While reading Brenda Shaughnessy’s Human Dark with Sugar, one of the first things I noticed about her poems was her use of declarative language. For example, instead of writing something like “mortification bloomed in my cheeks like red fireworks across a night sky,” or something similarly cheesy, Shaughnessy plainly states, “I was mortified, really lost” (63). She also uses repetition in order to emphasize or enhance this openness, a technique she often uses to counteract her use of abstractions, such as in her poem “Replaceable until You’re Not” (37).
Although I focused on implementing these techniques in my own poem, I also tried using one of her poems as a guide. I had done something similar when I wrote my poems after Calvocoressi and O’Rourke, which were my best response poems thus far, so I figured, why not? Doing this for my Shaughnessy poem worked well in some ways, but not so great in others.
I originally focused on her apology poems, because I loved the juxtaposition of saying I’m sorry, which places the blame outside oneself, and I apologize in which the self takes responsibility. After playing around with a few different ideas, I had a hard time actually imitating Shaughnessy’s plainspoken style while avoiding a pretentious or cheesy tone. This revealed how difficult it was to mimic her style.
Unlike Mann or Duhamel’s styles, which focused on form and diction, Shaughnessy’s writing style was more about syntax and the use of key phrases. Instead of using long, descriptive sentences, Shaughnessy’s honest writing was more about being brief and direct. She wrote “I’m angry,” instead of “my blood boiled,” “I’m the one in charge here,” instead of “I’m the general to this army” (3, 12). Her style focused on simple subject-verb-adjective sentences in which she was the subject and her state of being was the adjective (e.g. angry, mortified, etc.). This gave me less freedom in just starting a poem and running with it. I had to pay close attention to make sure I didn’t default to my ambiguous descriptions and long, flowery writing.
As a result, I focused more on using one of her poems as an outline, rather than a simple guide, so I chose her first poem, “I’m Over the Moon,” which had a straight forward structure of couplets. I began writing this poem by thinking about my own relationship to the moon. Shaughnessy’s speaker describes how she doesn’t “like what the moon is supposed to do,” how it ovulates her, spoon-feeds her longing, etc. I thought it was an intriguing idea, to talk about what the moon is supposed to do, so I focused on that. Unlike Shaughnessy, though, I chose a different disappoint in regards to the moon. Rather than not liking what the moon does to me, I wrote about the opposite idea and how “I wanted what the moon is supposed to do.”
I thought I was doing well at this point of the poem, so I continued to use her poem as an outline to mine. Unfortunately, this is where my plan fell apart. My lines became repetitious as I floundered around with what to say. My directness gave way to my rambling, surreal imagery of “[sneezing] droplets of stardust into the night” and repeating the word romance not just once, but three times in an eighteen-line poem. Towards the end of the poem, I was able to reel in my poetic rambling enough to write an honest line, “I’m frustrated by your bullshit, moon.”
At first I was apprehensive about using bullshit. After all, it’s not in my nature to curse; however, I found that using this word enhanced my directness as a result of my aversion—when you never curse, doing so in a moment of high emotion is when you can really be honest in how strongly that emotion affects you.
I again used Shaughnessy for my last couplet, this time as more of a guide than an outline. As a result, my ending was clear, but still came off as cheesy, especially when I used blatant, end-rhyme, as opposed to Shaughnessy’s subtle internal rhyme. Despite this, though, my revision of this couplet was all the better, even if it still needed work. In this revision, I focused more on internal, though still perfect, rhyme. Because I was more familiar with her style at this point, I also attempted to incorporate some repetition, similar to Shaughnessy’s “don’t, don’t’ feel like the runt alien” and “There is no light under the moss//under us” (27, 29).
For my last couplet, I rewrote it as “You light up for me inside the night, promising to stay./I promise to close the shutters—your spotlight keeps me awake.” I still had trouble balancing plainspoken-ness and sounding rudimentary, but I felt this was better closing than using “turn away/…promising you’ll stay.”
Although I focused on implementing these techniques in my own poem, I also tried using one of her poems as a guide. I had done something similar when I wrote my poems after Calvocoressi and O’Rourke, which were my best response poems thus far, so I figured, why not? Doing this for my Shaughnessy poem worked well in some ways, but not so great in others.
I originally focused on her apology poems, because I loved the juxtaposition of saying I’m sorry, which places the blame outside oneself, and I apologize in which the self takes responsibility. After playing around with a few different ideas, I had a hard time actually imitating Shaughnessy’s plainspoken style while avoiding a pretentious or cheesy tone. This revealed how difficult it was to mimic her style.
Unlike Mann or Duhamel’s styles, which focused on form and diction, Shaughnessy’s writing style was more about syntax and the use of key phrases. Instead of using long, descriptive sentences, Shaughnessy’s honest writing was more about being brief and direct. She wrote “I’m angry,” instead of “my blood boiled,” “I’m the one in charge here,” instead of “I’m the general to this army” (3, 12). Her style focused on simple subject-verb-adjective sentences in which she was the subject and her state of being was the adjective (e.g. angry, mortified, etc.). This gave me less freedom in just starting a poem and running with it. I had to pay close attention to make sure I didn’t default to my ambiguous descriptions and long, flowery writing.
As a result, I focused more on using one of her poems as an outline, rather than a simple guide, so I chose her first poem, “I’m Over the Moon,” which had a straight forward structure of couplets. I began writing this poem by thinking about my own relationship to the moon. Shaughnessy’s speaker describes how she doesn’t “like what the moon is supposed to do,” how it ovulates her, spoon-feeds her longing, etc. I thought it was an intriguing idea, to talk about what the moon is supposed to do, so I focused on that. Unlike Shaughnessy, though, I chose a different disappoint in regards to the moon. Rather than not liking what the moon does to me, I wrote about the opposite idea and how “I wanted what the moon is supposed to do.”
I thought I was doing well at this point of the poem, so I continued to use her poem as an outline to mine. Unfortunately, this is where my plan fell apart. My lines became repetitious as I floundered around with what to say. My directness gave way to my rambling, surreal imagery of “[sneezing] droplets of stardust into the night” and repeating the word romance not just once, but three times in an eighteen-line poem. Towards the end of the poem, I was able to reel in my poetic rambling enough to write an honest line, “I’m frustrated by your bullshit, moon.”
At first I was apprehensive about using bullshit. After all, it’s not in my nature to curse; however, I found that using this word enhanced my directness as a result of my aversion—when you never curse, doing so in a moment of high emotion is when you can really be honest in how strongly that emotion affects you.
I again used Shaughnessy for my last couplet, this time as more of a guide than an outline. As a result, my ending was clear, but still came off as cheesy, especially when I used blatant, end-rhyme, as opposed to Shaughnessy’s subtle internal rhyme. Despite this, though, my revision of this couplet was all the better, even if it still needed work. In this revision, I focused more on internal, though still perfect, rhyme. Because I was more familiar with her style at this point, I also attempted to incorporate some repetition, similar to Shaughnessy’s “don’t, don’t’ feel like the runt alien” and “There is no light under the moss//under us” (27, 29).
For my last couplet, I rewrote it as “You light up for me inside the night, promising to stay./I promise to close the shutters—your spotlight keeps me awake.” I still had trouble balancing plainspoken-ness and sounding rudimentary, but I felt this was better closing than using “turn away/…promising you’ll stay.”