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by Edward A. Dougherty and Scott Minar
If you've plucked Double Bloom from the shelves of a bookstore or joined a writing
group or signed up for a class that plans to use the book, something in you already values
writing
poetry. Perhaps you've had the experience of intense concentration as you tried to express
something powerful and true, and time became irrelevant. Maybe something secret and complex
struggled like a trapped bird to get out of you, and writing a poem gave you calm and relief
like no other activity has. Or maybe you've toyed with words to make jokes or to deflate the
puffed up and the fake. Even if you haven't had some experience with writing poetry, you
are curious enough to try it.
We have tried to put your experience at the center of the book. We have tried to avoid making
claims that we have come to regarding poetry or spending too much time on conclusions we have
drawn because we trust that when people play - as seriously as a child plays - with poetry, they
discover for themselves what power, delight, and purpose it can have. Instead, we tried to
construct exercises to stimulate your creative imagination and to foster the circumstances
under which poems might come to life. Our title, The Double Bloom, hints at the spirit
of discovery we're trying to encourage in you.
The exercise called "The Double Bloom" involves opening up a draft of a poem by double- or
triple-spacing it. A similar internal act is crucial for any writer. The book's many exercises
hopefully create a space for memories, observations, and shifts in awareness that may not have
been possible without some opening. It takes time, practice, and (in some cases) courage to
allow emptiness into our days and minds. Emptiness invites feelings or connections that may
not be common or popular or expected. It might heighten a sense of our own isolation from
others but it might also heighten our sense of uniqueness as well.
After having you space out the draft, "The Double Bloom" exercise asks you to write new lines
inside your existing draft, not necessarily setting up the next printed line. Yes, this could
ruin a poem by introducing tangents or junk, or by causing the poet to feel like she or he is
spinning wheels and wasting time. These are the risks of any creation. Rather than presenting
recipes with tried and true outcomes, this book tries to offer possibilities. It is our firm
conviction that learning springs from experience. Sometimes we learn best from what seems like
failure because it's clearer to articulate what is not working. That discovery is worth a
wrecked poem - or twenty! But sometimes, within those spaced lines a new insight might bloom,
an image that completes a poem rather than wrecks it. This new thing could even take on a
life of its own and become a completely different piece. For those successes to happen, an
artist must not only risk failure but welcome it as necessary to the whole creative
venture - from new ways of imagining to jottings and drafts right on through to revisions.
Therefore, you have to do the exercises. Things aren't explained beforehand so you can get
the idea without doing the work. Instead, ideas come from the writing: when you feel a
discovery, you know you've learned it. Double Bloom is designed for classes and workshops
where a more accomplished writer - someone farther down the road in terms of experience with
the craft and the self - can help novices by gathering up insights, pushing attempts further,
and articulating the generality from individual struggles.
That's why, for creative writing classes, writing groups, or individual poets, we believe in
inspiration but not in waiting on it. Why? First off, none of us - particularly student writers
- can count on "inspiration" accommodating deadlines and neat timetables. The other reason is
that when artists gather in a studio, the goal is not necessarily to produce great works of
art but to produce "studies." Of course, one of our goals is that by doing these exercises
and reflecting on the results, you produce better poems during the course of the semester or
while the group meets, but our first goal is to produce better poets. Think of all the time
pro tennis players spend volleying or major league ballplayers spend in the batting cage.
Just like practice sessions for sports teams prepare athletes for "the big game," as writers,
we must be limber and flexible, in shape and ready for when we get that touch on the shoulder.
There are no guarantees, of course, but the more practice we do, the more frequently inspiration
seems to visit us.
The method, then, is to write often and produce much. Painters' notebooks show us page after
page of hands only or faces, sometimes scribbled quickly just to practice the overall shape and
sometimes detailed carefully enough to seem like a finished drawing. In the same way, we need
to practice particular elements of the craft of poetry.
The first section of Double Bloom introduces some techniques that people who love
poetry use as a matter of course. "Spinning Clichés into Gold," for example,
recognizes the importance
of phrasing and wording so that how we express ourselves does not blend in with all the other
messages. "The Poem Purchase" and "Construct an Anthology," on the other hand, acknowledge
that all writers are attentive readers, testing and defining their there likes and dislikes
as well as finding models of what poetry is capable of doing.
Exercises in Section Two, which may be done by groups, builds the energy and creative interplay
of the community. Writers must work in solitude but collaborating is also essential. Others'
approaches, images, and use of language can expand our imagination or habits in surprising ways.
We certainly approach a text created by five or 25 other people with a much looser hold than
something we write, and so we sometimes can discover a writing method or technique more quickly
more with less pain as a result.
The heart of this book are the thirty nine exercises in sections three and four. They are
designed to generate original poems and since many come with variations you could generate far
more. We don't expect every one of these to strike every person who uses this book; in fact,
we always urge our students to find the exercises they like best and use them, sometimes
multiple times. However, we suggest that you try each exercise and then return to the most
fruitful. Even if you do not in July and exercise the first time through, don't give up on
it completely. The more we write, the more we change, so an exercise may be a gold mine in
six months or a year from now.
