Melanie Hess: Five Things You Need To Write Powerful And Evocative Poetry
An Interview With Heidi Sander
…Poetry is confession. Sharing oneself via poetry means being honest and vulnerable and that can create great poetry. I have said things in my poems that I have been reluctant to share publicly.
Poetry is growing in popularity and millions of people spanning the globe have a renewed passion for embracing the creativity, beauty, and art of poetry. Poetry has the power to heal, and we make sense of the world through the human expression of writing and reading. Are you wondering: What does it take to become a successful poet? What is the best medium and venue to release your poetry? What are some techniques to improve or sharpen your skills? In this interview series about how to write powerful and evocative poetry, we are interviewing people who have a love for poetry and want to share their insights, and we will speak with emerging poets who want to learn more about poetry either to improve their own skills or learn how to read and interpret better. Here, we will also meet rising and successful poets who want to share their work or broaden their audience, as well as poetry and literature instructors.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melanie Hess.
Now retired, Melanie enjoyed a varied career as a social worker, grief counsellor and social policy analyst. The last decade of her working life was with the Government of Canada in seniors and population aging policy. She is the author of “The Canadian Fact Book on Income Security Programs” (1992). Melanie is now involved in the voluntary sector and is on the Board of a local seniors’ activity center. Through her poetry, Melanie strives to take people on an interior emotional journey while also allowing them to step outside themselves and see the world differently. She believes that through the power of words, we honor ourselves and humanity.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to poetry?
I remember early creative writing assignments in elementary school. My first sustained effort began at age 11, when I started a journal to document the family drive across the United States to relocate in California. Something about “words” and writing them down clicked into place. The travelogue led to short stories which in turn evolved into poetry. It was a subconscious thing — poetry was simply the most natural way to express myself. I was smitten. The following is an excerpt from a poem I wrote about why I write:
…In middle childhood, I had a prized red leatherette notebook,
labeled, “My Thoughts.”
I hid it in a gunmetal grey safe underneath my bed
(and still remember the combination)
along with a rabbit’s foot key chain,
and crayons I pretended were cigarettes.
This notebook was my refuge known only to me
where no one could misconstrue or judge my words,
where I could get acquainted with myself
and record anything and everything (and I did).
Many years and notebooks later
I remember that young girl.
I write to honor her.
In adolescence, I began to read poetry — all types and poets both classical and contemporary — which solidified my lifelong love affair with this genre and helped me begin to discover what kind of poetry I wanted to write.
Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects?
Although I have written poetry throughout my life, it is only now, as a sexagenarian, that I am able to fully embrace it as an integral part of my life. So, my projects are currently of limited size and scope and focus on writing while gradually expanding my reach. Two years ago, I started on Instagram which was the first time sharing my poems publicly. It was a big step to post my poetry, not knowing if people would see it and how they would receive it. My primary goal is to continue to hone my craft. I have set a goal to read the work of female American poets starting in the early 20th century — Gwendolyn Brooks, Mary Swenson, Julia Hill Alger to name a few. I take online poetry courses to instill discipline and practice speaking my poetry. Friends and fellow Instagram poets encourage me to self-publish; I am on the fence about that. I have joined a local writers’ association and have had poems appear in its newsletter. I am contemplating participating in poetry contests and submitting my work for publication. Until recently, poetry has always been something for me.
Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. What is your definition of poetry? Can you please share with us what poetry means to you?
“I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat (A.E. Housman). But we know it when we see it; it is recognizable. Poetry is not just a collection of words. A poem is the difference between describing snow as “atmospheric water vapor frozen into ice crystals” and describing snow as in this excerpt from “Snow-Flakes,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
…“Out of the bosom of the Air
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.”
If choosing a definition, this comes close: Poetry is…“literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm” (Howard Nemerov, poet and novelist).
What can writing poetry teach us about ourselves?
