Finding Focus

By

Mona Hodgson

 

Our friend’s family room swelled with party guests waiting for the unsuspecting birthday boy to arrive on the arm of his wife. Black balloons hovered in bundles above the dining room table. A Grim Reaper-look-alike stood cloaked at the doorway. Another friend’s fingers trembled near the stereo, ready to trigger the dirge on signal.

 

With the flip of a switch, darkness camouflaged the crowd. Which, by the way, was clad in black just in case the coffin cake fell short of carrying the theme to term. Everything was in place for Bill’s initiation into the big 4-0.

 

Any minute, we expected the hostess, my friend Shirley, to shush us. Instead, she stiffened and yelled, “Oh, no!” (Much the way I envisioned Bill would the moment the Grim Reaper stepped into his view. “I almost forgot!” she said. “My camera is broken and we’ve got to get pictures. Anyone bring their camera?”

 

I wasn’t sure Bill would regard this as a Kodak moment, but I spoke up anyway. “Mine’s over there.” I pointed to my bag on the sofa. “I can get some pictures.”

 

Shirley grimaced. “We want to be able to recognize him.” I joined her in a knowing giggle before I retrieved my camera and handed it over to a designated snapper.

 

My well-deserved reputation as a “heads-off” photographer-wanna-be preceded me. Mere fractions of themselves, the subjects of my pictures were usually missing all their features from the chin up.

 

Imagine the exuberance I experienced the day I realized I was not doomed to a life of shutterbug phobia and folly. That was the day I discovered creative expression wasn=t an elusive dream reserved only for those with camera canny or sewing machine savvy (a whole other story). What a relief to learn that my artistic vehicle still awaited me, circling, ready for me to jump in.

 

Word pictures.

 

Having experienced some success writing daily devotionals for The Secret Place and The Upper Room, I was working on an assignment of seven devotionals for Light From the Word. One day my writing style and sentence structure took a detour, filling only the center of my computer screen. With all that white space around the edges, it could only be one thing.

 

Poetry. 

 

But was it really poetry? It didn=t rhyme like the Edgar Allen Poe verses that Dad had read to me or like Joyce Kilmer=s poem Trees that hung on a plaque in the hallway of my childhood.

 

I enjoyed reading poetry and hearing it read, but except for long-past school assignments I hadn=t written poetry. Yet, my artistic vehicle took a creative fork in the road and turned me toward poetic expression. Those early poems directly reflected my faith life. They gave voice to my spiritual journey. (My poems still do.)

 

Back to the camera story for a moment. In an attempt to redeem my reputation and to make my pictures worth the cost of film and development, I enrolled in a photography class at the community college. Imagine my surprise when I learned that acquiring a good picture involved much more than just aiming the camera and snapping the shot. 

 

"It's not just a matter of capturing the moment," pleaded my Photography 101 instructor. "You want the memory in focus." (And having it in the frame is a big help, too.)

 

After choosing my subject, I had to decide on the effect I wanted. Would the background be crisp or obscured? What film-speed? Which lens? Then came the hard task of ignoring distractions and focusing on my subject. But it paid off.

 

Shirley and I rarely meet for lunch without toting family or travel pictures with us. During a recent show and tell over chicken salad, she studied an especially captivating snapshot of my grandson and said, AThese are very good. Who took these?@

 

I puffed up like Big Bird, even fluffed my feathers a bit before answering. “I did.”

 

Though my photographs did improve when I learned to concentrate on what's important to the picture, I=m not a photographer and don=t aspire to be one. The passion is not there. But poetry is a different story.

 

When I decided to share my poetry through publication, I gathered poetry anthologies and how-to books around me like a chicken rancher gathers his farm-fresh eggs and began to study them. I enrolled in poetry classes at the community college, signed up for a poetry correspondence course with Mary Harwell Sayler (a cherished mentor), and participated in poetry workshops at all the writers’ conferences I could get to.

 

Know what I learned?

 

Creating an effective word picture involves many of the same techniques photographers use to capture their subjects.

 

Contemporary poet, Judith Dupree says, "Poetry may be described as a large view through a small lens. Excellent poetry is a magnification of life."

 

Excellent poetry is a matter of focus. Framing. Determining the desired effect—crisp or obscured. In essence, the poet sets the film speed when choosing words that establish a poem=s tone and pacing. Whether traditional, free verse, or light verse, the form provides the lens for that particular poem. Like the photographer, the poet must battle distractions to focus on their subject. I learned I could capture and share big pictures of life and love and grace using poetry=s small, but detailing, lens. You can, too.

 

While I still have much to learn, I’m anxious to share what I’m learning with you. I want to help you write and publish poetry that offers readers a “large view through a small lens.” 

 

 

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