Marin Poetry Center Writing Retreat

Meditation on Vulnerability

by Dean Rader, published in the Harvard Review

My son in his sleep slips
into the little boat of his dream

the waves he lets them
carry the boy of him

that he once was
into the darkness

of the darkest ocean
silent sailor of the self

who waits in the water
below you beaten

by salt and sea-thrash
ashen in the night

swim of the body’s blue
bowing how do we know

we are alive if we don’t
drown if we don’t

dive down into the last lost
listing ship that is this life

Craft: Ending a poem is tricky. Mostly because it’s not an ending that we’re after. We want an exit or a pause or break or a crescendo or an echo. We want the poem to lift, to move in the way that reflects back on the earlier lines and changes them ever so slightly. Dean Rader’s poem above is a great example of delicate and tender poem where the last line echoes back to the earlier stanzas in a way that heightens and reframes the poem. With this as my last post for the Marin Poetry Center Writing Retreat, we’ll focus on how to get out of the poem.  The energy of the poem does not need to be closed or finished. We need to welcome an exit for the reader.  

Prompt: Find a draft of an unfinished poem you’ve written recently. Read the poem and make any revisions that come to mind. Your task now is to create three possible endings for the poem. Try different options. Try to find a way to leave the poem that allows the resonance and energy of the poem to linger.

Journal: The Cincinnati Review is a great journal that is taking submissions now. Also, be sure to check out the miCRo Series on their website. It’s a good series of short works.

Recipe: For Mother’s Day, I’m remembering a favorite meal my mother used to make for me. It’s from Moosewood Cookbook, which she revered as both sophisticated and difficult. And at times, near impossible to find the listed ingredients. My mother would call it a California cookbook in exasperation, because the ingredients were nowhere to be found in the Clayton Park Sobey’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ingredients here for Pasta Al Cavolfiore (Spaghetti with Cauliflower) are pretty straight forward.