Poetry is personal. Anything I write is grounded (at least partially) in my life and the events that occur around me. When I get an idea for a poem I think about where the idea comes from and why it needs to be expressed in a poem. In this sense, writing poetry is therapeutic.
Writing poetry is also an adventure — at times meditative and at times uncomfortable. The writing process demands focus and discipline. It is a satisfying and exhilarating experience.
I also learn from reading poetry. It allows me to see humans and our world through different perspectives and at different periods in time.
Who are your favorite poets? Is it their style, the content or something else that resonates with you?
So many! Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Allen Ginsberg, Nikki Giovanni.
These poets helped me understand the power of poetry. Each in their own style, they eloquently and clearly illuminate both the ordinary and extraordinary. William Carlos Williams’ style is “imagism” (concrete, precise and vivid images that show rather than tell). His subject matter typically focuses on everyday circumstances of life. Take his poem’ “The Red Wheelbarrow”:
“so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens”
Nikki Giovanni is a storyteller. She tells it like it is based on what she has lived. Her poems are at the same time tender, loving yet revolutionary:
Nikki-Rosa
“childhood remembrances are always a drag
if you’re Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no inside toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have
your mother
all to yourself and
how good the water felt when you got your bath
from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
and somehow when you talk about home
it never gets across how much you
understood their feelings
as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale
and even though you remember
your biographers never understand
your father’s pain as he sells his stock
and another dream goes
And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that
concerns you
and though they fought a lot
it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference
but only that everybody is together and you
and your sister have happy birthdays and very good
Christmases
and I really hope no white person ever has cause
to write about me
because they never understand
Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy”
The controversial Russian poet Yevtushenko opened the world to me. His life in the Soviet Union was so different from mine and his poems reveal the dichotomies in life (see “The City of Yes and the City of No”). His work is unapologetic and bold. I was fortunate to attend a reading he gave in Toronto during the release of his poetry collection “Almost at the End.” An autographed copy is a treasured possession. Here is his poem, “Lies”:
“Lying to the young is wrong.
Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.
Telling them
that God’s in his heaven
and all’s well with the world
is wrong.
They know what you mean.
They are people too.
Tell them the difficulties
can’t be counted,
and let them see
not only
what will be
but see
with clarity
these present times.
Say obstacles exist they must encounter,
sorrow comes,
hardship happens.
The hell with it.
Who never knew
the price of happiness
will not be happy.
Forgive no error
you recognize,
it will repeat itself,
a hundredfold
and afterward
our pupils
will not forgive in us
what we forgave.”
If you could ask your favorite poet a question, what would it be?
1. How did you know you were a poet?
2. Do we ask too much of poetry? Must a poem always have a purpose or a message? Does the aesthetic experience of creating or reading a poem have value in and of itself?
Poetry can be transformational. Is there a particular poem that spoke to you and changed your life or altered a perspective you held in some way? Can you share the story?
I would answer this question differently. Writing poetry has transformed me. Writing helped me find my inner voice. My poems are typically precipitated by a memorable event or experience — both good and not so good. For example, emerging from the shower one day, I looked at myself in the mirror and studied my scars. It prompted “An Exceptional Collection of Scars,” which is about revisiting experiences that shaped me:
“I step from the shower and wipe the mirror.
My face takes shape in the fog.
By day, it reflects my father, by night my mother.
The steam dissipates and
the body I know so intimately emerges:
slim, strong legs, broad hips, skin less supple now,
laugh lines like parentheses, my grandmother’s hands.
It is the scars I notice most -
their sculpted topography, their stories:
The childhood scar above my eyebrow
from a coffee table’s edge.
The scar on my adolescent knee
when I was learning to shave my legs.
The scars on my chest and belly
from a surgeon’s scalpel.
But the scars that matter most cannot be seen; only felt.
Each carries its own weight and history.
These reside in an emotionally dense landscape,
a subterranean jungle encroaching on my heart,
lodged against my ribs, tangled in muscle.
Some have overstayed their welcome.
I have disinvited them and
am happy to see their sorry asses go.
