Sentimentality uses stock images or phrases to convince the reader of some emotion. For example, using the words “tears” and “crying” will no more move the reader than “dump truck” will. Sentimentality makes emotion and idea simple and unsophisticated, especially if the poet obviously doesn’t feel it. . . .”
The Millions published a post (“Reach the Rafters: On Literary Sentiment”) last spring that’s a good read. It’s easy to find.
Bethany R. says
Maureen,
Thanks so much for sharing these excerpts with us. It is really helpful to hear the variety of thoughts. I am going to look up the post that you mentioned.
I have hung on to what Ted Kooser wrote in The Poetry Home Repair Manual. On page 58 he talks about not letting the fear of writing sentimental poetry (or “gushiness” as he calls it) paralyze you. He advises writers to hold back “just short of what you think gushiness is, that is enough restraint for a first draft.”
Maureen Doallas says
Love what Kooser says!
Here’s the link to that article (I should have included it earlier):
http://www.themillions.com/2014/05/reach-the-rafters-on-literary-sentiment.html
I think it’s important to distinguish between getting feeling into a poem and going overboard, so that what’s being expressed doesn’t seem authentic. I think that’s what most of the definitions are about – learning how to exercise constraint and use metaphor and simile and sound and all the other virtues of poetry to create a surprise, a kind of “aha” moment that says, yes, I’ve felt that, I get that, etc. And Kooser’s wonderful point to just write, because there is always time to go back and reconsider and revise; no one, no matter how accomplished at writing poetry, writes a perfect first draft.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Maureen, the nuances and subtleties of this discussion fascinate me. Thank you for your contribitions. These insights invigorate me as a poet. Beyond grateful for new inspiration to write. Editing and revising are indeed powerful tools in refining a lesser poem into a poem poem 🙂
Elizabeth Marshall says
I find every bit of this to be “just what the doctor ordered.” Hoping to heal from the “sentimental poetry blues.” Your presciption is spot on. Reading everything you have offered up.
Donna says
Oh my goodness, look what I’ve missed!! I’ll be back tomorrow to read it all!!!
Elizabeth Marshall says
Taboo Words: A Satirical Eulogy
May I rest in peace
at your passing,tired friend
fling wide heaven’s gates
*************
Written in gratitude and dedication to my poetry friends at Tweetspeak
Donna says
Elizabeth, I love that! 🙂 LOL Very clever.
L.L. Barkat says
Ha! 🙂
Donna says
I love this conversation and there is so much here to absorb – it could take me days. Still, although I’m not fully “here” yet, by virtue of not having taken it all in, I had this image pop into my head of the card stores I have visited. If you stand long enough inside a Hallmark shop you’ll notice people laughing, crying, deeply moved by the cards… they will even show them to complete strangers out of a desire to, I assume, be heard through the sharing of the words – to be known, I suppose. And so, for me, sentimentality has it’s place, and the place is at the point of intersection, where the one who reads it feels understandable because the words of one who wrote it and visa versa.
Thinking back to my younger days when I really, really enjoyed a good Hallmark moment, it was because someone expressed exactly what I had felt. At a time in my life when I couldn’t find a way to do that, this was a great gift. To be known, I mean. Proof that I was a part of a much larger soul.
Lately, however, I have had a really hard time purchasing cards that give me that feeling… I go for as few words as possible, or even blank inside. I realize, in reading through this post, that my need for sentimentality has passed. I actually feel angry at some cards that I see. I mean, how dare a folded commercial card try to capture the complexities in my feelings for my Dad at Father’s Day! 🙂 And so it goes… we grow and change and move in and out of needing help with expressing ourselves. I like where I am now – I like that I don’t want other people’s words to be so instructive – to spell it out. I like the mystery of poetry that doesn’t spell things out – I love that it’s okay to get excited or moved by a poem, even if I can’t say exactly why. It’s a new level of existence for me. I like it here.
Maureen Doallas says
“. . . I love that it’s okay to get excited or moved by a poem, even if I can’t say exactly why. . . .” Yes! This gets at the heart of what the best poetry (any art, really) does.
Richard Maxson says
Maureen, I think this is why abstract art appeals to me, either painting or photographs. It is a form that seems very generous of the artist; even though she or he may have something in mind, it is open ended.
Maureen Doallas says
A fascinating discussion can be had of use of visual art versus poetry as form of communication.
I appreciate poems that on a second, third, or fourth reading give me insights I missed the first time. And that a reader’s understanding of a poem may differ from another’s, depending on either reader’s understanding and experiences and knowledge. The latter are what make poetry discussions exciting.
Richard Maxson says
Donna, you are not alone in what you express about outgrowing Hallmark moments. Often I’ve wondered if those who write the sentiments for cards are less adept at it as they used to be, or is it me. My wife and I talk about this sometimes, how difficult it is to buy cards with inscribed sentiments that suit our diverse and “eccentric” families and the feelings expressed in those that never seem to fit anymore. Things get complex the center elects to hold.
Donna says
….or maybe it’s not tat they’re less adept but simply that our needs have changed?