The final section deals with revising a completed draft. Revision is an activity many beginning
writers resist but that seasoned writers trust and enjoy because they have witnessed firsthand
that it can create the conditions of inspiration as invigorating as the experience that gives
rise to poems in the first place. We urge you to keep all of your drafts. None of us ever knows
when we might want to retrace our steps and grab the tow rope we began with. Also, knowing we
have a draft safe in our file liberates us because unlike painters who regret changes to their
work, we can always print out the old draft. We are freer to take risks and experiment.
Out of all these exercises, we hope you develop a nuanced use of words for their varied
meanings, an attentive ear tuned to language’s musical quality, a purposeful yet natural use
of the line and its break, and a facility in developing a sense of integrity to your poems'
speaker (even a Cubist or Post-Modern piece has an integrity to its fractioned voice).
Along with such technical concerns of the craft, we hope you discover the powerful subjects
in your memory, observed world, and imagined characters or situations. Wrestling with poetic
elements and with articulating what one has learned from that struggle also make more
sensitive, passionate readers of poetry, and we all know that great poets need a great
audience.
Accomplished and memorable poems integrate fresh language to deal with a powerful subject,
but they go further and include a quality that cannot be taught, something that startles with
its truth, a numinous energy.
-Edward Dougherty & Scott Minar
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Sample Exercises
The Texture of Words
The Exercise
Make a list of your favorite nouns - at least five but try for ten or more. Make a note of
those that are concrete, specific things and put a star or asterisk next to them; for the
general ones, put a 'G' next to them. Then mark the ones that are abstract with an 'A'.
For each general noun, try to list more specific manifestations of that thing. An obvious
example is "furniture: chair, couch, armoire...". See if one of your "specific" nouns can be
made even more focused, like "chair: folding, wing-back, recliner...". Ask yourself,
"What kind?" at each level to see if there's a more specific category below.
Next, take a few examples of abstract nouns and write specific actions or things that
"illustrate" that idea. For example, "anger" could be "teeth clenched like a vise," or "an
arsonist waving a gas can inside me."
The Purpose
This exercise helps to develop mental flexibility with words (by moving between categories of
words and particulars). It also provides experience in translating abstractions into images.
A Painting in Three Levels
Just as with Writing Off the Music exercise, artwork will have to be selected and provided
to the group. Realistic styles work far better than abstract paintings, but trying a
variety is always interesting.
The Exercise
Using the same painting, everyone responds by writing a strictly descriptive sketch, leaves a
few spaces and makes an asterisk. Then everyone writes a narrative, a quick story of what's
happening in this scene, even extending to the preceding action that sets this moment up or
to the ensuing action. Again, everyone leaves a few spaces and draws an asterisk. Finally,
everyone responds to the art by articulating what it makes you think about, how it makes you
feel, what it reminds you of, etc.
Share the results to discuss the difference in the three approaches and to discover the
variety of personal responses.
The Purpose
The vocabulary and structures of these different modes of writing (descriptive, narrative,
and explanatory) can be very different in their qualities and effects, so this exercise
separates them into distinct sections. In addition to delineating these modes, this exercise
introduces the visual arts as a springboard for our writing.
Everybody Wants Something
The Exercise
Collect a three to five personal ads, but strive for a variety in age, marriage and family
status, gender, etc. Pay attention to how people describe themselves, as well as descriptions
of the person from whom they hope to receive an answer. Notice that the one who placed the ad
knows what he or she wants and can articulate that in the ad.
Variation I - Write a poem from the point of view of a person (first person) who
fits that description. The poem does not have to be about the matchmaking, the ad or the
person who placed the ad (it can, of course, but it doesn't have to). After you get a draft,
consider what that person really wants. Assume that he or she has a secret desire; it's
unknown or she or he isn't ready to admit it yet. Revise your poem so that what that person
wants slips out.
Variation II - The person writing the ad has told something about what he or she is
like (shy or fun-loving or whatever). Imagine this person in a particular place - his or her
apartment or vacation spot, at work, or in a place he or she wants to share with someone. Now
write a poem that shows her or his qualities through action, imagery, or description located
in that place.
Variation III - Write a poem about the moment of deciding to write the ad (or of
deciding to actually send it in and pay for it) in the voice of that person.
Variation IV - What do you want? Write a poem that shows who you are and the kind of
person you'd like to be with (and why perhaps). Try not make it sound exactly like a personal
ad; rather, try for a blend of ad language and poetry.
It is sometimes a danger to view those who place these ads as desperate or somehow "damaged
goods," and the resulting poems can suffer from a meanness of spirit, so we suggest adopting
a sympathetic attitude toward your subject, even while perhaps identifying his or her foibles.
The Purpose
This exercise explores the subjective side of expressed public desires, an unusual action for
most people. It also reinforces voice and personae while practicing the classic showing vs.
telling principle of many creative writing classes.
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