LITR 3731: Creative Writing

Loose Words
by
Liz Little

Before, raw sounds are formed fleshy in the pump
After, spun out into lines. In between, firm
and fluid telling pieces that jelly in the mouth and go
stringy and hand dyed.

Unraveled strands of utterance from warbling
weight to wire pull toward meaningful material
while terse Reason manages speeding string
with fingers pressed burning on the reel.

Colliding conversation, a blurt
from the cranking-spool snags blue-printed
twine, as chaos hooks on to tightening threads
and exposes slim patterns divine.

Rapid pump become a spout
Spilling meaning once absorbed.
As a creator it set the motion,
but cannot hold the form, now running

outside the intimate rhythm supplying loose
action on its own. While ready ears take up the slack
of vibrating worded line, uncertain tongue longs
to spin the offer back with a retraction, precise and fine.

To Liz: Why did you remove the fourth stanza?
A blurt from the cranking spool springs
Flat with shaking gills on open ground
Like a fish whose air is low
And hopes to breathe beyond.

Liz responded that she removed the stanza because she didn’t feel it was as clear and connected as she wished it to be. She said she revised this part after she wrote a synopsis of each stanza; she felt it helped her see where revision was potentially needed.

To Liz: You successfully use a lot of alliteration in your poem. Why did you change “spilling, sipping, spilling” in the 4th stanza to “rapid pump becomes a spout”?

Liz responded that it was changed for the same reason that she removed stanza 4—for clarity.

To the class: The original version reads “my heart…” in the first line and the revised reads “in the pump”—does heart vs. pump lend a different connotation? Which do you prefer and why?

The class responded that there was some confusion about the meaning of pump—some read it as the heart and others as the throat (as the origin of words).

Overall it was agreed that this is a very dense poem and needs to be read slowly. Each stanza is loaded with metaphor and meaning.

To the class: In one of our emails Liz wrote “the book also suggests that writing is more process than inspiration. I think this is a problem that beginning writers like me have to get over. I want wild beauty, emotion and inspiration more than focused technique and process but it doesn’t really work that way.” Do you agree with this assessment? Does technique and process bleed the inspiration and beauty from a poem?