And the message also seems to be that this
can be whatever it needs to be and maybe that is
part conversation part explanation part extrapolation
As long as the conversation keeps moving forward
maybe only goes in the opposite direction once
or twice if that’s really the direction it needs to go
but the important thing is that it just keeps moving
I’ve never thought of myself as a poet
for good reason because I don’t always understand
the conventions it takes to be considered good
Maybe that isn’t a thing that the good poets consider
though maybe it should be
or maybe it shouldn’t who am I to say
As I try to consider what it would take to undertake
a poem the entire undertaking overwhelms me
and I am left wondering and also
wandering through my mind trying to decide
if it’s better to rhyme or end the line on a
long pause but then I remember that the Greats
often just ended in the middle of a
conversation but that always made me wonder
Is that even a poem
As I read Frank O’Hara’s “Personal Poem”, I kept thinking about what constitutes poetry. In all honesty, O’Hara’s poetry was not the first to have me considering this, but it is the first that had me typing out a response in kind.
It felt like O’Hara’s “Personal Poem” started in the middle of an ongoing conversation, so I needed to also start in the middle of a conversation. O’Hara is having his conversation with someone, about things that are happening in real time in his life. I wanted to also put myself in conversation, but my conversation is with myself, and it is about my own ability. I realize this isn’t exactly in the same vein as O’Hara, but it felt like a good direction to take.
Beyond that, I tried to follow the flow, an almost stream of consciousness that allowed the words to flow from both the mental part of my brain and the feeling part of my soul. Allowing the feelings to play as big of a part as the thoughts seemed important. O’Hara went back and forth in his poem between his thoughts and his emotions, and that was powerful to experience. I tried to do the same.
One of the hardest things for me was not using punctuation. As a teacher, I preach punctuation to my students. Eschewing periods to complete a thought was a challenge. I had to be mindful about how each thought ebbed and flowed, where a pause might be, and if it was effective to end the thought at the end of the line. This was hard for me, and it took a few rounds to get things the way I wanted them.
I’m still not sure if I like this style, but it was an interesting thought experiment. I can see the work that goes into creating something in this manner. Though I’m still not sure that I’m a fan of this school, I absolutely now recognize it as poetry. ***Edited to add that I struggled with formatting, both in composition of the poem and in getting line breaks to show correctly when my post published. This is absolutely something I will devote some extra practice to figuring out soon.
It’s interesting that your version of O’Hara’s “I do this / I do that” poem veers into “I think this / I think that.” O’hara does that too but it’s also fascinating how tied he is to the physical world around him, and how that triggers so many of the asides that drive the poem. I like that your poem is also about art–a key pre-occupation of the NYS poets. So much of their work is about art, interrogating our expectations of it, the line between art and life, etc. Your poem makes that general struggle more literal as it puzzles over what makes a poem even as you make a poem! Interesting poetic exploration!