WAGblog

WRITING WORKSHOP on BALLROOM, ANYONE?

Here I'd like to analyze and discuss my own poem, BALLROOM, ANYONE? so you can see what I am doing in my own poem, and see that I actually follow my own advice. 8D

First of all, the poem and the analysis:

BALLROOM, ANYONE?

They are learning to foxtrot at PS 115 in the Bronx.
Eleven years old they bungle and bump, make it
through merengue, rhumba, swing, then – tango,
and how their feet tangle. Unable to
face eye contact, only children after all, they look
everywhere but at their partners. They miss
all cues. The girls lead, better dancers
used to using their bodies for attention.
At first, most of the boys are hopeless, all big toes,
though the shortest is blessed with the ego to say
yes – to dance, to girls – and take charge,
making him a better partner, perhaps, than dancer,
but never mind. These were children
about to be lost to poverty, gangs, drugs, pregnancy –
yet by the end of the year, they are actually dancers,
bowing to one another, promenading
straight and tall and arm in arm. They sleek merengue,
showing off how well they feel the beat,
and when it comes to the tango, become par excellence
the gentlemen and ladies that ballroom dance
has surprised them all in making of them.

We know from the title that the poem concerns ballroom dance, or has something to do with with it and indeed the first two lines tells us that it is about fifth graders (11 year olds) learning to dance at a Bronx public school. But as children they are not only awkward in doing the tango -- as are adults unaccustomed to dancing -- but face the additional challenge and the embarrassment of eye contact, made more difficult when the teacher focuses on it. Thus, they miss all the bodily cues of their partners, not understanding the point.

The girls lead. But of course, in ballroom dancing the females must follow, always, that is how it is done: the males -- boys -- must take charge and essentially guide the girls, who dance facing backwards after all. But the girls have the advantage not only of being more mature, but of being in a society that rewards girls for their appearance, for displaying their bodies, and encourages them to dance as a way of permitting boys (and men) to pay extra attention to them. So many of them are already accomplished at some form of dancing, or at least graceful and prepared to take readily to dancing.

The boys, we are told, are "hopeless": they are "all big toes" a play on the expression, all thumbs, except for the smallest, who has the "short man's ego" which is to say, self-confidence, and is able to both enjoy dancing and dancing with girls, and properly lead, though perhaps he is not quite the dancer he thinks he is.

So far we have dealt with the body and the boys and girls as children, with ordinary children's problems, but the next line has the reader understanding that fundamentally these are unusual kids to be learning the niceties of ballroom dancing. The reader is certain that nothing at PS 115 has ever prepared them for such study and if I succeed at my task in the poem, the reader is eager to hear what became of them.

What became of them is that they learned to dance, yes, they learned the merengue and how to walk with confidence and even the tango...But what they really learned was the whole polite and civilized world of being gentlemen and ladies, a culture that is most sorely lacking in that of the gangs and drug culture with which they are familiar. As one principal said, the experience, and what they learned that year rubbed off on them their entire lives.

So the movement in the poem is a simple-seeming one of untutored children becoming polite and civilized adults mediated through ballroom dancing. But there is a larger picture in which the message is that children, hopeless children, can be "saved" by paying attention to them, that the lost in general are not necessarily doomed to be lost.

How did I write this poem?

Here is the first draft:

They are learning the foxtrot at PS 115 in the Bronx.
Eleven years old, they swish and sway through merengue
Rhumba and swing, then tango.
Their feet tangle on that one. Unable to make eye
contact - they are 11 after all - they look everywhere
but at each other and miss all cues, the girls
most often leading, the better dancers being used
to using their bodies to get attention. Most
of the boys at first seem hopeless, though one tiny young man
has the ego to say Yes to dance and to girls
and takes charge, making him and better partner
than he is a dancer. These are mostly iinner city children
about to be lost to povery, the ghetto, dropping out of HS, drugs
or pregnancy, but by the end of the filming, the year,
they are actually dancers, bowing to one another,
walking tall and arm in arm, sleekly rhumbaing
but when it comes to the foxtrot becoming
suddenly the gentlemen and ladies that ballroom dancing
has surprised them all in making of them.

