In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 263.
When writing a poem from memory, I like to hammer down every shiny detail so each one sparkles, first as a star, then a constellation. After all, my life is fascinating. And it’s courageous to tell things as they happened, right?
Wrong.
But when do we cross from strategic omission to selective sharing, to smear campaigns, to tediously, unethically oversharing until our truths are worse than lies?
We’ve all sat next to someone on the airplane who, even as we shift closer to the window and pointedly don our earbuds, will not stop talking. We don’t want to be that guy. And yes, I’ve been that guy. Apologies to my fellow passengers.
Still, when we draw from personal or autobiographical material, I wonder about this line in the sand. Does it matter if you write that it was September, and your cousin was going to rehab for the fifth time for opioids, when in reality it was your father during the winter, for the second time, for drinking?
Here is where ethical lying comes into play: We can fabricate or consolidate events, circumstances, and even people to formulate more compelling poems. Yes, it’s a rookie move to read poems autobiographically. On the other hand, it’s an equally rookie move to think readers aren’t implicating us. Thus, we have a responsibility to our subjects, audience, and ourselves to lie so thoughtfully and purposefully that the lie deserves to transcend the biographical truth.
My rule of thumb is this: I will tell things exactly as they happened if the details are relevant. How much or how little memory I reveal directly relates to how specific information shapes the reader’s experience. Otherwise, I’ll blur the truth, so long as it doesn’t give me or anyone else undue credit or blame, a key point that Ted Kooser makes in his essay “Lying for the Sake of Making Poems.”
As an example, let’s use “Cape Cod Pantoum” from my forthcoming poetry collection, Pulse. The events, sadly, are accurate: My then-partner’s best friend, Billy, had relapsed, this time paddling our canoe into subfreezing Atlantic waters, only for it to capsize and the young man with him to drown. Still, after the catastrophic accident my partner maddeningly lent Billy his new car.
However, the chronological order and specific details have been consciously reshaped. For instance, I honestly can’t remember when my then-partner loaned Billy his car. The poem suggests that the car loan occurred immediately after the canoeing accident, but it might have been before. Regardless, there were plenty more prized objects lent to Billy well after the incident.
I picked the car because it’s a more impactful possession and effective literary device to loan to an accident-prone person than, say, the basement or even the money we gave him. To lend Billy a vehicle is to entrust him with the possibility that he may never return. Therefore, the car loan is not just real, it also symbolizes an equally real, complex, codependent relationship.
Timing also needed to be adjusted. When I heard about the canoeing accident, it wasn’t 3 AM mid-lovemaking; my ex called me at a writers’ retreat in Western Massachusetts. But do those particulars matter? No. What matters is that Billy constantly disrupted our romantic life.
Notice, too, nobody is completely to blame or innocent. The speaker remains passively reactive. Billy is well-meaning, but downright dangerous. The speaker’s lover is a codependent enabler. But there is no throwing Billy under the bus, or car, as it were, because everyone is trying to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of a second chance. When crafting a poem, adjusting the factual details can help navigate those stormy waters.
Maria Nazos grew up in Athens, Greece, and Joliet, Illinois. Her work has been published in the New Yorker, TriQuarterly, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry collection Pulse (Omnidawn, 2026) and the translator of the poetry collection The Slow Horizon That Breathes (World Poetry Books, 2023) by Dimitra Kotoula, longlisted for the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award. Maria has worked almost every job, including as a whale-watching boat attendant, table dancer, teacher, barista, sunglasses salesperson, bartender, and, arguably, the worst waitress in the entire history of the Eastern seaboard. If she spilled Pinot Noir on you, she would like to apologize.
image credit: Andre Frueh
