More on the Cleave Hay(na)ku

In my previous post, I proposed a new form: the cleave hay(na)ku. The example I gave in that post worked like this, using letters to stand for words in this illustration. A B C D E F     a b c d e f In my Craft of Poetry class, we have been talking about tercets, or three-line stanzas, and of course the hay(na)ku is a tercet form. Last week, in that context, I brought up Eileen Tabios's new rippled mirror hay(na)ku and also the cleave hay(na)ku. After class, my student Jed Kurth pointed out that the hay(na)ku on the right could be a reverse hay(na)ku, like this. A B C D E F     a b c d e f Thanks, Jed. In looking at how such a format would be understood, the left hay(na)ku would read A B C D E F ; the right one would be a b c d e f ; and the combined poem (paying attention to line breaks) would say A a b c / B C d e / D E F f . There's a really cool symmetry in this set-up having four words per line, overall. Since that class three days ago, Jed has emailed me three cleave hay(na)ku with a reverse hay(na)ku on the right side. Three! So cool. (Friends, I'll let you work out the three readings of each cleave: left, right, and combined.) Will You? why not say you love me you want to (or) maybe not.   Ignorance was that you I searched for no one aware did know her   So Sue Me, Disney when you wish upon a star you are hungry to dine fish —Drafts by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Jed, these are very good. I particularly like how the combined poem reads in your last cleave hay(na)ku: "when you are hungry / you wish to dine / upon a star fish." How witty and fun! I've also written a cleave hay(na)ku with a reverse hay(na)ku on the right. Thanks for the inspiration, Jed. Hereafter forever and ever amen, but then   a long time after saying what? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I'm particularly proud of the combined poem in my cleave: "forever a long time / and ever after saying / amen, but then what?" Thanks again, Jed, for giving us a wider window into the possibilities of the cleave hay(na)ku. I hope, poet friends, you will give this new form a try. As I said last time, it's quite an interesting and fun challenge. Everyone, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

 

The Cleave Hay(na)ku

I was talking via email recently with Eileen Tabios, inventor of the hay(na)ku form, about her new variation, the Rippled Mirror Hay(na)ku, and I wrote one in honor (or maybe in dishonor?) of our current presidential election. Mirror I'm Donald Trump. Best president ever. Bust. President never. Donald Trump. Um . . . —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] As you can see, in the rippled mirror hay(na)ku, the reflection is vertical. The word "best" in line 3 is reflected in line 4 (in rippled fashion) by "bust." The word "I'm" in line 1 is ripple-reflected in line 6 by "Um." See here for more on this new variation. Well, I wondered, could the reflection be horizontal rather than vertical? I was reminded of the Cleave poetic form. Basically, the cleave features a left side poem, a right side poem, and then a combined poem. This is most easily explained in columns: A     a B     b C     c If we imagine the letters above are lines in a cleave poem, the left side poem would be read down as A B C, the right side poem would be a b c, and then the combined poem would be read across as A a B b C c. I'd like to propose a new variation then: the Cleave Hay(na)ku. I'll give you an example first; it might be clearer than a definition at this point. Please note: this is more of a demo than an actual poem. Mycelia mushrooms live forever like strange ghosts       do you know that people eat —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here are the three different poems that we can read: left side right side combined       mushrooms live forever like strange ghosts do you know that people eat mushrooms do live forever you know like strange ghosts that people eat So there you go. The Cleave Hay(na)ku . . . two hay(na)ku side-by-side, where the hay(na)ku on the left is read as one poem, the hay(na)ku on the right is read as a second poem, and then both hay(na)ku are read as a third, combined poem, both first lines together, then the second lines, and finally both third lines. I hope you'll give these two new forms a try. They're quite the poetic challenges. In fact, Eileen has issued a call for rippled mirror hay(na)ku and cleave hay(na)ku here, with a deadline of 15 November 2016. In Eileen's hay(na)ku blog, there's a page documenting all the known variations of hay(na)ku. Check it out . . . there might be a form there you'd like to give a whirl. