As Biespiel writes of his own pre-draft process, “my only ambition at this point was to entertain myself and see what came of it.” ![]() To give the reader a concrete sense of how this disparate collection of words begins to suggest subject matter, Biespiel includes one of his own word-palettes and describes how he worked from that list of words to a poem. ![]() Whereas a typical drafting process hews to linear coalescence and sense-making, Biespiel argues that playing with simple lists of words encourages writers to make associative leaps according to sound, memory, or whatever else is in their subconscious minds, and, in doing so, front-loads the piece with the potential for imaginative surprise. The goal of word-palette-ing for Biespiel is to “provide an avenue to the psyche by allowing your imagination to make lateral, associative, expressionistic connections.” As he puts it, “you may not see what your options are at the beginning, but your options coalesce and harden even in your first few sentences” once the drafting process has begun.Įvery Writer Has a Thousand Faces encourages writers to forgo this hardening for as long as possible, engaging instead in the playful creation of what Biespiel calls “word-palettes”-collections of words chosen for their sound, their associative connection to other words, or no reason at all. ![]() In Biespiel’s view, writing a draft prematurely limits the possibilities of a poem before its true subject has even been discovered. Rather than focusing on how to write a poem, Biespiel focuses on how a writer can generate material, which I found to be both unique and inspiring.įor Biespiel, the consistent generation of interesting poetic material comes from trading the typical “draft-and-revise method” for a prolonged and playful prewriting process that delays the creation of a first draft for as long as possible. Biespiel’s book is unique among these, however, because of his distinctive focus on what happens prior to the creation of a poem. I’m thinking here of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and Dean Young’s The Art of Recklessness. There a number of other books that explore poetry’s function, both to the writer and to society at large. There are a number of informative books out there for people who want to learn to read and write poetry, such as Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook, or The Making of a Poem, edited by Eavan Boland and Mark Strand. The new edition retains the best of this guidebook to creativity that was heralded in 2010, and refines Biespiel’s ever-important message for a new generation of writers: “he way to stick with it over the long haul is to fail and fail again.” ![]() As in the first edition, Biespiel draws on the methods of other art forms, specifically the discipline of portraiture, and applies them to writing poetry. The book made a significant splash in 2010, landing on the Poets & Writers list of Best Books for Writers, and Kelson Books releases a tenth-anniversary edition late this month. Compiled and refined in 2010 from a lecture he gave at the Rainer Writing Workshop, David Biespiel’s Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces is a guidebook for generating poetic material and living a creative life.
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