Why I Write Poetry

Today's Salad Bowl Saturdays guest blogger contacted me when we at WWK first solicited guest bloggers. John Brantingham's blog offers a different perspective from most of our bloggers: besides writing fiction, he writes poetry. Not only that, but in my research about John for this paragraph I discovered that last month he became a bone marrow transplant donor. In addition to any questions you might have about his current book, Mann of War, you might ask about his donor experience.

~ Jim
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I started out my professional life as a fiction writer, and that’s how I’ve always thought of myself. This statement always surprises people. I am much more well-known as a poet.

Why am I more well-known as a poet? Publishing poetry is easier than publishing fiction. I don’t think my poet friends like to hear that, but it’s true. With open mics all over the country and feature readings as well, it’s also a lot easier to get your name out there as a poet.

That’s a nice fringe benefit, but it’s not why I write poetry.

I write poetry because I love to write poetry. That’s truly the only reason anyone should do it for a long time, and I’ve been doing it now for more than twenty years. I think, though, that every fiction writer should learn how to write poetry and should practice it at least a little for the same reason that all writers should learn the rules of grammar. Learning to write poetry gives a writer control over sentence and style, and I’d go farther. Writers should learn to write formal poetry.

I had the same problem a lot of writers have when they begin. My sentences rambled with interesting sounding but empty phrases. Sadly, I often still have that problem, but I’ve gotten much better because I write formal poetry.

I can’t ramble when I write a sonnet. Every syllable counts. Connotation matters. Denotation matters. Sound matters. Syllable intensity matters. Word history matters. The habits I foster to write poetry don’t disappear when I turn to prose. Those habits are a part of me now, and I don’t forget them any more than a baseball player forgets muscle memory.

I’m a great believer in formal education. I’m a community college professor and have seen the way that education changes people’s lives, but I am a completely self-taught poet. Learning to write poetry taught me more about fiction than several degrees and years studying fiction ever did.

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John Brantingham is the author of Mann of War (Oak Tree Press) among others. He teaches at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California, and his blog can be found at johnbrantingham.blogspot.com.