fashion and poetry!
Coco Chanel once said something like "put everything on and then take one thing off," which seems to be quite a good bit of fashion advice.
Does this work for poems as well? I think it might. I see lots of people writing past the ends of their poems.
So I'm saying it now. Write your whole poem, and then take the last thing (stanza, line, etc) off.
posted by Malia Jackson @ 11:33 PM
2 Comments:
Mademoiselle Chanel also said "A woman can be over dressed, never over elegant". I'm not a poet, but this is in the same vein as the other quote and could also perhaps be applied to writing poetry. ~LJQ
LQJ-
Hey! How goes? I love that you responded to my fashion post. we need to catch up.
I think you're right that over-dressed vs. over-elegant is something one can think about in writing. I'm going to think some more about what those might look like.
Also, I'm taking a class in 19th century mystery novels this semester that I think you'd dig...
G-
I don't think it's a question of how many layers, I think it's a question of knowing when you're done. I'm thinking of this especially in terms of short poems like you might see in, say, a literary journal.
What's really disappointing to me is a poem that has a last line/stanza that "sums up" everything that came previously or makes the point/argument of the poem overly clear. It sort of makes the poem fold back in on itself when what you really want is for the poet to put the poem in a bottle and set it adrift.
It's like if you had this outfit with all these crazy colors and then you added a scarf/pin/hat/other accessory that ties together all of the colors exactly. Better to be a little messy about it and have at least one color in the outfit that is a little mysterious.
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