“Valhalla: blue” is a multi-stanza poem of well over 100 lines that took nearly three years to reach the form in which it was published.
The seeds of the poem were, first of all, the song “Your Blue Room”, originally released as being by the Passengers. The Passengers, however, was merely the members of U2 plus Brian Eno. Hence, later releases of the song attribute it to U2. It is a relatively rare track that is both a man addressing his lover and a man addressing God- a common double meaning of many of U2’s songs. The music is very atmospheric and, well, sexy. The second seed was the book “33 Still Lives” by Anton Corbijn. Corbijn’s idea of taking celebrities and placing them in very ordinary poses- so ordinary that some are difficult to recognize if not for the captions accompanying each photograph- is intriguing as well as the bluing technique applied to the photographs. Again, the over-all feel is very atmospheric, very moody. I found them both utterly inspiring. (The title draws from Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song” and all of this blue.)
But building that inspiring emotion into tangible words on paper was a painful and slow process. For the duration of the writing and revising period, I listened to little else but that one song over and over. I imbued it into the very essence of myself. Also, “33 Still Lives” was already out of print when I discovered its existence, but I knew from the sample photos from it that are posted on Corbijn’s website that the book was pivotal to the poem that sought to arise from them. A somewhat wearying internet search finally secured me a copy of the book which I would often peruse while playing U2’s cathedral-like song in my ear.
The words were stubborn. After six months of absorbing the influences in this manner, however, they began to drip forth- phrase by phrase. Originally, the pieces of “Valhalla: blue” were just that: pieces. Essentially it is made up of a series of smaller poems stitched together into this quilt-like whole. The next six months were spent writing these bits and scraps. Most of what formed in my head was not words at all, but strong images instead. It was as if my brain was taking its own photographs and then I had the challenge of finding words which would communicate these images as clearly as possible.
It was during this phase that I began an unsteady correspondence with Irish poet Michael O’Dea. I had sought him out in the hopes of learning more about the nuts and bolts of poetry, both the writing aspect and the business/ life aspect. In the end, he helped me more than I could have imagined. After one year of toil and trouble, I now had all the elements that would make up the final version. However, they lacked organization, polish, and were merely a shadow of what they would become. I was also a bit exhausted by the creative effort. With his permission, I sent a file of what I had to O’Dea.
He agreed to help me with the revising process, which took at least another six months, possibly a bit longer. One of the things he stressed were to take out as many of the definite articles as I could to facilitate flow and allow for greater variation of interpretation. He also warned against overloading the poem with too many images, a true concern when one has photographs for inspiration. The original version of the poem, all put together, was over 250 lines long. His kind admonitions and careful, thought-out suggestions halved its size. The poem “Inside” was originally part of “Valhalla: blue” but later cut out as one of the pieces that presented possible image overload. “Inside” was made into a poem all its own. Other incised pieces have been further cut and recycled only as a line or two in other poems. There is still rich material in “the outtakes”, as I call them, to be mined in future.
But image overload and an over-dependence on articles- definite and indefinite- were not the only challenges. Perhaps the greatest challenge of the work was organization. I wish I could say there is a method of organization that will work every time, but there isn’t. For “Valhalla: blue”, it was very much a play-it-by-ear enterprise. For that, O’Dea contributed some, but comparatively not much. I relied on gut feeling to tell me when the structure had become acceptable.
After about 2 and ½ years of work, the poem was all but complete. I was new to computers at this time and my computer got a virus. In order to restore the machine to working capacity, I had to wipe the hard drive. But I had not backed it up. Gone were over one hundred poems that I had written and stored therein, including another poem O’Dea had been helping me with. These have never been recovered from oblivion. That episode sent me back to paper for the majority of writing and revising. It seemed as if “Valhalla: blue” had never even happened.
Frantic, I emailed O’Dea. Did he still have a copy of the file on his computer? He did. He sent it to me and revision continued for another month or so before the poem stabilized into final form. He saved the poem from cyber oblivion so that it could be enjoyed by readers of poetry everywhere.
Due to the ice storm that has crippled Mercer County and surrounding areas, the Speaking Out II writing class scheduled for tonight has been canceled. The next scheduled class will be Thursday, February 12th.
Wait - before you hop out in the cold tonight, read this:
On windy days, my angel visits me
