#345 Backstory of the Poem “Start the Game” by Paul Jones

Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? So many of us begin with emotion and progress, as Wordsworth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads would have it, to evoke emotion in a state of tranquility by writing in such a way that our words evoke that emotion in readers.

Read about William Wordsworth

https://poets.org/poet/william-wordsworth

Order LYRICAL BALLADS from Amazon

Fair enough, but for Eliot, writing in Tradition and the Individual Talent, emotion isn’t enough. Writing, for Eliot, requires an awareness of where we fit in the tradition of poetry as well. No word is new. Each word, each line no matter how inventive echoes something in tradition.

Read about T.S. Elliot

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot

In the ideal poem, for me at least, the words, emotion, and tradition as well as invention all align in some ways. The best poetry, for me, speaks to the long poetic past and look to a poetic future while addressing the present. I try to do that in every piece of verse. Take, for example, this mono-rhymed villanelle “Start the Game.” You could see it as a formal exercise, but I assure you it isn’t.

What is a Villanelle Poem
https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/villanelle

What month and year did you start writing this poem? I worked on the poem over a two-week period during which I carried a version in my head and on paper and on my phone and computer. Somehow all the versions synced up. I was to read what I thought and hoped was the final version at my father’s funeral. I did read the poem there and have not changed it at all since then in late May 2017.

Left to Right: Paul with his father John Paul Jones in 1951. John Paul Jones photo used for his funeral brochure. Copyright by John Paul Jones.

I wrote the poem not long after having been at my father’s deathbed in his last moments. His body was failing in too many ways for him at age 89 to continue living. He had known that for some time and had spent his last months making peace with the inevitability of the pain that ends all pains.

John Paul Jones in 2015. Copyright by Paul Jones.

Unlike the famous villanelle by Dylan Thomas, both my father and myself wished him to go gentle into his good night. As I heard my father saying “start the game,” I knew that would likely be the last words I would hear from him. Except for his counting down, they were. During the time between his death and his funeral, they stayed with me even being spoken from clouds and trees in my dreams.

Read about Dylan Thomas

https://poets.org/poet/dylan-thomas

Hear Dylan Thomas read “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? Villanelles are best when about obsessions. The repetition, the echoing, the passion—hot or cold—all drive the poem forward. The craft they demand gives emotion a container from which it can be perceived and can escape into the hearts of others. Pleasing inexactly Wordsworth, Eliot, and myself. And with luck, craft, and hope pleases readers as well.

Paul Jones in his office in the middle 2010s. Copyright by Paul Jones.

Has this poem been published? And if so where? I was returning to sending out poems regularly after a 25-year break. I sent this poem to one contest in Fall 2017. It was awarded the Joanna Catherine Scott Prize for formal poetry from the North Carolina Poetry Society in 2018, and was included in their anthology, Pine Songs for that year.