Poem in process By Kei Miller
2 Mar 2010 - 11:23 PM

I've been toying with this idea for the past week - to present to you a poem in process. I always chicken out. Sharing a poem in its early stages is not something we should generally do - they often start out quite badly, and with me I often take several wrong turns to begin with before I figure out what it is I really want to do, and what is it the poem can do. But maybe this process might be useful to some of the students who pass through - to see some of the ideas I try out and then discard...

11 comments latest by Triz Top Poet By Kei Miller
15 Feb 2010 - 02:26 AM

I have these little guilty pleasures – shows that I occasionally watch obsessively. My latest phase is the American reality TV show, Top Chef where some rather accomplished chefs compete week by week, creating dishes, all in the hopes to walk away with the Top Chef title in the end. It’s fascinating stuff, but perhaps most worryingly is how it changes my cooking habits – and the number of pretensions and affectations it produces in me – like donating all my round plates to charity, because I suddenly found them clichéd, and spending an inordinate time plating my dinner before eating it, trying to get that perfect swoosh of the sauce on the side of the plate.

5 comments latest by Kei Why I can't write a poem for Haiti By Kei Miller
27 Jan 2010 - 03:31 AM

I've watched the clips of the Hope for Haiti concert, and I realize that in times like these, artists give what they can give best - their art. So I've seen paintings on sale, and I've heard singles on the radio, and my own inbox is already full, requests from one organization or another asking for a story, or a poem for Haiti. Bless them. I trust they will get their poems, but not from me. I can't write an earthquake poem, just as I couldn't write a tsunami poem, or a 9-11 poem, or any poem that tries to stand side by side with a grieving world, reaching over to dab its eyes. Perhaps I think such poems are unnecessary.

8 comments latest by nicky But I find poetry boring! By Kei Miller
17 Jan 2010 - 05:21 PM

This is not something I thought I was ever allowed to admit - that I find a good deal of poetry insufferably boring! And I'm not just talking about some of the ill-considered doggerel that's out there; I'm talking about poems that everyone else seems to agree is good, and excellent, and the very best. So I worry that if I admit the truth that I don't particularly like Pound or Donne or any number of poets, living or dead, that I really am supposed to like, that my own license will be revoked; that they will think I have no taste, or that I am a fraud.

25 comments latest by Si What kind of poet am I? By Kei Miller
14 Jan 2010 - 03:33 AM

I am mostly happy to be introduced as a Jamaican poet. This confuses and even worries some people - not the fact that I am a Jamaican poet but that I am happy to be introduced as one.

3 comments latest by David

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