The 'process notes' pieces were originally solicited by Maw Shein Win as addendum to her teaching particular poems and poetry collections for various workshops and classes. This process note by Joseph Zaccardi is part of her curriculum for her upcoming classes at the University of San Francisco in their MFA Program.
Songbirds of
the Nine Rivers: Section 1
My process for writing poetry sometimes comes to me out of the blue. My daily habit is to jot down thoughts and musings in my notebook, or on flyers, envelopes, and scratch paper, and use those words to write a line or two, taking William Stafford's advice in Writing the Australian Crawl, “To let oneself write not very good stuff and keep moving the pen until something interesting emerges.”
e. g. from Songbirds… If I could live in the woods among ferns and old pines, / I would fill my cabin with blue mountains…
I didn’t start writing the poems for Songbirds of the Nine Rivers, about the Tang to Sung dynasty poets and historical figures from that period, until 2002. Before that, back in 1970, I spent hours at The Not So Clean & Well Lighted Bookstore, a used bookstore in the tenderloin of San Francisco. I bought and read every book I could find of Chinese poetry: their histories, philosophies, and biographies of their poets. I didn’t have much disposable income back then; but thankfully most of the used books cost 25¢ to 50¢. I had saved my tips from “Kuster’s Last Stand,” a hole-in-the-wall diner owned by Bob Kuster, where I worked as the short order cook and server. Several years later, as my financial situation improved, I bought different translations of Chinese poetry by Red Pine, Ling Chung, Gary Snider, Wen Yituo, Dr. Pu Hsiang-hsing and Professor Shen Yu-ting, Burton Watson, David Hinton, Arthur Waley and other. I took notes of the differences and similarities in their translations of the same poem. I also kept notes about the historical events that the poems referenced.
e. g. from Songbirds… I saw a tiger dozing in a hammock swagged between two ginkgos. / I saw a recluse sleeping on a lichen- and moss-covered stone…
To write about the poetry and life of Li Bai, Du Fu, Su Tung-po et al, I immersed myself in multiple translations of their poetry. I studied the tones and rhythms to the point where I became these poets, and their poetry became a part of me.
e. g. from Songbirds… In winter he loved the smell of apple seeds, / Of thistledown and spirit weed.
Of course, there's a lot more about my process in creating a poem. I would work and re-work until I could feel the poem mature. However, sometimes I took Ginsberg’s advice to heart “First thought, best thought,” though my poems were neither spontaneous nor fearless. One must, I believe, refine, edit, and re-edit. After I typed out a draft of a new poem, I’d cut some lines and save them for another day; I kept a file, just for this purpose, in a red notebook that I labeled “Ten Thousand Strands.” After a week or so, I’d revisit my poems in progress and trim or expand the lines. I saved my first drafts in a Manila Envelope, because sometimes my first thought was indeed my best thought. At some point, when I got to where the poem felt it was near the finish-line, I set it aside for a week or so, then revisited what I wrote and read my lines aloud to hear the juice of my words, and asked myself: “Does this poem sing?”
The first poem I wrote for Songbirds was in the year 2002, though I didn’t know I was on a path to creating a book of poems at the time. It was a gift that came to me while on a walk with my dog. I was daydreaming when I heard a ruckus of crows in the crown of a black oak that was at least a hundred feet tall. I said out loud, “My head is full of crows,” and that grew into the poem, “On a Walk Late in the Day,” whose concluding line ends with my first thought.
e. g. from Songbirds… The hours leave me. / Dust and smoke in the west. / My head is full of crows.
Another strategy, early on in composing my poems about the Tang through the Sung Dynasty poets and the historical characters of that era, was to not use end rhymes. Instead, I used the second or third word of some of my lines, and let them rhyme or slant-rhyme with a word in the same line. I also employed incantations and repetitions in many of my couplets, so that my poems would sing like Li Bai and Du Fu’s poetry, to the point where each line could stand alone as a whole poem; not to reproduce Chinese poetry, for that is impossible, but to honor and treasure its quietness. I also allowed myself time to not to be in any hurry to finish my manuscript.
e. g. from Songbirds… This bird’s pain is the same as his pain, / Its cries rise and fall and rise…
What one gathers and scatters is windblown, / The way red dust and willow tree fluff hover aloft…
One essential book I discovered in my search for knowledge and inspiration, was firstly, The White Pony, published in 1947, a poetry anthology that starts in the Chinese age of the Yellow and the Red emperors, and ends with the poetry of Mao Zedong. What made this anthology so important to me was that the translations were a collaborative work; there being five translators, three Chinese scholars conversant in English, and two English scholars conversant in Chinese. This anthology included copious footnotes and endnotes that energized me.
