My writing process: the second poem 'This theatre always breaks my heart'
August 5, 2011
I am the member of a number of writing communities. One of these is a closed facebook group called, The 30/30 Poetry Challenge. The idea is that each time there is a thirty-day month any of us could enter the 30/30 poetry challenge where seven poets commit to creating writing prompts for a particular day of the week and the other poets have to respond to these prompts each day. Our objective is to write and post a first draft poem every day for thirty days.
My first Wednesday prompt was influenced by my first RSC poem 'X marks the spot'. I wanted my fellow poets to write a poem exploring the use of symbols and ideas of worship. I used two visual images as their spark: a picture of a road sign 'Crucifix Lane' and an image from the Welcome Trust Library's visual archives of a Bronze Yantra meditation plaque from India dated 1801-1900. It was interesting to see how the RSC project seeped into other parts of my creative practice.
Little did I know that 30/30 would reciprocate the gesture for my second poem. When I began working on the second poem I was clear that I wanted it to be radically different from 'X marks the spot'. That morning when I looked at the prompt that Karen McCarthy –Woolf had posted I knew that I had struck gold.
She asked us:
What is a poem if not an extended philosophical question? Can a poem be a poem if it doesn't have a question at its heart? Can we create a narrative without the call and response of question and answer? Padgett Powell (where did he get that name?) recently wrote a novel comprised solely of questions. See a review of it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/13/interrogative-mood-padgett-powell-review. Today's prompt is to write a poem comprised solely of questions.
Include 3 'found' questions, these can be from the review in the link, or from anywhere you find them...
As I read Karen's prompt I began to think of a sentence that someone had written on the white board. “This theatre always breaks my heart.” I remember wishing that they had given me more information about themselves as well as some examples of how the theatre had this affect on them. I thought that I could use this statement as the starting point for the next poem.
I also began to write an essay of all the questions that this statement had initiated in a completely free flowing way. I decided to use found statements from the gathered interviews as well as found questions from the article in the poem as Karen had suggested.
My only surety was that this poem must be an understated praise poem. However as I worked on the poem I became aware that here was a space to include large elements of the community stories and anecdotes that I had gathered throughout the residency. Here are some of the key things that I would use:
1. Everyone that I spoke to acknowledged an intergenerational aspect to the RSC where three or four family generations had worked for the RSC or sometimes three generations would attend the theatre together.
2. There is a picture in the bar room just outside of the Swan room and one of the gentlemen that I had interviewed said, his mother had told him that one of the women standing in the picture wearing a black hat watching the Rose theatre burn was his great grandmother.
3. Someone had left a sentence on the wall after my appeal for first time moments stating: 'smelt the dust on stage, I heard the actors and lost myself in wonder.'
4. Someone told me that they heard the swans of the River Avon refused to swim close to the RSC whilst the building was under construction. I loved this little mythical anecdote.
5. Some one else had said that every time she saw a play she would swear that this was the best she had ever seen at the RSC only to go to another production and feel the same thing again and again. Yet she continued to delude herself each time she saw another good production.
So I began to get the sense that this poem would be an amalgamation of several voices. This would be a community poem that could only be effective f the various voices were smoothly stitched together. The poem needed to feel as if it was about one person. Yet it still needed to have an interrogative structure as it's holding mechanism.
With all of this in mind here is the first draft:
This theatre always breaks my heart – she said
I ask her if it is the murmur of her feet on stone each time she leaves The way her heels clatter on the concrete floor?
Maybe it's the stories her great grandmother told, how Rose burned, holding newspaper print, black and white; her hat, the flames?
What about her blood linking back to a grandmother, machine peddling Costumes all night and father sawing wood for props?
Or the ratio that she swears each play to be the most brilliant she has seen this year, this era, till the next time?
Does simple beauty bleeds ambiguity, like the first time that she smelt the dust, heard the sound and was baptised.
She cannot say why she sobbed through out the last play on that stage? Or danced a merry jig on the steps of the new.
It is said even the swans refused to swim near there as the builders rebuilt your love But at the opening their trumpets vibrated the halls.
Here was an interesting beginning, where the interrogative nature of the poem set up a good tone and proved to be a great structuring device. I had to get rid of some of the found lines that I had taken from the Guardian review as these had served their purpose (they had enabled me to get the first draft) but were now prosaic, cliché and quite chunky. So lines like 'or the ratio,' and 'does simple beauty bleed ambiguity' had to go.
My research of swans had turned up some very interesting facts/ myths:
Shakespeare was nicknamed 'the sweet swan of Avon.'
Swans mate for life and are considered to be completely monogamous.
There is this misguided belief that swans make sounds like a trumpet but this is not in fact true.
I loved these and wanted to somehow work this into the poem. It felt right that the poem take a big leap at the end and what better place to land but in a modern day myth made up of some facts mixed with a little fiction.
The next draft:
This theatre always breaks my heart
I ask if it's the murmur of her feet
each time she leaves, the way
her heels clatter on the concrete floor,
maybe, the stories her great grandmother told,
of how Rose burned, holding newspaper print,
black and white, her hat, the flames?
What about her blood links to a grandmother's
sewing machine, peddling costumes
and father sawing wood for props all night,
or the amount of times she's sworn each play
to be the most brilliant
she has seen this year, till the next time?
There was the first time she sat
in red velvet seats, smelt the dust,
heard applause and was baptised.
She can't say why she sobbed
through out the last play staged there
or danced on the new theatre steps.
It's said even Avon's swans refused to swim near
while the builders worked, but on reopening
swans trumpets vibrated throughout the halls.
The tercet suited this poem better that the couplets so I decided to stick with this form. I initially thought that the poem was complete, was sure that this was the poem. Then as I sat in a meeting at the RSC with Geraldine Collinge, Nicola Salmon (Events team) to discuss and decide the poems outcome, I noticed that the ending seemed too abrupt. Oh dear the poem still needed some more work. It was mostly there but something was awkward about the last two verses.
It was back to the drawing board. I began to write my little note/ essay to myself to discover the poem needs and to get further ideas. What became clear was that the mythical ending was fine, however the poem needed to take more time getting to the end.
Here is the final draft.
This theatre always breaks my heart
I ask if it's the murmur of her feet
each time she leaves, the way
her heels clatter on the concrete floor,
maybe, the stories her great grandmother told,
of how Rose burned, holding newspaper print,
black and white, her hat, the flames?
What about her blood links to a grandmother's
sewing machine, peddling costumes
and father sawing wood for props all night,
or the amount of times she's sworn each play
to be the most brilliant
she has seen this year, till the next time?
There was the first time she sat
in red velvet seats, smelt the dust,
heard applause and was baptised.
She can't say why she sobbed
through out the last play staged there
or danced on the new theatre steps.
It's said even Avon's swans refused to swim near
while the builders worked, but on reopening
swans trumpets vibrated throughout the halls.
by Malika Booker
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