Others are benign now,
I don’t feel them much. They can stay.
And a few are new — pink, tender,
like newborns crying and vying for my attention.
I honor them all.
Perverse? No. Peculiar? No.
I am valorous, courageous, beautiful.”
I also believe that poetry forges strong links between humans. In this way, it can transform us. While recently lamenting the current state of the world, I craved a connection to others and wrote “The Scent of Humanity”:
“Monks ring copper temple bells
in circadian rhythm
stray dogs sleepwalk
wagging tails in devotional verse
I wade into a river at evening tide to wash clothes
made by a sewbot in Asia
for a sick child who soiled herself
she rests in an abalone shell
soothed by rats filing their claws on bark cloth
A bicycle thief with milk tongue pedals past
the basket holds melon and moon fish
he pauses to pick pebbles from hemp slippers
pondering a change of direction like a newly minted coin
A stone carver shapes beads of lapis and jade
draping the neck and wrists of a blind soothsayer
with henna-mapped hands and gold-veined teeth
leathered lips sucking a coconut shard
I pull eggs from a nest in my hair
open a jar of saguaro in heavy syrup
boil mushroom tea
we gather under Monstera leaf
a human tapestry
feeding each other
eavesdropping on the temple bells
the scent of humanity”
Today’s world needs so much healing. Can you help articulate how poetry can help us heal?
Poetry has therapeutic powers both for the reader and the poet. Poetry helps us explore existential questions. It can help us connect to our own emotions and realize that we are not alone. It can be reassuring to know that others have had similar experiences.
Poetry also speaks to a larger collective and cultural consciousness. In this way, poetry is an essential part of recording our human story. It can challenge the way we see the world and hopefully bring us closer together. We should read poetry in a quiet corner and also shout it from the rooftops.
We’d like to learn more about your poetry and writing. How would you describe yourself as a poet? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style or main message?
My pen is my paintbrush. I hope my poems read like snapshots that zoom in on life’s moments and experiences. Imagery and detail are everything. I use clear, sharp language. I often employ metaphors. I want my poetry to be straightforward and relatable, like talking (with more flair) Sometimes I am deliberately less transparent, mixing reality with a gauzy dreamy quality, fanciful yet somehow still making sense. I like finding just the right word or phrase to convey what I hope to express. Sometimes a poem comes quickly (although it has usually been percolating for a while), but it typically comes over a period of days or weeks. I can spend a lot of time wrestling with choosing just the right word. And I like the challenge of knowing when to declare it finished, when I have arrived at the point where I need to let it go as is. I do not want to make a reader work too hard to relate to what I am saying. It is so rewarding when someone says they like a poem and that it resonates for them. It achieves a connection. I prefer free verse to predetermined formats, although I love haiku and plan to write more of it. This is a four-stanza haiku that exemplifies my style:
“Words are my tattoos
Inked in sinew, bred in bone
etchings of my life
Words are my witness
scored in skin like furrowed fields
so you might know me
Words are my timeline
stitched in the palms of my hands
proof that I have lived
Words are my beacon
Focused on the North Star so
I might know you too
What do you hope to achieve with your poetry?
I hope people eagerly jump into the poem and get excited. I want to take them on a journey that grabs and holds them from the first line until the end. It is wonderful if my poetry elicits a reaction: emotion, contemplation, recognition.
Occasionally, I will create a poem that seeks to inform and make people think by reflecting on monumental current events. For example, I wrote this after the passage of the 2021 Texas abortion law (called “the Heartbeat Bill”):
“The Gilead Council
in shadow and robes
brands our fertile mounds
Hangs its bloody bounty
like Texas BBQ
We are fugitives now
hiding in piney woods and crawfish ponds
poised to rise and pounce.”
In your opinion and from your experience, what are 3 things everyone can learn from poetry?
1. Poetry is an unbreakable thread that connects humankind throughout history. As the poet John Burnside said: “Poetry is central to our culture, and that it is capable of being the most powerful and transformative of the arts.”
