A good poetry practice - write in the style of other greats

Early on in my poetry workshops, we practiced writing poems in the style of other poets we liked. I especially liked Frank O’Hara’s homage to Billie Holiday and tried my hand at writing in this style a couple of times. This poem came to mind when Whitney Houston died two weeks ago.

Here is Frank O’Hara’s poem for Billie Holiday

The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Frank O'Hara, 1926-1966                         Billie Holiday, 1915-1959 

Here are my attempts (with apologies to Frank O’Hara)

The Day JFK Died

It is late morning in El Segundo, a Friday

five days before Thanksgiving, yes

it is 1963 and I am sitting in my office

not working, just filing my fingernails.

It is a slow day.

I stand around my boss’ office

with the others

and listen to the news on the radio,

smoking another Marlboro

and sobbing into an

already worn out piece of Kleenex.

I leave work early

with the hordes of others.

By 3 pm the parking lot is empty.

The heat of the day hits me

as I walk over the black asphalt.

I start my Lady Bug, light a cigarette,

and begin the drive up the Coast.

The surfers, still out there without wetsuits,

paddle their boards to catch the next waves.

The children play quietly

with their pails and shovels in the sand.

I wait at the light at Culver Boulevard, and already

The Shack patio is full.

I pull into the Sand Dune lot and

go in to buy some Chevis

and a bottle of merlot – something 

to keep us company

while we watch the news tonight.

My husband is already home. He greets me

with a hug. I lean on him

and we don’t say a word.

What more could we say about this day?

The Day My Jazzman Died

It is 7 am in Manhattan Beach a Thursday

three days after Yom Kippur, yes

it is 1999 and I go downstairs to the laundry room

to fold the clothes left there for days

and think about the notice of my ex-father-in-law’s

death in the LA Times.

I’m wearing my purple chenille bathrobe

that I’ve had for years

and I fold for 20 minutes or so

before I realize no noise coming

from behind the closed bathroom door,

the room next to the laundry

where Paul should be getting ready for work.

I go to his room

and the door is half open. I look inside

and it is dark. Then I look in the garage

and it appears he hasn’t left yet. His beige Volvo

is still there. I knock on the bathroom door.

No answer.

And I go upstairs.

Bob is just putting on his shoes and socks,

almost ready to leave for work

and I tell him something is not right

downstairs

and he stops what he is doing and

then we go back where I came from to the downstairs

long hall and Bob tries the bathroom door and

yells, Paul, open the door, open the door,

and he goes out to the garage and gets a screwdriver

and opens the door and goes inside

and when he comes out his face,

red with tears streaming down it, says it all.

He tells me Paul is dead, call 911

and I am shaking a lot by now and

leaning on the stair railing

and Bob holds me

while he whispers Paul is dead,

we whisper, our son, Paul is dead.

Public Speaking - a new career?

This past Saturday morning I spoke at a meeting of our local chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). And as usual, after all my stressing about it and worry that I would totally mess up, my talk went very well. I was “on stage” for forty-five minutes speaking about my writing background, local organizations that provide mental illness and suicide prevention help, how I used writing to get me through the grief of losing a son to suicide, and how I created my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On from my journals, poetry manuscript, and writing workshop pieces. I also read two prose pieces and two poems from the book. I never thought I could hold forth for so long. In fact, when the program chairperson called to set up my presentation we decided to give the group a writing exercise if I didn’t have enough to say in the time I was allotted.

Although I had my cheat sheets in front of me and just needed to glance down on them from time to time to make sure I was keeping my place, I really talked off the cuff the entire time. Even at the outset when someone asked about Sandy Banks’ article about a suicide in the Los Angeles Times that morning, and the mother’s feeling of guilt afterward, I was ready. I had read the article and had cut it out to bring along. I commented on the article and how the subject related to me, and I passed the article around the room.

I ended up with many kudos from the powers that be in the AAUW group. One even said it was the most moving presentation they’ve ever had. What a great compliment. They also asked me to join the group.

So all the stressing was worth it. But I do need to look into why I go through this every time I need to speak in front of a group. It’s not that I’m new to public speaking. I spoke and taught classes many times while I worked full time, and even now I’ve presented many times about my book. And I was very prepared. I wrote out a script, I knew which prose parts and poems from the book I would read, and I brought along several things for show and tell. Even if I hadn’t remembered any of the points I wanted to make, I could have read the whole thing.

What I keep forgetting is that I’m an expert on my topic. I could talk for hours about it. After all I wrote a whole book about it.

By the way, we still went ahead with the writing exercise – it just cut our questions and answers time a little short. And, I was delighted that this group of women so readily participated and were so willing to share their writing with the group. Our topic was “your most devastating school experience.” Most of the women wrote about something that happened to them in Kindergarten. And since this was a group of senior women, the experience must have been very devastating if they still remembered it.

What would you write on that topic?