Sketchbooking Toward Poetry (part II)

Poetry as an art of everything.

The feeling of a cancelled flight. By @vievesimon

In my last missive, I described two approaches to keeping a poetry sketchbook:

1. The Overheard

2. The Learned

I also went briefly into the difference—to me—between a sketchbook and a journal. Here’s a quick review:

I prefer the word “sketchbook” because it carries with it a reminder to maintain a multidisciplinary—and multisensory—openness.

Poetry, like journalism or fiction, is not a niche art. Poetry is an art of everything. And so everything is potential material.

Here is another approach to making entries in your poetry sketchbook:

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3. The Felt

My job didn’t entail these duties (whatever they are) but this is an accurate depiction of how it felt.

Any feeling I experience tends to involve complex layers, simultaneities, contradictions, and pulses—interruptions; bumpy juxtapositions. In my experience, a feeling is much like any one of us—a living, evolving, baffling, yet powerful being.

And one sign of an effective poem is if it helps the reader feel something. To essentially embody a feeling—sometimes simply, sometimes in all its entangled glory.

So as poets honing our craft, it makes sense to take the time to rigorously—or at least frequently—consciously examine the phenomenon of feelings. What are they made of? What do they look like? Where do they live? Who invokes them? Who catches them? Who releases them? What are their powers? What do we and our feelings want from each other?

A poetry sketchbook is a great venue for this interrogative practice. Try making a regular habit of noting down a list of all the feelings you’re experiencing (emotional and physical) in a given moment. You might be surprised by the sheer breadth—maybe I’m an extra-sappy person, but I’ve often filled a full page with a bulleted list of what I’m currently feeling.

When you note your feelings down, use adjectives (tired, cross) and nouns (pain, joy) in your list, but also try similes (I feel like I’m a hidden acorn) and metaphors (I am a broody mare). Collect others’ words—find a quote or passage or line of poetry each day that expresses your feelings.

A song lyric from R.E.M. gets tacky. By @vievesimon

Go beyond words and get visual. Make a quick doodle of how you feel. Paste in a cut-out from a magazine (or a whole collage) that hints at your feelings. Sketch a set of objects that represent a pantheon of feelings (eg. self-portrait as a rock collection?). Take a snapshot of a scene or a still life. Make an almighty scribble…or puddle of wine.

Don’t worry, it’s just wine—precise, detailed, and labeled as it may be. By @vievesimon

And you can move out of yourself—try considering what another person, character, or pet might be feeling (or might have felt historically, or within the narrative of a book). Make a private attempt to imagine how they might describe their feelings.

How to use this sketchbooking practice in your poetry:

• Go through a poem you’re revising and see if there is any material from one of your lists that you could use as a replacement for a less evocative word.

• Mirror back what you’ve created: Use any sketches, scribbles, or collages you make to write an ekphrastic poem (a poem that describes or interprets a work of art).

• Put together a patchwork poem using only similes and metaphors lifted from your lists of feelings.

• Create a persona poem about someone’s imagined feelings.

A sad feeling from a 2007 poetry sketchbook.

Up Next:

In part 3 of this multi-part series on approaches to poetry sketchbooking, I dive into:

• The Discussed

• The Thought

• The Seen

• The Dreamt

• Play

As ever, I’d love to hear from you, in the comments or by email at lullabiesalarms@gmail.com.