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 30 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Last day of National Poetry Month. Sad. But also glad about all the poems. The full complement of 30 for me! Here's a little meme to post in your social media sites to celebrate. You can see this image larger by clicking on it, but unfortunately you won't be able to share from there. However, you can find a share-able version in my facebook from three years ago. Robert Lee Brewer’s PAD prompt: "For today’s prompt, write a dead end poem. Of course, I was thinking in terms of the challenge, but a dead end can literally mean the end of a person’s life, a dead end road, a dead end job, dead end mortgage, and so on. Take the phrase 'dead end' and apply it to a noun, and the possibilities are nearly endless (except, well, there’s the whole 'dead end' finality to it, I suppose)." Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "Because we’ve spent our month looking at poets in English translation, today I’d like you to try your hand at a translation of your own. If you know a foreign language, you could take a crack at translating a poem by a poet writing in that language. If you don’t know a foreign language, or are up for a different kind of challenge, you could try a homophonic translation. Simply find a poem (or other text) in a language you don’t know, and then 'translate' it based on the look or sound of the words." This "translation" poem form is also called a translitic. Thank you VERY much to Maureen Thorson and to Robert Lee Brewer for a great NaPoWriMo and Poem-a-Day once again! Here is Jed's "translation" poem. See if you can figure out what he's doing rhyme- and meter-wise. Lost In . . . Human behavior is a poetry Of sorts, packed with hidden implication; A delicate dance, gradually evolved Over each life, and all of history. Her forlorn sigh can be inspiration Enough to tell him he’ll never be loved By her. Learn to hear the message wrapped in Silences. The science of emotion Is really art. The meaning of a pause Had better be received, though. It’s a sin If you make a faulty calculation; If you don’t match the rhyme, it’s defiance. Humans know you understand, even when You don’t. Ignorance will never excuse Not knowing the rules laid down by their hand. Well, madmen and children are forgiven By some. But you have everything to lose If you show that you sometimes understand. They’ll think your mistakes were calculated To throw them in disarray. All you say Wrong will be taken not as error but As anger, mockery; they’ll think you led The dance astray through malice. “You can play The game. Why won’t you?” And then you’re shut out. —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's what Jed wrote me about the poem: "So it's more metaphorically about translation than a literal attempt at translating something. My ASL isn't really fluent enough for me to do a good interpretation of ASL poetry . . . And I really wanted to do a fun, 10-syllable, ABC-ABC rhyming poem for the last day, not an approximation of something that wouldn't fit well into English." Did you get all that? The poem's in pentameter, first of all. And Jed's using normative rhyme: each set of three lines rhymes with the next set of three lines . . . line 1 - poetry line 2 - implication        line 3 - evolved line 4 - history line 5 - inspiration line 6 - loved . . . and so on, all the way down the poem, to the drop-line at the end, where the last word out rhymes with but three lines before. A jaunty, loose slant rhyme. Fun indeed. Bravo, Jed! Sarah's contribution today ia a haiku that hearkens to today's NaPoWriMo prompt. Signs Fingers tangle and weave in intricate dance, but not a sound flies forth —Draft by Sarah Smith    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Above Jed mentioned wanting to interpret a poem in ASL (American sign language) and here is Sarah writing about ASL. Brava, Sarah! Here's the story of my poetic adventure today. Along with her prompt above, Thorson provided links to a couple of poems one could use for a homophonic translation or translitic. One of these poems was "Den halvfärdiga himlen" by the Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer; I tried for quite a while to write a translitic from this text but it just wasn't happenin'. I also attempted to find other texts to work with but to no avail. I've successfully pulled off translitics in other Aprils, but not this time. So I turned instead to erasure. Wave Books has a website, Erasures, that offers up brief texts one can partially erase, leaving visible a found poem. The text I chose was "The Authoritative Life of General William Booth" by G. S. Railton. Here is that text as it appeared, before erasure, in the website. And here is my found text, after partial erasure. Then I finished the poem with my own "dead-end" conclusion. So, unlike Jed and Sarah, I have followed Brewer's prompt. 