The Poetics of Electricity

Mark Prudowsky

I wrote my first poem when I was forty-nine years old. Until then I mostly wrote nonfiction, and for several years worked on the staff of a union newspaper, writing both articles and essays at a time when United States Steel was putting tens of thousands of workers out on the streets, opting to focus on finance and real estate rather than steel. Writing as an advocate for myself and my fellow workers, I focused the five W’s of journalism into four or five column inches and honed sharp arguments with clearly delineated heroes versus the corporate villain. Concision.

In some ways, my present means of paying bills—chasing electrons (much easier when I was younger, quicker)—is similar. Someone calls me when half of a house or a restaurant is without power. I ask what happened and when, trace the circuits to find where the problem resides. I gather the facts, focus on a solution, make the repair, get paid, and move on. Again, concision.

Is poetry as concise and clear as nonfiction or solving troublesome electrical snafus? Yes and no. When I began studying poetry ten years ago, I was struck by the notion that among the poets I most admired, the obvious was not always so; good poems, the ones that most engaged me, often looked beneath the surface appearance of a face or event to discover contradictory impulses. Often a poem looks without any clear objective, without a goal or an issue to resolve. The charge in a poem, whether it be a longer meditative reflection or a short lyric, often resides in a rhetorical ambiguity. So where does concision come into play? Most of the great poets spend many more hours and ink revising than they spend on a first draft. This extra work is done with the goal of designing the verse so that what the poem wants to say is laid out concisely in an appropriate order, a notion captured in Stephen Dobyns’ book about the craft of poetry: Best Words, Best Order.

In electrical construction, the process is very different. Most often, one works from a blueprint. The owner or builder has met with an architect. The home or business has already been designed so that before any of the trades lift a single tool, one knows more or less how the final structure will present itself to the world. Although there may be minor alterations in the course of construction, all one is doing is bringing the plans to fruition, even if some creativity might be called for in solving problems that arise during construction.

One of my teachers told me early on that if I sat down to write a poem and I already knew what I was going to write, I would most likely write an awful poem. He believed, and convinced me as well, that poetry is a process of discovery for the poet. When I’m roughing in a poem (the first draft), if I’m lucky, something unexpected will occur; an image will pop, my pulse will quicken. I’ll shift slightly in my chair, mumble to myself. If I have the courage and energy to pursue this and probe the uncertainties that reside beneath the surface image or remark, a solid draft might emerge. The great poems that we come to love and commit to heart are ones in which both the poet and those others who encounter the poem come to discovery, looking beyond seen devices and fixtures we encounter in our lives to the unseen, the charged, the mysterious.

I’d have to find another way to pay the rent if I did that as an electrician. As I rough in a home, distribute power, size conductors, connect relays and switches to motors or to outlets and lights, I want to be sure that my clients will be able to light up a room, listen to music, heat or cool their dwelling, and clean dishes and their bodies with warm water. The goal is to ensure there will be no surprises—a breaker tripping or a light that fails to come on.

Mark Prudowsky has alternately been a welder, millwright, pipefitter, and electrician. He lives in Asheville and has an M.F.A. in poetry from Warren Wilson College.