What Can We Steal From Andrew Brogdon’s “WE’D LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER AS THE NEW FACE OF OUR INFANT CLOTHING LINE”?

Title of Work and its Form: “WE’D LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER AS THE NEW FACE OF OUR INFANT CLOTHING LINE,” poem
Author: Andrew Brogdon
Date of Work: 2010
Where the Work Can Be Found: The poem appears in Issue 10.4 of DIAGRAM, a great online literary journal.  Read Mr. Brogdon’s poem here.

Bonus: Mr. Brogdon happens to be a brilliant computer programmer-type guy in addition to being a great poet.  As a gift to the writing community, he created Submission Mojo, a free resource that allows you to track where you send your work.  Check it out!  Here is an article Christopher Higgs wrote about one of Mr. Brogdon’s past ventures, a web site that created poetry out of Internet search results.

Element of Craft We’re Stealing: Playfulness

Discussion:
This twenty-one-line poem consists of twenty-one statements from people who are seemingly surrounding a girl who is being made up in preparation for a photo shoot.  The make-up artists make comments about the girl’s cuteness, the hairstylist asks the girl to shift her head, the photographer makes adjustments to the lens.  Mr. Brogdon’s shrewdest turn comes in the last line:

Face the lights sweetheart look at your mother

A member of the crew (perhaps the photographer) asks the young lady to turn her head in her mother’s direction.  Mr. Brogdon hadn’t named the mother before this point; does the mother matter to all of the people who are buzzing around?  Does the girl?  One could also believe that the last line is spoken by the mother…a woman who is only given voice in the very last line of the poem.

Mr. Brogdon often reminds me of one of my favorite contemporary poets: Denise Duhamel.  His stuff is fun and he enjoys referring to popular culture, but he also demonstrates a passion for the music that words can make.  After you read the first few lines of “WE’D LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER…,”  you discover that each statement is related by the transition between lines.  The sentence is not quite over when it cuts, and we never really see the beginning of the subsequent statement.

I was reminded of that old “Miss Suzie” rhyme…thing that little kids do in order to allow themselves to swear without getting in trouble:

The device seems similar, right?  What is the effect?  Mr. Brogdon creates a breathless atmosphere around the young girl.  We read about her in the title and now there are tons of people around her who are telling her that she’s pretty and primping her hair and dolloping makeup on her face.

The best thing about children is that they don’t have the same responsibilities and prejudices that adults have.  The world hasn’t yet sucked the joy out of their hearts.  Barenaked Ladies made an album for children called Snacktime; one of the songs is based on the classic joke:

Why was Six afraid of Seven?  Because Seven ate Nine.

BNL turned the joke into a song and was able to retain the playfulness and joy that is felt the first time a kid hears the joke:

Ladies and gentlemen, we all know that words have power.  Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, used soaring oratory to help convince stragglers that we should all treat each other with respect.  Some kinds of words have more power than others.  Verbs are typically some high-octane words.  And why not?  They’re all about action!  Now, Mr. Brogdon doesn’t begin each line with a verb, but each line DOES begin with a word that has a lot of power.  See?

brogon first linesThese lines have additional punch because Mr. Brogdon begins them with significant words.  Now compare this poem to the work of a far inferior poet.  Let’s look at the first words in the lines of one of my poems.  I wrote this piece for my favorite Ohio State athletics site, Eleven Warriors.

ken first wordsIsn’t it easy to see which poem has more power and why?  If I have any excuse, it’s that my poem is in blank verse, so I had a little less of a choice as to how my lines would begin…but the point stands.

What Should We Steal?

  • Lift a device used by children.  Kids LOVE playing with language; why not put yourself into the same mindset?
  • Begin your lines with striking words.  Even though your readers will think of your poem in terms of sentences on some level, the first words of each line still leave a lasting impression.
Twitt

What Can We Steal From Barenaked Ladies’s “Odds Are”?

Title of Work and its Form:  “Odds Are,” song
Author: Performed by Barenaked Ladies.  Song composed by Ed Robertson and Kevin Griffin
Date of Work: 2013
Where the Work Can Be Found:  The song first appeared on the album Grinning Streak.  (An awesome summer spin.)  You can purchase the album on iTunes if you do that whole thing.  Buy the album or check out tour dates at BNL’s official site.  Here are a couple seemingly BNL-sanctioned ways to hear the song on YouTube.  Here is the studio version, posted on the BNL YouTube channel:

Here is a live performance on Breakfast Television, a Canadian morning program.  They have their requisite energy, even though I’m guessing the show airs a little early in rock star time:

Bonuses: Where to start?  All of the members of the band are fun and clever men, but here is Ed doing an interview in an elevator:

It started out as a favor to Chris Hadfield, apparently, but here is BNL rocking out with an astronaut who was on the International Space Station.  The future is NOW:

As will soon be apparent, I’m a long-time fan of the band.  Here is a “Bathroom Sessions” version of one of my favorite BNL songs, “Some Fantastic:”

