In her book How to Be a Poet, Jo Bell advises ‘stay focused on the physical, avoid lyrical interpretations or florid description…stick to what you actually see and feel…Be specific too…just observe.’
You’d think I’d know this, after all it’s what writers of prose do, but I see that with poetry, for me, the tendency creeps in to use lyrical interpretation and move away from the physical and literal.
I’m learning not to do this. I know I’m learning because today when I was unhappy with a poem I was working on, I was able to see that the problem lay in the beginning with an unspecified and lyrical interpretation. It got in the way of the poem. I think/hope I’ve put it right by getting back to the specifics of month and place.
I notice Robert Hass often does this. He sets the poem or stanza up in a simple, often specific line or two –
In March the owls began to mate,
A friend, the other night...
I can’t decide..
from, In Weather, The Apple Trees at Olema, New and Selected Poems