Now reading through this you can see that I have down the bare bones of the finished poem and that this time I have been very lucky: I have gotten - "caught" - the poem whole and most lines here resemble those in the final version. Some line breaks have been changed to achieve a different effect and discrete words have been exchanged for others meaning almost the same thing.

Starting at the top, let me see if I can explain what I did to get to the second draft below. I liked the first line as is, so I left it alone. Line 2 I had trouble with "swish and sway through merengue" partly because it sounded as if they already knew the merengue, and partly because I did not like the line break there, setting merengue apart from the other dances and rhythmically emphasizing the rhyme of merengue and sway, which I otherwise would have liked. The unhappiness with the swish and sway sounding like experienced dancing won and I crossed them out, looked for alliterative words - words that began with the same letter - that suggested less experienced ballroom dancing.

I came up with "bungle and bebop" which was a combination of being awkward and...Here I broke my own rules and didn't look up the word Bebop but used it for sound only (!!!) or I'd have learned that Bebop is a style of jazz music and not only that but "unsuitable for dancing." I kept the Bebop for sound, not knowing this meaning, all the way through until the very last revision this morning. (Hey, even Homer nods, and I ain't Homer, I can tell you that.) So bungle, a good word to convey awkward and making mistakes in the same word, and bebop took the place of swish and sway. I also moved merengue to the next line, to be a list along with the other dances, setting off tango with a dash after "swing".

The next sentence I liked and kept, about their feet tangling on the tango, but for some reason, I think because I wanted it to be an aside from the poet not an objective narrator - a kind of twist to who's telling the poem! - I put it in parentheses. No matter, I eventually took them out again, seeing the error of my ways i.e. that the narrator is hardly objective, not in the sense of having no feelings.

My next change is the line break "unable to make eye/contact" which I cut to: Unable/ to make eye contact. Why? Well...Look at the whole line in which the phrase appears. "Their feet tangle on that one. Unable to make eye/contact" is the first draft, with the / signifying the place where the line breaks and the next line begins (I'm explaining some very basic things in this entry, just in case you don't know them...I hate to admit this, but I actually did NOT know what the / in a poem written along a prose line meant.) But "unable to make eye" as the end of the line says something weird, and meaningless, which is occasionally okay but here you have a perfect linebreak built in, with "Unable". You see, if you write, "Their feet tangle on that one. Unable"...then break the line and write "to make eye contact" on the line under that, you get "Unable" to do two jobs, rather than having to say two different things with two different phrases. What breaking the line at "Unable" does is make the mind understand that "Their feet tangle on that one [which they are] Unable [to get]." The mind does this even though there is a period between the words and "Unable" belongs to another sentence and thought. Plus, the eye immediately goes to the next line where the "Unable" beginning is completed.

I changed the numeral 11 to "children" to avoid using eleven twice and because it emphasizes their youth whereas at 11 you can be at many stages of maturity. I put everywhere on the next line for much the same reason I did with "to make eye/"-- to emphasize a dual meaning that a word can have in a line. "To look" could imply obedience to the injunction to make eye contact, but this is contradicted by the "everywhere but" on the next line. Ditto for the "miss all cues" vs "miss/all cues" -- look at what comes before it and see how the "miss" could work with both phrases. It's a subconscious process and subtle, not necessarily logical, but it's there.

I cut the sentence at "cues" in the second draft as it drags on too long, saying too many things in the first. I change "Girls most often leading, the better dancers being used/to using their bodies to get attention" to "The girls end up leading, better dancers/ being used to using their bodies to get attention." Why did I do this? first of all, the differance between "most often leading" and "end up leading" is the difference between an adjective and a verb, albeit a weak one, and the verb wins out, as does the new sentence form rather than the run-on phrase tacked onto a longer sentence. What I didn't like, though in a sense it worked well, or would have in another poem, was ending the line on "being used." Now that I have explained the use of end words and phrases to carry double meanings and do two jobs, I'll bet you can see why I don't like it. This poem is not about... but I'll leave this one for you guys.