2. Poetry takes us on a journey inside ourselves while also allowing us to step outside ourselves and enter someone else’s world.
3. The power and beauty of words. As author Vern Kousky points out: “Language becomes practical rather than fanciful, and we may start to think of words not as amusing sounds we make but rather as tools we can put to use. While it’s true this practical side of language has great power, it also has limits. Reading and writing poetry allows us to explore what lies beyond these limits, to remind ourselves that language is not just something we learn; it’s something we actively take part in making.”
Based on your own experience and success, what are the “five things a poet needs to know to create beautiful and evocative poetry?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
a) Poetry is confession. Sharing oneself via poetry means being honest and vulnerable and that can create great poetry. I have said things in my poems that I have been reluctant to share publicly.
b) Poetry need not always be “beautiful.” By choosing the right words, a poem can beautifully portray sadness, grief, trauma, the ugliness in the world.
c) There are few new subjects to write about. Nonetheless, even when others have written about a subject (many times over), a poet writes about it from their own perspective and in their authentic voice, it can be fresh and pleasing.
d) Writing a poem for the first time is frightening and freeing. It is an exhilarating experience.
e) Beautiful and evocative poetry can stem from many sources. Engage your emotions by recording dreams, listening to your favorite music, watch a beloved movie, think about wonderful moments in your life, talk to a loved one, take a solitary walk. For example, I wrote this after a long walk on a rainy day:
Forward
“She turns to look back on roads traveled.
Through wasteland and fertile soil,
raging rivers and peaceful streams,
charred woods and poppy fields
monasteries and cemeteries.
There is no way back.
With each new fork there is a comma, a question mark, an exclamation point!
There is no way back. Only forward in well-worn shoes.”
If you were to encourage others to write poetry, what would you tell them?
1. Writing poetry becomes easier with practice.
2. You may initially struggle to a poem. Sometimes it is easier not to think about the structure right away or finding the right words. Just write and then piece it together. I often do a two-minute exercise in which I write without allowing my pen to leave the paper. This process forces me to “declutter” my mind and focus, often resulting in an idea for a poem. Here is an excerpt from a poem that emerged from this practice:
…Writing releases artifacts and bone fragments -
like hosting a garage sale,
making room in the cupboards,
airing out musty boxes, leaving my baggage at the door.
Until it collects again.
3. Read poetry. Experiment with writing different styles of poetry. Play with poetic devices: alliteration, repetition, metaphor, rhythm and rhyme, analogy, allusion. These techniques bring words to life.
4. Observe!
5. Write about what you know. When I try to draft a poem that is outside of my personal experience it is never as authentic or convincing. Also, try not to write what you think a poem should be like. This can happen if you use language/techniques/mechanics that you think represents “real” poetry.
6. Edit and polish.
7. Do not give up. There is no such thing as writer’s block. For me dry spells just mean that I am engaged in other things or the idea for a poem has not sufficiently emerged yet. Dry spells always end.
8. If you have trouble coming up with a subject, try using a poetry prompt. Pick a passage from a book, randomly select a word in the dictionary, choose an object you have at home or can see out the window.
9. Write one line. This gets the creative juices flowing and could end up being your title, your opening line, or your last line.
How would you finish these three sentences:
Poetry teaches: …humility
Poetry heals: …by connecting us to humanity
To be a poet: …you must really want to be a poet
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment , Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)
I cannot choose just one!
a) Matt Black: his remarkable photo essay, American Geography (2021) is based on a five-year-journey across the United States. He covered more than 100,000 miles to document hidden and neglected America.
b) Bill Maher: he is so damn funny. He is a brilliant stand-up comedian that uses his razor-sharp insight and humor to provide much-needed mega doses of socio-political commentary.
c) Adele and Barbra Streisand: the ultimate private breakfast or lunch or girls’ night out!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
For now, they can find me on Instagram: @alohamonkey
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
