This week has been a whirlwind of writing on Outworld Ranger and Storm Phase and house rental hunting, culminating in two Halloween parties. One last night where Aubrey and I danced and then threw down some Tina Turner and Barenaked Ladies in the karaoke room. And tonight a silent disco party, which sounds awesome.
Here’s something you may not know about me. When I was working on my minor in Creative Writing, I primarily studied poetry. (UA did not offer a major in the field but did host a highly respected master of fine arts program in writing. I always thought that odd.) The reason I focused on poetry, even though I wanted to be a fiction writer, was that the program had an amazing poetry instructor, Professor Thomas Rabbitt.
The teaching of poetry is difficult, and it is rare to find an instructor who can help you learn to write in your style and your voice and not theirs. Professor Rabbitt was rare and brilliant that way. If you are inclined to poetry, look up his work.
I figured I would learn more about the English language and the proper style and rhythm of sentences from him. And I absolutely did. Storytelling I could learn from practice, instinct, and in other places. Truth be told, I learned more about storytelling from my Religious Studies classes than from the several fiction classes I took. And a good bit of storytelling can come only from instincts honed by the reading of many books, and the watching of shows and movies, too.
I learned a lot about language from Professor Rabbitt, and I enjoyed all of our interactions. I am going to highlight two particular moments of humor and clarity.
Before the first day of a 400 level class which was a mingling of undergrads who had excelled in poetry and grad students specializing in fiction for their MFA, Professor Rabbitt took me aside and said, “I’m going to critique your poem first. We’re going to scare these fiction grads and show them how it’s done.”
I was all for it. He tore into that poem with more gusto than normal. Which was fine. It needed work. And he knew I could handle the criticism, because I had handled plenty in his classes already. The faces of the stunned fiction MFAs during the class warmed my mischievous soul. A couple of them even asked me if I was okay after the class 😆
And I was, of course. And not just because I had been warned ahead of time. Professor Rabbitt was all about helping me become a better writer, and I could take any amount of constructive criticism offered. I still handle criticism well. Partly, I think, because of those experiences.
Which brings me to the next potent and humorous memory. At the end of that semester, I met with the professor to go over my revision of all the poems I had written. (I had already taken four classes from him by that point.)
He gave me an A- and I said, “You know that’s a 4.0 regardless.”
To which he replied, “The minus is there to tell you you could have done more to improve them.”
Then he said, “You know you’re a fiction writer, right?” 😂
I didn’t take that as an insult. I said I knew that I was and that I took his classes to learn language and otherwise be the best poet I could be.
In all that time, I wrote one poem that he said was truly excellent that I should submit to magazines. As I recall, I sent it out a few times, but to no avail.
I rarely write poetry anymore, which is probably a shame. But I think that now that I have been through therapy, probably I should take a moment now and then to warm the writing brain with a few lines. Poetry is all about the rhythm of language and emotion, and anything else is a bonus. I can see a few lines helping jumpstart the old fiction brain first thing in the day.
I present to you now the first poem I have written in more than a decade. I wonder what Professor Rabbitt would say about it. Give me a few days, and much of what he might say will likely come to me.
She Locks Herself with Me
Rattle the bars,
so cute my rebellion,
rattle rattle but the tiny door,
it will stay shut.
Cling a ring to finger and fly
fly fly, but not beyond these bars, little bird,
not beyond what she knows
she wants
she controls
that she calls love.
Food and water and allowed to sing
but never fly the cage.
That’s how she liked me
how she held me
how she loved me,
in the way she preferred to love,
you know, the only way she could.
Best wishes,
David Alastair Hayden
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