Caveat: don't look for this in every line break as it won't be there. And shouldn't. Some ends of lines are simply the ends of sentences, some are aesthetic, they look good, and some are simply the best place to break the line but do not carry especially significant meaning in doing so. I'd venture to say that most of the time they don't, for poets use this technique sparingly. I like it, so I use it more than many I think, though sometimes only once or twice in a poem. It may be just clothing, not the body, but clothing is one of the three essentials for survival. That's my thinking. It could, however, be thought of as merely jewelry!

The next number of lines I simply cleaned up and rearranged in terms of coherent line breaks. I did add the altered expression "all toes" which doesn't quite carry the image of "all thumbs", but has the same rhythm and I think I decide the rhythm is more important than saying "All big toes." Later on - only today in fact - I will change my mind, choosing image over sound, a better choice.

I updated and tightened the list of what the children could be lost to and mentioned that they were being filmed, something I took out of the final version. Took out the "mostly" inner city children as a slack unnecessary word, were they inner city or not? "Walking"
a colorless word, I changed to "promenading" which suggests formality and elegance, and "rhumbaing" I changed to "tangoing" simply for the sake of sound and spelling. I don't like all the gerunds, the -ing forms of the verbs, but so far I have kept them, not sure how to change them.

The last line, "has surprised them all in making of them" I've deliberately not had say, "in making them" because one, I wanted it to mean, "It made a gentleman of you" NOT "It made you a gentleman" which are two different, if subtly so, statements. And two, I wanted to slow down the reader and make her or him think about what ballroom dancing had actually done with these children. In the second draft I slowed it down even more, by throwing in the "us, them". All so you don't rush through the last line and say, Okay, next poem please, but stop to puzzle it out a bit.

Now look at the second draft:

BALLROOM, ANYONE? Second draft

They are learning the foxtrot at PS 115 in the Bronx.
Eleven years old, they bungle and bebop
through merengue, rhumba, swing, then-- tango.
(their feet tangle on that one). Unable
to make eye contact – only children after all - they look
everywhere but at each other and miss
all cues. The girls end up leading, better dancers
being used to using their bodies to get attention.
Most of the boys at first seem hopeless, all toes
though one tiny young man with the ego to say
Yes to dance, to girls, and take charge,
making him a better partner, perhaps,
than dancer, but never mind. These were inner city children
about to be lost to poverty, gangs, drugs, pregnancy --
but by the end of the film, the year,
they are actually dancers, bowing to one another,
promenading straight, tall and arm in arm, sleekly tangoing
but when it comes to the foxtrot becoming par excellence
the gentlemen and ladies that ballroom dance
has surprised us, them all in making of them.

The third draft is nearing the completed poem. I have capitalized all changes. __ indicates something taken out.

BALLROOM, ANYONE?

They are learning TO foxtrot at PS 115 in the Bronx.
Eleven years old they BUMP and bebop
through merengue, rhumba, swing, then – tango,
AND HOW THEIR FEET TANGLE. Unable TO
make eye contact, only children after all, they look
everywhere but at their partners. THEY miss
all cues. The girls end up leading, better dancers
being used to using their bodies FOR attention.
AT FIRST, MOST OF THE BOYS ARE HOPELESS, all toes,
though THE SMALLEST IS BLESSED with the ego to say
yes - to dance, to girls - and take charge,
making him a better partner, perhaps,
than dancer, but never mind. These were ___children
about to be lost to poverty, gangs, drugs, pregnancy –
but by the end of the year, they are actually dancers,
bowing to one another, promenading
straight and tall and arm in arm. THEY SLEEK MERENGUE,
SHOWING OFF HOW WELL THEY FEEL THE BEAT,
but when it comes to the TANGO, becoming par excellence
the gentlemen and ladies that ballroom dance
has surprised us –them all in making of them.