3-Point Turn men and women rarely bring up forces vast and difficult passed through fire instead we treat them like a dead end we slam into reverse back out and go another way —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Between and among the three of us, Jed, Sarah, and I covered the two "official" prompts. "Going rogue for the last day because the prompts are meh," Ven says, "and I feel this poem should live on somewhere. I've fiddled with it somewhat to make it have a story sort of." What Ven is talking about needs a bit of backstory. Thursday being the last day of class for my Poetry Workshop class, we sat in a circle and played Exquisite Corpse. In this version of the old surrealist game, everyone writes down a line of verse on a piece of paper and passes it to the left. Then each person writes another line of verse based on the first line already on the paper. You fold the paper back so only one line (yours) is showing and pass again. Then everyone writes another line responding to the one line showing, and so on, until you get your own sheet back, after it's gone completely around the circle. You then write a closing line to finish off the poem. Afterward, everyone takes turns reading the poems out loud. It's an incredibly fun game, which can sometimes be raucous and even inappropriate. Ven's contribution for today, then, is not his alone. It's the Exquisite Corpse poem Ven ended up with. The title as well as the opening and closing lines are his, but the rest were written by members of the class. I should warn you the poem will be NSFW for some, and others may be offended by the last line, but I'm not going to censor. Disco Queen           (by Vince's spring 2016 class, not just me) I made her cum like a train in the back of the car. While stars and condolences and the moon's kisses tangled in her hair. Her skin had the sweet perfume of jasmine flowers, and her eyes an opalescent moonstone glow like the soul's disco balls. But disco got old fast and she did too. And I remember now how much I abhor ABBA. Fuck ABBA in their stupid Swedish faces. —Draft by Ven Batista and others    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan also went rogue today. He pointed out to me that he worked with the prompts almost every day in the month but he happens at the moment to be on the road. Now that is devotion. Alan wrote and posted this poem while away visiting family! Thanks so much, Alan. In Memoriam In my widowed mother’s living room, in front of the window facing south, on a pecan-stained dropleaf table decades old, in a silver-colored metallic frame, in a photograph taken on the occasion of my maternal aunt’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, in a gray suit I brought just for the occasion, a suit almost identical to another gray suit I own in a size that would have fit me far better than the one I brought with me by accident, in a distracted mood when selecting the suit and in another distracted mood as captured in the           photograph, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bursting at the seams, almost aware of my size and           wrestling with my awareness as I realize I should be celebrating in a nevertheless at that moment happy posture, standing with my brother behind the couch where my           parents sit, my brother with an expression of good-spirited dignity, my mother beaming, my           father with that expression so often easy to mistake for reserve when in fact he feels           disorientation from middle stages of dementia, capable to pass among many as if he is well or           only slightly confused, a small American flag pin mounted on the left lapel of his dark jacket, in a pensive posture, I, standing, humbled by my waistline, my cutting belt, my yet-to-be overcome           vanity, in a pensive posture, he, seated, face raised and not with his yet-to-be persistent smile masking his           deepening confusion to come, in a family portrait, the last of us all together, in an artificial pose, in uncertainty of times to come, in commemoration of a relationship older than my memory. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Such a self-aware confessional poem about family and the fears of potential parental inheritances. Thank you, Alan. Alan, Jed, Sarah, and Ven . . . many, MANY thanks for your poetic contributions to the blog this month. Wonderful work! For the last time this year, Happy National Poetry Month! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

