What They Taught Me About Poetry #1

Series Installment #1, Featured: Maureen Ryan Griffin

Here’s the first in a series of posts in praise of my many poetry teachers and mentors whose teachings and advice on writing have stuck with me over the years. My objectives are to express gratitude for their influence on my work and to pass along to you at least one memorable tip, suggestion, or lesson I learned from each. (You can credit my teachers with whatever merit you may find in my poetry, but don’t blame them for my deficiencies.)

I consider Maureen Ryan Griffin my first “real” poetry teacher. I did have teachers before Maureen who taught English literature, but none who were actually poets, none who actually taught me about writing poetry. I met Maureen over twenty years ago at a series of free poetry events hosted by a Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Charlotte, NC. Though I dabbled in poetry as a young man, I never took it seriously until my early 50s. By then, I was finally ready to become an attentive student. I participated in Maureen’s “poetry circle” while the gig lasted, then signed up as her one-on-one student for a year or two until I got my poetry legs.

Maureen had lots of advice for me, but the one that I want to highlight here is this:

AVOID CLICHÉ

Yes, I know this seems obvious now, something we all know and don’t need to be told, but starting out as a new poet, I needed to hear it. “So, how do you know when something you write is a cliché?” I asked, somewhat naively, I didn’t recall hearing any alarm bells or seeing any red flags to signal those infractions.

“You have to read a lot of poetry. A LOT OF POETRY. Then you will know when something is overused or no longer comes across as original.”

Touché. In the last twenty years I’ve read about a metric ton of poetry, but back then I mainly read trashy adventure novels—not poetry. It was Maureen’s advice that got me to align my reading habits with my writing habits. Not that my adjustment was immediate or 100 percent compliant. I remember being in one her classes when she passed along some advice from a mentor, Judy Goldman: “Avoid using the words ‘heart,’ ‘love,’ and ‘rainbow’ in your poems.” In a rebellious mood that day, I immediately wrote a poem that included all three of the forbidden words and shared it with the class. But, over time, the advice stuck, and it has served me well.

I should add that Maureen also had an ancillary rule to go along with the “avoid clichés” rule:

THERE ARE NO RULES

But wait. Isn’t the “rule” that a sonnet must contain fourteen lines inviolable? I don’t think Maureen was interested in debates about guidelines for formal poetry, but I do think she was saying, “Don’t let a so-called rule prevent you from experimenting, taking risks.” That was my frame of mind when I wrote a poem entitled “Light Verse,” which is constructed mainly from clichés and appeared in my chapbook, Something to Read on the Plane. Here’s an excerpt:

               …To those who illuminate dark corners
               we give thanks and praise—poets, philosophers, electricians,
               all who make us see the light, rhetorical or incandescent,
               who teach us to examine things in the light of day, to hope
               for the light at the end of the tunnel. To all who shed light
               on the subject, we shed our grace and say oh say can you see
               the dawn’s early light, the twilight, the highlights, soft lights,
               lamp lights, white lights on dark nights and all the colors
               there ever were, light itself divided into a thousand voices
               all starting with Genesis and heaven and earth
               and God, who thought of it first.

So, clearly I violated Maureen’s advice to “avoid cliché” (I count at least eight in the passage above), but did I also abuse her permissive “no rules” stance? If you use clichés in a creative and intentional way (as opposed to habitual or lazy usage), do you get a pass? In other words, did I “earn the right?” I hope so. But ultimately, it’s the reader who decides.

Now, back to my trashy novel.

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Maureen is a multi-genre writer who coaches other writers, both aspiring and established, to follow their dreams. Visit her website at WordPlayNow: Writing Workshops, Retreats, and Other Services. After all these years, I still attend at least one of her creativity workshops each year and proudly consider myself one of her many protégés.