I have never considered myself a huge Dolly Parton fan. I liked many of her songs and always recognized that she was one of our great songwriters. Still, as I have been thinking about her work the past 24 hours, especially while trying to understand my own developing voice as a poet, I keep finding lessons in the way she told stories.
I am a storyteller at heart. While I admire poets who bend language into something almost abstract, I have a harder time writing that way because I am always looking for the story. Dolly understood story.
Listening again to songs such as “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “Joshua,” I began thinking about what can I learn from her songwriting as a poet. Dolly once talked about songs needing to paint a picture, an idea that makes sense to me because the songs I remember most usually give me something I can see.
In “Joshua” she set up place very well. “a good ways down the railroad track / there was this little old rundown shack,” is such a vivid introduction, and I immediately know the place and I know much about the man that lives already.
Another thing she does well is that she paints a picture of a human emotion, letting that picture draw us into the lyric quickly. In “Jolene,” we do not need several verses explaining jealousy or fear. A woman, afraid she is going to lose the man she loves, pleads directly with another woman. Even the repetition of Jolene’s name creates a tension before we even get into the story. Listen to the pleading: “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.”
As someone who can take a while getting into a poem, setting everything up so the reader understands exactly where I am going, that is something I need to remember. Sometimes the story can just begin.
Dolly also understood how much weight an ordinary item can carry. “Coat of Many Colors,” a song about poverty, family and childhood embarrassment, could have simply told us that Dolly grew up poor but surrounded by love. Instead, she gives us the coat, made by her mother from rags. She talks about how that coat became more than a coat to her: a symbol of not just love but a kind of wealth that money couldn’t buy.
That is something I have been trying to learn in my own poetry, making an object carry emotion and history. When an image is strong enough, I do not have to stop and explain what it means. A river can carry memory. A loose thread can show something beginning to unravel. A bug left on the floor can become part of a neglected relationship.
When I find myself writing about emotions such as grief, shame, loneliness, heritage or regret, I tend to explain. I will write a poetic moment then explain in a summary verse or two. I am learning to ask what those things actually look like, and ask what is the story there and what emotion can it carry. Dolly trusted the object, like a coat, and let that object carry the emotional weight through the lyrics.
Perhaps the lesson I need most from Dolly, though, is restraint like I was learning from the community theatre production in another blog post. When her songs work best, the story earns the emotion, and that is something I need to study in her writing.
“Down from Dover,” one of her darker story songs, hurts because we watch a young woman wait for someone who is not coming. Dolly does not have to stop the story to explain why abandonment is painful. The waiting shows us. This also goes back to how she paints a picture. Think about this line, how much emotion and information it packs: “The Sun behind a cloud just casts the crawling shadow.” A powerful line that tells me everything I need to know about the woman’s emotions and situation.
That is something I am still learning. Dolly reminds me that sometimes the story’s images already told us the emotion through action…now we are back at that show don’t tell mantra.
Also, her characters also tend to be people before they become statements about something larger. Although her songs deal with poverty, love, faith and social expectations, she usually starts with someone living through those things. I don’t have to have an elaborate introduction where I twist language so only a college professor can decode it. I can show a simple person living a life in a simple situation and let that situation speak volumes.
Maybe what encourages me most about Dolly’s songwriting is the plainness of much of her language. She did not need every line to announce itself as poetry. Often the words sound like someone telling you a story on a front porch. The sophistication is underneath. It is in the structure, the images, the repetition, and what she leaves out.
As I continue working on my own poetry, I sometimes wonder whether my language is too plain or my poems are too narrative, especially when I read poets whose work pushes language in directions that do not come naturally to me.
What is she teaching me through her writing? I can make the story stronger, choosing the details that matter and cutting the ones that do not. Easier said than done for me, I know. But if I can find the image that carries the emotion instead of explaining it and trust an ordinary object to become something larger, I can learn when to stop explaining and let the reader feel what is already there.
Rest in peace, Dolly. Thank you for the songs, the stories, and the lessons I am still learning from them.