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What Makes A Memorable Poem? | Allan Kolski Horwitz     
Wed, 17 April 2024



Why do we write poetry?
 
For many, writing poems is a way of making sense of their everyday experience. But at some point, most of us want to find words that will move others by being strong enough to be memorable.
 
Allan Kolski Horwitz is a poet, editor and publisher. He has published collections of plays and short stories as well as several collections of poetry. In 2019, his poetry collection, The Colours of Our Flag, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. He is also the poetry editor of Botsotso Publishing (www.botsotso.org.za), one of the most reliable sources of fresh new voices in South African poetry.
 
We asked Allan to share his impressions of what makes for a memorable poem. Instead of sending a recipe or formula, he shared two powerful poems of his own. In the first, he offers his impressions of what it feels like to be deeply immersed in a memorable poem. In the second, taken from The Colours of Our Flag, he describes the process of editing and refining one’s poems once they are committed to the page or screen.
 
First poem:
 
What Makes a Memorable Poem?
 
When one is sucked into its ocean by a powerful wave 
when the wave has a rich odour not unlike salt and rotting seaweed mixed with frangipani
when the tide rises and falls allowing for satisfying comprehension tinged with mystery…
  
What makes a poem memorable?
 
When the heart pumps filing the arteries and still provisioning the veins 
when the blood is rich and lean even as it always sustains
when the music of the pump is in sync with a multitude of djembes…
 
In short, what makes a poem memorable?
 
When it seizes one’s imagination 
when one is drawn in by the flow and richness of its language
when the concepts presented are thought-provoking
 
when the metaphors are apt, fresh and comprehensible
when gimmicks and pedantry are absent
when style is wedded to tone and content…
 
Second poem:
 
DO IT
 
First of all, do it; then once you’ve done it     let the words spin out
a whirlpool    dart in from the fringes     allow the flow 
of ragged cataracts to straighten into
deep channels      so that a state of swirl
  subsides
becomes clear and still as the foaming vision of prophets
 
those truthful fantasies      voices   in   rhythm
with the desert and the valley     
machinery of the intellect 
in hand with the rolling tongue telling drama 
  an ancient space   one to honour
         as you 
                            shape and re-shape
     read your neighbour’s palms
                   then love your fresh page
and make your own
       script/scrawl of the living
 
island and mainland visited in
daylight and darkness
delivering merciful judgement       recording 
revelation
 
you do this because you need to follow and leave
traces in the sand 
beside the raging river
 
Allan adds, “However mysterious it seems, a good poem is something radically everyday and always at hand. It is possible to ask what makes for a memorable poem in the same way that we ask what makes a memorable stew or pizza, wedding or funeral or dance step.”
 
In the coming days, identify a powerful poem that has left tracks beside the raging river of your own life. Then enter into a conversation with that poem by writing one of your own. Just write down the first words and see where the tracks lead.
 
The AVBOB Poetry Competition reopens its doors on 1 August 2024. Please visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za to familiarise yourself with the competition rules and to read some winning poems from previous years.
 
 



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