The second essential book was a prose translation of Du Fu’s poetry, by William Hung, that I found through the aid of my local librarian. She found copies of this rare two-volume book at the library of Dominican University in San Rafael, California. What made this work instructive was that after each poem the author listed the historical backgrounds and conditions, and the challenges of when each poem was written, that is, during periods of war and peace, famine and prosperity, upheaval and reform.
A later influence for me was the Misty Poets of China, so named because their work was officially denounced as "obscure", "misty," and /or "hazy” by Chinese censors. The Misty poets reacted against the restrictions on art and poetry, and according to Gu Cheng, one of the most influential of the Misty Poets, “The defining characteristic of this new type of poetry is its realism—it begins with objective realism then veers towards a subjective realism; it moves from a passive reaction toward an active creation.” Unfortunately, this was a short-lived poetry revolution, (1970-78), that was challenged through the censorship of the communist government of Mao Zedong, during the Cultural Revolution.
Songbirds of the Nine Rivers: Section 2
China was known as the Great Dragon, and the countries on its borders were known as the Little Dragons. In 1402, the Chinese army, by order of Zhu Di, emperor of the Ming Dynasty, invaded and occupied the country of Anam, currently the northern half of Vietnam.
Lê Loi, a wealthy landowner of Anam, and Nguyễn Trãi, a Confucian scholar and a master strategist, who was said to be capable of almost miraculous deeds in his capacity as a close friend and advisor to Lê Loi, led the resistance and defeated the Chinese army by their military strategies in 1424. Lê Loi also assisted the beleaguered forces of the Ming army in their return to China. Thereafter Lê Loi was diplomatic in his relations with the Chinese, sending tribute to the Ming emperor, who grudgingly acknowledged his kingdom in 1428. Ascending the throne as the emperor, Lê Loi took the name of Lê Thai To, where he established the third great Vietnamese dynasty, which maintained itself in Vietnam for nearly 360 years.
Of Vietnamese poetry from the Later Lê dynasty poetry, I read and studied Nguyễn Do and Paul Hoover’s translation of Nguyen Trai, and the poetry of such notable Vietnamese poets such as Ly Thuong Kiet, Nguyễn Van Sieu, Nguyễn Du, Ho Xuan Huong, Tran Nhan-tong and Ly Dao Tai, et al. The poems in this section are historically accurate, though I used some fictional characters to bind the events and conflicts together.
I wrote the title poem for Songbirds of the Nine Rivers in 2005. It is the last poem in my book, and it sings of the final defeat of the Ming invasion of the Great Dragon by one of the smaller dragons.
The final draft of Songbirds of the Nine Rivers took me about sixteen years to write. This includes the second section, which initially I didn’t envision as being related to my poems about the Chinese poets, (604 CE to 1400 CE), until I realized the timeframe was historically in line with the Ming invasion of Anam (North Vietnam) in 1402 CE.
Most of the facts and legends in Songbirds of the Nine Rivers are historically traceable, though some have been slightly embellished by me to make a point, and a few are pure fiction. All of the idioms I use are accurate, insofar as any translation of an idiom can be accurate. Some of the named individuals in these poems are fictitious.
Every poet, I believe, needs a sounding board for their new creations. That too is part of my writing process. I am fortunate enough to have been a part of two poetry groups whose members critiqued my poems, and more importantly, asked me questions about my poems that led me to new discoveries.
I use poems as a way to reach out to others. I think of my poems as the canvas that shows what I’m thinking and feeling.
Joseph Zaccardi’s sixth book of poems, Songbird of the Nine Rivers, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2023. His poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Cincinnati Review, Poetry East, Rattle, and elsewhere. Zaccardi served as the poet laureate of Marin County, California, from 2013 to 2015, and edited Changing Harm to Harmony: Bullies and Bystanders Project. He has no working process that he can recognize or describe. Each day is a tree of verbal apples one may climb, he is usually up there, unless he’s after the even more delectable fruits of silence. Each day he tosses seeds, each day he retrieves just sprouted words.
Maw Shein Win’s most recent poetry collection is Storage
Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn) which was nominated for the Northern
California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book
Award, and shortlisted for CALIBA’s Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. Win’s
previous collections include Invisible Gifts (Manic D Press) and two
chapbooks: Ruins of a glittering palace (SPA) and Score and Bone
(Nomadic Press). Win’s Process Note Series features poets and their process.
She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA and teaches poetry in the
MFA Program at the University of San Francisco. Win often collaborates with
visual artists, musicians, and other writers and was recently selected as a
2023 YBCA 100 Honoree. Along with Dawn Angelicca Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she
is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a new literary community.
mawsheinwin.com