Element of Craft We’re Stealing: Textual Tension

Discussion:
Well, BNL doesn’t CC: me on any marketing e-mails, so I can’t be sure, but it seems as though “Odds Are” is the second single from their new album, Grinning Streak.  (They seem to be playing it in their promotional appearances.)  The structure of the song is solid (of course) and the acoustic guitar/vocal core of the song is augmented by the kind of sonic sweetening that great musicians can do.  It’s not a Phil Spector “Wall of Sound,” but the verses are accompanied by handclaps and the chorus is backed by the theremin-esque wail of a synthesizer wail.  (The work of Kevin Hearn?)  Tyler Stewart’s drums are solid and keep the listener chugging along and Jim Creeggan’s bass line is, as usual, melodic and interesting without calling too much attention to itself.  The lyric is pure BNL/Ed Robertson; it’s straightforward and complicated at the same time.  “Look,” Mr. Robertson seems to sing.  “You could indeed be struck by lightning or hit by a train if you try to enjoy your life.  The odds of these misfortunes, however, are so small that you may as well try to be happy.”  Here is a cool behind-the-scenes video in which Mr. Robertson says as much:

Where are the complications in the song?  Mr. Robertson employs a classic lyrical form.  I’m sure real songwriters have a name for it, but I call it “internal rhyme and release.”  Here’s an example with a bit of a rhyme scheme noted:

Struck by lightning,                                                                A

Sounds pretty frightening,                                                      A

But you know the chances are so small.                                 B

Stuck by a bee sting,                                                               C

Nothing by a “B” thing,                                                          C

Better chance you’re gonna bite it at the mall.                       B

The A and C rhymes come so close together, creating some “tension” in the listener.  The abrupt syllables are diffused by the very open vowel sound of the B rhyme.  You’ll also note that the A and C rhymes contain two syllables, while the C rhyme only consists of one.  This is what writers of all kinds do.  They create tension and release it through the use of words and images and situations.  (I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get struck by lightning or stung by a bee.)

Let’s examine the tone in the lyric:

Hit by the A-Train,

Crashed in an airplane;

I wouldn’t recommend either one.

Killed by a great white

Or a meteorite;

I guess there ain’t no way to go that’s fun.

But somewhere in the world someone is gonna fall in love by the end of this song…

We all agree that being struck by lightning and shark attacks are serious problems, right?  We certainly wouldn’t make fun of a family member who experienced such a thing.  But they are extremes and extremes are fun.  Mr. Robertson injects more “fun” into the lyric by twisting “meteorite” slightly to rhyme with “great white.”  Further, in case you had forgotten, Mr. Robertson did indeed crash his plane a few years ago.  By including such a personal detail, Mr. Robertson emphasizes the theme of the piece.  If someone who has experienced a plane crash can get over the accident, you, dear listener, should be able to take the risk of being shot down by a potential love interest or something.  Mr. Robertson (through his narrator) takes the same tone you might take with a child who is scared of a monster.  Evoking an extreme specter takes the power away from the smaller ones.

When is BNL releasing the album?  Summer.  When are they going to be playing this song every night on their tour?  Summer.  What a perfect time for an upbeat song such as “Odds Are.”  Short story writers and poets aren’t exactly like rock bands.  We do, however, have albums (short story/poem collections) and we do release singles (short stories and poems) and we do give interviews and try to promote our work.  If you are a writer who tries to promote him or herself online, think about what you can do to release your own “singles.”  Me?  Occasionally, I’ll write a GWS essay about something that is kinda topical in the hopes that others will be interested because of the work being in the news.  On these lazy summer days, I will probably start posting some playlists of songs that help you actually write when you’re staring out the window into the sunny beautifulness.  Think creatively to release your own “singles.”

One final point: I made my longtime BNL fandom clear in my post about Steven Page’s “Indecision” and briefly discussed what I like about the Page/Robertson catalog.  Songwriting is a little bit more collaborative a process than is writing a novel.  Mr. Robertson collaborated with his bandmates to craft the final version of the song.  The other three men in the band are great musicians and must have added to the work a great deal.  The song was co-written with Kevin Griffin, the lead singer of Better Than Ezra.  You remember them.  Their big hit was “Good,” but I prefer “Rosealia.”

Mr. Robertson has written with Jason Plumb, too.  Here’s their AWESOME song, “Satellite.”

Why mention all of this?  Maybe writing short stories and poems and novels and creative nonfiction doesn’t have to be a solitary process.  Yes, people already do collaborate on prose, but maybe we should all make more of an effort to be like  songwriters, to lock ourselves in a room with a writer we respect and see what ends up on the page?

What Should We Steal?

  • Create tension in your work and release it at the proper time.  We pay attention to conflict and things that jar us, right?  And we feel good when someone tells us that everything will be okay.  (Sometimes literally.)
  • Evoke extremes to demonstrate more mundane ideas.  Yes, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is about aliens making contact with humans.  That’s not likely to happen in real life, but this extreme can help a person understand how to deal with in-laws.  You will never, ever find yourself in the dying Apollo 13 command module.  Reading about the mission (or watching the Ron Howard movie) can help you figure out your own much more mundane problems.
  • Release “singles” to show people what you are about and to gain attention for your whole body of work.  Now that you’ve heard “Odds Are,” don’t you want to hear the whole album?
  • Sit down with another writer and pound out a short short or a poem.  Who knows what will happen?
Twitt