Day 29: Experimental poets

I could go on and on about how much I got out of the writing class I mentioned yesterday. Not only was my instructor an accomplished poet herself, but she introduced me to so many interesting writers.

Anne Carson has an amazing book, The Beauty of the Husband, where (if I remember correctly) she intimately and cleverly incorporates scientific knowledge and vocabulary into her poems. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I even think she invented the "tango" poetic form in this book.

Alice Notley does interesting things with punctuation in her book, The Descent of Alette. She explains her technique in the author's note: "A word about the quotation marks...they're there, mostly, to measure the poem. The phrases they enclose are poetic feet. If I had simply left white spaces between the phrases, the phrases would be rushed by the reader.... They also distance the narrative from myself, the author: I am not Alette. Finally, they may remind the reader that each phrase is a thing said by a voice: this is not a thought...this is a story, told." If you want to see how it looks on the page, you can search inside at amazon's site.

So, don't be afraid to try something new and bizarre.