NAPOWRIMO / PAD 2016 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Day 29 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Day 29 . . . counting today, two National Poetry Month days left. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on things you remember. Try to focus on specific details, and don’t worry about whether the memories are of important events, or are connected to each other. You could start by adopting [artist/poet Joe] Brainard’s uniform habit of starting every line with 'I remember,' and then you could either cut out all the instances of 'I remember,' or leave them all in, or leave just a few in. At any rate, hopefully you’ll wind up with a poem that is heavy on concrete detail, and which uses that detail as its connective tissue." Robert Lee Brewer’s PAD prompt: "For today’s prompt, write a haphazard poem. The poem itself could be haphazardly put together, I suppose. But it could also be about a haphazard situation. Or whatever haphazard thing you can bend the poem into." First one done today was Jed. He worked with just the NaPoWriMo prompt on memories. The Poetics Aside blog was apparently down for several hours and so the "haphazard" prompt was not available until late afternoon. Two Memories I remember wetting my pants, The only time I ever did. I was four, I think. I’m not sure. I hurried out of the chapel. There was a sort of metal clasp On the pants, easier than snaps. Because snaps and buttons are hard. The bathroom by the baptistery Was all hard tiles, nothing soft. I don’t remember what comes next. Did I have to stay there at church, With my pants all wet and itchy? I remember mother asking If I would move on to cub scouts, Or just remain a tiger cub. The plastic baby-bath baskets In the laundry room were arrayed For sorting our clean clothes into Before we put those clothes away. My basket on a metal shelf, And in my mind I’m mentoring The younger, newer tiger cubs. “I’ll stay a tiger cub,” I said. I was so literal-minded, I didn’t understand the choice. The choice was cub scouts or nothing. I think a whole year passed before Anybody asked me again. I always used to just wait for Life and choices to come to me. But I only wet my pants once. —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Second one done today was Alan, with a really gorgeous memory poem. Happenstance My large, red ball rolls into the packed car bay of our gray, weathered garage, its shed closed and packed             with its own mystery. I crouch, trying to catch it before it rolls in. I miss it, picking it up only once it rolls to a stop. I hold it, facing the interior of the garage as I stand in the cool spot, the heat making the roof’s tin pop. I turn. Covering the upper half of the bay’s opening, a large orb web shifts in the breeze, lit by the sunlight,             hundreds of articulated interstices, larger than me. At its hub, at my eye level, waits the largest spider I remember having ever seen up until that time, its             abdomen large, round, and orange, positioned between my ball and the sun, magnified by my             silent, frozen surprise. I stoop and slip under, into the grass. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Third one done today was me, after the Poetics Aside blog came back up, so I was able to incorporate haphazardness into my catalogue of memories. Haphazard Childhood Memories tin robot, yellow and blue, ’50s style, playing on stone steps, bright sun in mountain forest we hike to a waterfall all green, green, splash hum alone in a park I see statues creak to life, chase me . . . I wake up huge orange tabby follows Dad around the house like a shepherd dog I’m four, my parents’ closet, Mom rubbing lotion on Dad, nude, can’t move a tall 50-foot robot decked in red and green lights, Christmas road trip —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Fourth up is Ven's bravura list of inner mementos. I Remember Awkward silences and clumsy lyrics. Short drives and meandering conversations. Smoke lazily spiraling to the ceiling. Never ever cleaning. Mean tongues and soft fists. Procrastinating on demand. Fucked up colors and fuzzy lips. Gas station improv and fake accents. Scrabble bukkake and lists of philias. Acting weird to hide our weirdness. Cherry tobacco OD and Rizla runs. Windshield wiper beat downs. 2am Ludacris in car parks. Greasy DVDs that somehow never skipped. Music, so much music, always to everything. The Velvet Sky and the Silver Soldier. Riven and Cloven and Back to One. Believing. When London in Love felt big and the sky felt small. Thinking we had forever. —Draft by Ven Batista    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Thanks for the poems again, all. And you readers, thanks for visiting. Last time tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

NAPOWRIMO / PAD 2016 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Day 28 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Day 28 . . . the end of four full weeks. And now just the small tail left of National Poetry Month. