Squaretable Seminars

I.

The twin isn’t here this year, had some trouble at school so their mama wouldn’t let him come.
But the other one’s here with his I’m-thirteen-I-do-what-I-want attitude and a devious grin
that would melt your heart - if you couldn’t see what was hiding behind his back.
He’s the leader ‘cause he’s the oldest and if it weren’t for that it would be for his looks
that the girls won’t stop giggling over so he plays them up, struts like the pimp of kings.
So on the one hand you’re grateful that once he listens they all listen, but on the other hand
you're damned when he wants to prove it and throws a little man-tantrum for good measure.
He starts the fists to fighting, but wants you to stop them before he might get hurt,
makes you laugh or roll your eyes when all you want to do is kick his adolescent ass.
When he’s not too busy being tough enough he’ll volunteer to be somebody’s buddy
for a bathroom break, and you say okay but secretly you watch him as they walk away,
decode his pat on the other boy’s back, gauge which smartass look is on his face,
track the time they spend behind the door and finally let your calves ease to parade rest
when they trounce out a minute later and no one’s scared and no one’s guilty this time.


II.

The next-to-littlest one
is real cute.
Bony arms
stick out his tshirt;
bruises and scrapes
map his skin
like war paint.
He shies at first,
but does what you say
when you say it,
a mini G.I.
John Doe
with two front teeth
missing.
He gives anything
a whirl
and won’t shutup
once you listen.
A high five
is all he needs
to make his day.
He follows you
like you’re his
sugar high,
so ready
to take your word
like you mean it.


III.

He’s pudgy and freckled and sweet
when the meds win the day,
but when the anger focuses for him
he just snaps like a guitar string,
can only see the toreador’s cape.
He says he’s sorry
and cries on your shoulder
later when you talk about ways
to keep his cool, but the rage that builds up
has more experience
than the calm.
He smiles at the dirt stain
until his demons take over.


© Hannah Walleser

it made, your soul collapsing?
Was the sound ash?

The sound was ash,
smothering like a dirt-covered fire
in feverous July.

In feverous July,
your tear-glazed eyes
saw him.

See him,
bubbling over now with wrath
but sincere in youth.

Sincere in his youth,
two small hands squeezed life.
The sound was ash.

The sound was ash.
And only you, blue,
and deadened grass felt it.

Deadened grass felt it
feathering down over shattered flesh.
Shock struck its cadence.

Shock struck its cadence
and blacked out the taste
from the cruelty of consciousness.

From the cruelty of consciousness,
comes the sound of ash,
squeezed life perverting youth,
the soul collapsing and finally acknowledging

him

bubbling over now with wrath.


© Hannah Walleser

I think that a writer’s voice comes through in whatever they write, even in their first writings. I realize that it won’t “magically burst forth”, but I don’t think the term “find your voice” works. It’s already there; maybe “connect” would work better. However, I think it grows and develops and becomes much more visible the more they write and read and experiment.

Persona poems as shapeshifting… It’s hard to write poetry from another point of view. I’m kind of stuck in the writing as related to autobiography, something I should work on to stretch my abilities and look at things from other points of view.

I think I’ll try extending a metaphor throughout a poem instead of just using a line of comparison. It sounds pretty challenging having to keep both the literal and metaphorical meanings visible to the reader. It definitely will help to make a list of the vocabulary of the image first.

I liked the line about similes singing because sometimes a phrase just works on its own because of how it sounds, not just for how it makes a surprising connection to the subject.

I realize that using figurative language takes practice, and patience, but it’s often hard for me to revise poetry because I don’t want to mess with the emotion I wrote down in the first place. When I do decide to keep working though, it’s a thrill to see where the poem goes.

I’m not really sure what else a memory could be other than an image, whether it’s visual, tactile, or whatever sense that holds it.

I like the line about writing something so real the reader lives it too. I think that would be a good exercise for me, to make a poem an experience in itself rather than an account about an experience. I’d like to push myself into using more detail, especially past the notion that a lot of detail just covers up the poem. There must be some middle ground.

“you are gone into what is not fear or joy/ But a whirling of sunlight and water and air full of shining dust/ That takes you, a dream that is not of you but will let you/ Into itself if you love enough”

The part of the poem that’s quoted is a great example of using an image to pull the reader into the action. I was able to see myself being sucked into the grains and living that moment of whirlpool action.

Milky, moldy tendrils settle in together
While the cricket plays its violin somewhere beneath your grandmother’s hutch.
A creepy little millipede wearing boots tap- tap- tap- dances along the wall
And I can’t help but smile at the smoke pouring out the window,
The boxelder bug I squashed last fall still with one crooked leg crossed over the other
collecting dust and stray hairs.
A babydoll sits in the corner reading tapestries from the society page
Where the bobby pins from my hairdo on Friday play pick-up stix.
The air is hot but it’s not a sweltering, humid heat;
It’s more like a spice being thrown casually along a dry breeze.
A storm is coming.


© Hannah Walleser

I’ve never thought of writing a poem first in prose and then breaking it up into lines. I like to use the lines while I’m creating my thoughts on the page. Sometimes I rearrange and change the lines, but they’re always there. I like the idea of the words as bricks to work with – it makes the ideas more tactile.

It makes sense that the rhythm of the words helps create the mood of the poem, but thinking of it in comparison to the way music is written is something new. A great musician knows so much more about the piece of music even before they start playing the notes. They have background information about the style of the piece, when it was written, who composed it, etc. And once they delve into the written notation they get more clues from the author about style and dynamic and mood.

That’s hard to compete with when writing with words. You can never know how a reader will choose to read the poem. It’s a lot of work to make my thoughts try to read clearly.

Purple and pink and white,
squiggly like one of those paintings where the author
smears on colors
thick as tomato paste, left to streak
down in the rain.
Just not straight,
and not smooth,
and not pretty anymore.
Puckered and wrinkled and pulled taut
a few too many times
trying to hold myself in.
Fine and silky like sour milk dribbling from the chin;
slightly raised, slightly sunken.
Ruts or watermarks maybe
of a growing self,
an inside pushing too fast against the
slow elasticity
that had to find ways to
keep up.

Discolored,
much as those other threads of my surface,
but these have stories
to explain themselves.
One from a knife,
another from another knife,
and that other one from a knife as well.
These had to tear open before they could heal,
which they did
eventually;
first crusty with a scab and then
after peeling back layer after layer after layer
a few thin, nearly see-through patches
became permanent.
Gouges and scrapes of
carelessness and accidents
sealed up behind welds
almost invisibly
holding the torn seams together.


© Hannah Walleser

I’ve heard that over and over, write about what you know. But I always want to go find something better, something more moving, something the reader has to pay attention to. And then when I write that way, it’s never really satisfying. When I do take the advice and write about what I know the writing flows more easily and naturally and I’m usually a lot more taken with the end result. And it’s also easier to take criticism because when I know the subject so well I know a lot more alternatives to how to revise it.

"didn't see that one coming"

short little 2 year old with the same flaming red hair
mouth puckered
my hands dropped as that sound popped from her mouth
yelling at me a little
the feel of her hand not there


© Hannah Walleser