The September 21 OPA event
featuring Bruce Weigl was another great afternoon of poetry and writing. Weigl,
who has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, treated the audience to a
terrific reading from two of his most recent books, followed by a writing
exercise that stressed the importance of using the imagination—especially when writing
about the familiar.
The poet’s working-class
background is prominent in his work, though Weigl referred to it as a blessing
and a curse. But he strongly believes in poetry reaching the wider public
through organizations such as OPA. He drew the analogy to Europe and other
parts of the world where writing organizations are prominent and often revered.
One of the interesting things
Weigl mentioned during the afternoon was that his latest book, The Abundance of Nothing (Triquarterly
Books, 2012), took eight years to
write. After Declension in the Village of
Chung Luong (Ausable Press, 2006), Weigl
felt he had said everything he had to say as a poet. But he kept writing poems
and the manuscript went through, in his words, “a hundred iterations.” In fact,
he mentioned that just before sending the manuscript off to the publisher, he
gave it one more read and cut another eleven poems because he had just the
slightest doubt about them. The hard work paid off, as Abundance was nominated for the Pulitzer.
Weigl’s approach is like that of
a mathematician. “I like to sit down and try to solve the problem of a poem,”
he said. For example, he asks why might a poem be meaningful to a reader or
what is the appropriate form for the poem. The
Abundance of Nothing features many unrhymed sonnets and other forms because
Weigl “needed the form to hold the immensity of the subject of the book.”
He also stressed the challenges
of putting together a manuscript. As Weigl noted, last lines are key as they
should somehow link to the next poem. First and last poems are also critical to
a book. The first poem, according to Weigl, should be like a map for the rest
of the book, “almost like a thesis.” The last poem should also be thoroughly
considered and the poet should ask: Where do I want to leave my reader?
Finally, Weigl addressed a
question about distinguishing between good writing and “crap.” He noted that he
doesn’t see such things as successes and failures. “The crap is what you don’t
write,” he said. In his view, the sheer act of writing about something
indicates that it is important to you in some way. The trick—the problem—is elementary: figuring out
how it is also important to the reader.
by Chuck Salmons
OPA Vice President
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