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that tells a story. But here’s the twist – the story should be told backwards. The first line should say what happened last, and work its way through the past until you get to the beginning." Robert Lee Brewer’s PAD prompt: "For today’s prompt, take the phrase 'Important (blank),' replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem. Possible titles could include: 'Important Documents,' 'Important: Read Before Assembling,' 'Important People,' and so on. I hope everyone finds something important to write about today." Okay, mixing both prompts. Here's a poem about today, an important day all of us — students and faculty alike — have been anticipating. Important Rewind: Last Day of Class After holding office hours, where no one came, I stride backwards an hour and a half ago to my last class, never looking back once. In Poetry Workshop, we swallow peals of laughter while playing Exquisite Corps, and then swallow more laughter, sharing our imitations of each other’s poems. Then I walk backwards to my office again where I wolf down a personal pizza (three meats) and a bottle of green tea. Amble backwards once more to my elements of creative writing class where we swallow laughs again and again. Don’t you love the last day of class? And walk, always backwards, to my multicultural literature class to finish discussing Barbara Jane Reyes’s poetry. Then hurry backwards to my car parked on 23rd Street and drive in reverse to my apartment, where I get into bed and read my eyelids until last night, knowing I have fifteen more weeks to the start of the semester. Hallelujah. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Jed tells me that when he saw the Brewer prompt, he thought, "Well, I already know my title will be Not Important. Now I just have to think of what the poem is about." Not Important And then he died. It always ends that way.         What ends? Old age. Lay down those weary bones.         But how does old age come? Through middle age. The pillar. Hard work to hold the whole tent up.         When did he learn to work? Why, in his youth. That’s always the best time, For youth contains such boundless energy.         Where did he get that boundless energy? In childish play, and wonder at the world; The time to learn adventure’s everywhere Is childhood, for everything is new.         And children come from . . . ? Babies. Lumps of flesh With hungry minds. Nourish them with patience, mind and flesh both.         That’s the whole story, then? Of course. Unless. Who were they? Before.         That’s not important.         Is it? —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Ven's "Important _____" poem interestingly turns time around but also sets up a diminishing-line structure, reducing by a word per line. Important but boring backstory to everything else. Inevitably he wrote many fucking poems about it. Everything fell apart, there were many tears. Everyone aged, some better than others. Obviously some babies were made. Then there was marriage. There was love. They met. 1999. —Draft by Ven Batista    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's Alan's mash-up of the backwards-time/important prompts. Important Clause I own an empty church that’s falling down; its deed requires it always stay a church. Some people would have changed it to a home. He lost himself inside his mind. We lost. Somebody stole the HVAC from the church. Alzheimer’s escalated. He got lost. High, rough winds blew the steeple from the roof, his friends stole all the furniture it held. He couldn’t keep the building up. He let his friends hold services for months rent free. The church’s deed requires it stay a church. He bought a church for gospel singings. His dementia started sometime years ago. He drove some gospel singing friends for free, from church to church, befriending local groups of amateurs in hopes of making big. He bought a bus and had it customized. He crisscrossed Southern states from week to week; At last he drove for tour companies. He crisscrossed Alabama every day. Installing home improvements, he could drive to different places, job to job to job. His service in the Guard taught him his tools. The football coach insisted he would play and stay each afternoon throughout the week, and so he left before his senior year. He and some friends began a gospel group, and crossed some county lines to sing in praise. Only the hymns relieved him from the God of Judgment preachers shouted to the pews, and from the farm, he heard the whining wheels of trucks and buses on the distant road. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Thanks for the poems, guys! Two days to go. Thanks for checking out our poems, everyone! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

