This from James Tate's new collection, "Selected Poems," Wesleyan University Press, 1991.
Teaching the Ape to Write Poems
They didn't have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"
Sunday, February 17, 2013
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7 comments:
Hilarious!!! I can't stop laughing! Oh, the pain, oh, the glory, oh, the ego! Anyone who has tried to write a poem should get this. Remember that English class where you had to write one?
Oh, yes. And years later I re-read my early efforts. Banana, anyone?
TATE
...And within about two months, I wrote my first poem.
INTERVIEWER
Why?
TATE
I don’t know. I was just sitting on my bed in a dormitory room and I started writing. The thing that was magic about it was that once you put down one word, you could cross it out. I figured that out right away. I put down mountain, and then I’d go, no—valley. That’s better.
INTERVIEWER
Had you read any poetry before?
TATE
Surely I’d read some, but I don’t really have a distinct memory.
INTERVIEWER
What was that first poem like?
TATE
It was stupid.
INTERVIEWER
There are various ways to be stupid.
TATE
I guess you could call it romantic. It was not written to a woman but to a little landscape, trying to romanticize it. That was it. But I was hooked, and I knew for a fact that I was going to do it for the rest of my life. Poetry became a private place that I was hugely drawn to, where I could let my daydreams—and my pain—come in completely disguised. I knew from the moment I started writing that I never wanted to be writing about my life. That wasn’t the inclination. I was always trying to create another world.
So I just went on writing. I was in a bar a month later, sitting alone at a table, when some guys came up to me and said, What do you do? I looked at them and I said, I’m a poet. That was it. My identity was already formed.
Ann,
You are not alone! Thanks, I will take that banana! My early efforts sucked!
Thanks for finding this Alon - the backstories are illuminating and in this case inspiring to anyone thinking about writing poetry. It isn't some high flown gift from the heavens.
Toonces, Well, I'd say that GREAT poetry is a gift from the heavens, like any GREAT art-form. But, on top of the "gift" is a whole lot of hard, constant work.
And bananas.
I'd agree there on the GREAT poetry, and it sure doesn't just "happen." Hard work is involved.
I should have elaborated. I was thinking more about people who are just too scared to try something new. That they might find poetry writing to be a pleasant and rewarding thing to do just for yourself if you'd only give it a go. No god has to tap your shoulder to give you permission. Maybe you will even want to join a class, maybe you want to try out some poems at a reading and maybe you will even turn out to be good at it!
I'll still go for the bananas - preferably with chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream and pecans! Maraschino cherries as a bonus!
Toonces: I suspect a lot of kids get turned off poetry in school. It likely sounds like some difficult, incomprehensible dead language by dead white guys or something. But it's all just love of words, words at play, word music. So, yeah, give it a try just for fun. Then eat a banana.
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