THe most important change I made in the third draft are the lines "They sleek merengue/ showing off how well they feel the beat,/ but when it comes to the tango, becoming par excellence/ the gentlemen and ladies..." I changed foxtrot to tango because these were children who were by and large from Santo Domingo where Latin dances would prevail as the mark of a gentleman or lady, decidedly not the foxtrot, though in International Ballroom Style all five dances are done. So I chose the Tango, what I saw as the most- hmm, can't think of a word at the moment - but surely the one that they made seem the hardest to learn. So when they mastered the tango it seemed they had "become." "Sleek merengue" is taking some poetic license with language, but only a little, saying, essentially, that they merengue in a sleek manner.

Here's the final draft, just in case you didn't see it on yesterday's post. The changes were make eye contact was changed to "face" eye contact, which is a better word than make, but any word is better than make...and also wordplay! THe girls "end up leading" Ah rules! Of course "The girls lead" is better. "To get" is always weak, as weak as to make. Avoid at all costs. I used "for attention." Changed "all toes" to "all big toes" and like it much better. It gives you a better idea of how clumsy they are and appear. The small boy has become the "shortest" to emphasize the notion that he has the short man's ego, to compensate for his stature, ie he is not retiring, but the Danny DeVito type, outgoig and extroverted.

Other changes, small but important: I didn't want the "perhaps" to end the line, implying that he was not a better partner, so I added the rest of the sentence, since it really goes with the second half. Changed the "But at the end of the year" to "Yet..." and the "But when it comes to the tango" to "And when it ..." Try them out with the "but" and see how it changes the meaning. I prefer the meaning that you get with the changes. Also, it avoids the repetition of "but" three times.

BALLROOM, ANYONE?

They are learning to foxtrot at PS 115 in the Bronx.
Eleven years old they bungle and bump, make it
through merengue, rhumba, swing, then – tango,
and how their feet tangle. Unable to
face eye contact, only children after all, they look
everywhere but at their partners. They miss
all cues. The girls lead, better dancers
used to using their bodies for attention.
At first, most of the boys are hopeless, all big toes,
though the shortest is blessed with the ego to say
yes – to dance, to girls – and take charge,
making him a better partner, perhaps, than dancer,
but never mind. These were children
about to be lost to poverty, gangs, drugs, pregnancy –
yet by the end of the year, they are actually dancers,
bowing to one another, promenading
straight and tall and arm in arm. They sleek merengue,
showing off how well they feel the beat,
and when it comes to the tango, become par excellence
the gentlemen and ladies that ballroom dance
has surprised us—them all in making of them.* see addendum below

Now then, did I make a huge number of typos? This has taken me SIX hours to write, and god knows how long it is...But I simply do not have the energy to go back now and proofread it. Forgive me? I may do so tonight, but I want to post this now, in the afternoon, in case I can't later on. Apologies to all you perfectionists out there, but I just ain't good enough to be a perfectionist! BD

* Addendum on Friday: After some discussion with Lynnie and with other poets who have read this poem, I have decided that slowing down the reader on the last line may not be the best idea, and that it ends up making the poem end awkwardly. Thus I have decided to end it with the line as it appears in the final poem below.

BALLROOM, ANYONE?

They are learning to foxtrot at PS 115 in the Bronx.
Eleven years old they bungle and bump, make it
through merengue, rhumba, swing, then – tango,
and how their feet tangle. Unable to
face eye contact, only children after all, they look
everywhere but at their partners. They miss
all cues. The girls lead, better dancers
used to using their bodies for attention.
At first, most of the boys are hopeless, all big toes,
though the shortest is blessed with the ego to say
yes – to dance, to girls – and take charge,
making him a better partner, perhaps, than dancer,
but never mind. These were children
about to be lost to poverty, gangs, drugs, pregnancy –
yet by the end of the year, they are actually dancers,
bowing to one another, promenading
straight and tall and arm in arm. They sleek merengue,
showing off how well they feel the beat,
and when it comes to the tango, become par excellence
the gentlemen and ladies that ballroom dance
has surprised them all in making of them.

Posted by pamwagg at February 20, 2007 09:16 AM