I’m grateful for the HM moments in my life, before I had courage or skill in using my own voice. They helped me say what i didnt knw how to say. They were blessings, and I needed them… so I kind of think of them as old and treasured friends.
It’s got me to thinking that we are all at different points of need, courage, and willingness to risk the sound (or poetry) of our own voices….so we depend on others for a while? Maybe?
And things sure do get complex, don’t they (or we become more able to see the complexities. Sentimentality, then, when we are better able to really see, can be almost an insult and a statement of mistrust. As in “Dear Reader, you wouldn’t recognized true emotion emotion if it bit you on te nose… ” and then it bites us, right on the nose, hard.
Im not sure this firs here, but it popped into my head just now: My older brothers used to pay a game to prove their superiority. It was called “Does that hurt?”. Theyd keep hitting or pinching or whatever, asking that question until finally the victim cried out. Sentimentality can be like that. The writer wants us to feel their experience so strongly that they escalate the sentimental word count untthesame one cries out “Yes!!!! It hurts!!!!” mission accomplished. 😉
Maureen Doallas says
Elizabeth, the thread above for responding was getting too narrow, so I am starting my comments as a new thread.
Here’s your revision:
love, dementia ( rev. one)
Buried in the marrow
Of boney hand
veiled
now
by
your translucent skin
faint,recalling, thinly veined
any vow you made
faded fossils of retelling
rooted thick and burrowed deep
like the Jerusalem artichokes
you relished
love,
cataloged each variety
naming as you lived
all remembering
remains
buried in your fragile
frame
—————-
I like the idea of the hand’s marrow holding memory, and the very specific detail, Jerusalem artichokes, that allows us as readers receive images visually and with senses of touch and taste, while also setting in motion a cataloguing effect. There’s a lot you can work with.
Now consider: how might the poet describe the heft and weight and look of an artichoke in an aged, gnarled hand; what if the artichoke is dried up; how does sight or mention of artichokes prompt the subject’s deep or unforgettable memory; what does the hand recall (e.g., the feel of the root or the soil, or the way the artichoke is cut?); what is the metaphor of artichokes; where does the memory take the subject; what does the poet want readers to know about the subject; and so forth. A short but quite powerful poem can be written, using simile or metaphor, just by asking yourself questions that will give your poem specificity. It’s possible through a single image or two to let the reader know the poem is about someone old, in ill health, moved by some memory jogged by a sense. The poem even could be written from the point of view of you (poet) recalling the subject remembering.
Go back and look at your words, especially the adjectives you’re using: “veiled/ now/ by/ translucent skin”, “faded fossils”, “fragile frame”, “boney hand”. Ask if all are needed, whether you can identify a simile that might better describe and support references to age and loss and keep the poem from veering toward the sentimental.
Heed line breaks; say them aloud. Good line breaks enhance meaning. Know why you’re breaking a line where you do. Hearing lines in your head will give a sense of where lines break naturally and effectively.
Once you strike an image that lets us know the body’s condition, it’s not necessary to repeat. You want the power of that image to carry itself so you don’t have to tell once you’ve shown; you want the reader to make a discovery and be moved by it. Otherwise, you risk that excess that sends the poem into the realm of sentimentality.
Also, one of the most important lessons my editors have taught me is respecting where the poem knows to end; i.e., to not feel it necessary to add a conclusion or restatement, as here with the poet returning to the references to the body (“buried in your fragile/frame”). I can imagine your poem ending, for example, with the words “like the Jerusalem artichokes / you relished”.
Hope this is helpful.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Maureen, more than you know.
left you more words, elsewhere 🙂
WVMountaineerChick says
My father passed away in September 2014, I am the oldest of 3 children and my siblings are not really able to find closure long story behind that, however I am trying to find a poem or someone to write a poem for me that I can have printed with our dad’s photo on it as well as have it framed and give it to my siblings to help get them through this. I am not looking for a just any poem though. We are all hardcore WVU Mountaineer Fans, my dad lived and breathed The blue and gold. His favorite song was Country Roads by John Denver (which is also the song played at each Mountaineer Game). I have tried to sit down and write something but I become over emotional and cant get it together. Could someone please point me in the direction as to where I may find someone willing to write something for us. Thanks so much…
Maureen Doallas says
My sympathies for your loss.
West Va.’s poet laureate, the late Irene McKinney, wrote some lovely poems. One is titled ‘Visiting My Gravesite” (at the Poetry Foundation Website).It’s from her collection “Unthinkable: Selected Poems”. (I list other poems by her in my profile at my blog Writing Without Paper.)
Marc Harshman’s poems also might be helpful. Anther poet I would recommend: Joseph Bethanti (NC). The late Maggie Anderson (WVa) and Joseph Gatski are others.
The poem “A Song for West Virginia” can be found online; it’s long but there may be stanzas in it that speak to you.
Donna says
WVMountaineerChick, I am so sorry for your loss. I can understand why it would be hard to write a poem through all of the emotions. AND, I am so glad that Maureen has seen your post and given you such excellent advice. Good luck – I hope you find exactly what you need.
Donna Saliba says
I just saw this post and have to say sentimental poems are a favorite of mine to write. I will have to search through some of my poems and submit an example here.