NAPOWRIMO / PAD 2016 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Day 27 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Day 27 . . . 3³ with 3 days left. Lots of 3s! Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today’s prompt comes to us from Megan Pattie, who points us to the work of the Irish poet Ciaran Carson, who increasingly writes using very long lines. Carson has stated that his lines are (partly) based on the seventeen syllables of the haiku, and that he strives to achieve the clarity of the haiku in each line. So today, Megan and I collectively challenge you to write a poem with very long lines. You can aim for seventeen syllables, but that’s just a rough guide. If you’re having trouble buying into the concept of long lines, maybe this essay on Whitman’s infamously leggy verse will convince you of their merits. Happy writing!" Robert Lee Brewer’s PAD prompt: "For today’s prompt, write a take off poem. Take off work for you admin assistants out there (and any other workers). Take off a runway – for those of you who like to fly. Take off from a dangerous or weird situation – or maybe even a comfortable one. Or maybe you have a completely different take off of a 'take off' poem. Go on and take off on your poetic paths." Well, all right. Here's yer seventeen syllables, every line. And "take off" too, x 3. Rest in Purple Prince took off from Paisley Park on Thursday, the 21st of April, In a little red Corvette or maybe a pink Cadillac, flying headlong into magenta clouds, needled by electric purple rain, radio blasting Parliament Dr. Funkenstein slap-and-pop grooves. Took off to jam with Janis, Jimi, and James, the Godfather of Soul, his symbol axe with its Salvador Dali mustache riding shotgun. But that’s all smoke. The man just broke. Just taking off some time in the sun. His third eye staring straight into the liquid light-blaring furnace of God. Prince of Purple finally with his Prince of Peace, trading dazzling smiles. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I've been wanting to write an elegy for Prince for several days now. And this may not be it yet, but it's a try. I wanted to get a sense in there of Prince's deep, Christian, Jehovah's Witness faith. Jed worked with the 17-syllable line today. Well, sort of . . . 17 syllables, for sure, just not how you'd expect. Lonely Visitor Her breath blows cold on my face,         A ghost of memories from times long past.         My superstitious heart begins to throb As I shiver with the draft. My back should not be chilled so.         Warm covers are in place and I should rest.         Easier than this, for time does not press To rob me of peaceful sleep. The phantom draft that chills me,         From whence, I wonder, groggy, can it blow?         But I already named a ghostly source As sleep refused to settle. Shade! Do as you fancy, then;         Whisper not on my cheek but in my ear,         If you wish to by the living be heard. I’ll faithfully write your words. Or if, in restless wanderings,         Jealousy moves you, and you wish to take         The slumber you eternally forsook From my eyes, and share your curse, Show yourself; test my mettle.         Your forlorn visage I would gaze upon. —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Jed says, "I thought to myself, '17-syllable lines? You've got to be kidding. It wouldn't sound like poetry anymore.' So I settled for alternating 7- and 10-syllable lines in a 7-10, 10-7 pattern. It gives the poem a very weird rhythm." Weird, yes, but perfectly matching Jed's eldritch theme. Alan gets some long lines in today, perhaps more than 17 syllables here and there, but also some short ones, as short as 5 syllables, in keeping with his title and theme. Meander Oh Jesse, last night I dreamed we were presenting papers at a literary conference in Atlanta, and we attended a posh reception in the hotel’s scenic ballroom, each with only the one drink ticket covered by the conference registration fee, and we encountered Jim Kenney, a classmate of mine in the Alabama English Graduate Program, and I expressed my surprise at seeing him but did not tell you that even in the 1980s when he and I were in our 20s, he looked to me as portentous as Samuel Johnson, all jowl and beard and round head above an even rounder belly, with long, spindly legs and long, narrow feet, in beetle proportion, and a voice all attitude, and, when I introduced you as a poet, Jim began to hold forth on Whitman, a favorite of yours, and he started talking about “the meandering verse of Whitman,” the type of phrase one finds readily on Internet sites, and I saw your eyes dart, Jesse, and you were starting to cover your mouth with your hand, a sure sign that you are about to say something good, and then I woke up before you said it. So, Jesse, we’re going to Atlanta in November to a literary conference in a fancy hotel, and we are likely to encounter some old classmate of mine, and, because as I have grown older I have come to associate dreams with subconscious interpretation of pattern, I will not be surprised if that person, in, perhaps, a misguided attempt to engage you, makes an Internet-sanctioned comment about meandering Whitman, so be ready, Jesse, feel free to tell my old friend that meandering water always seeks the lowest level, but water with purpose drives and courses, eroding the weak, exposing the strength of the supporting strata beneath the loose, the fragmented, the temporary, while shaping the land, sustaining the deeply rooted, and sweeping the debris away, and, although you will cover your mouth, my old friend will read your laugh lines and understand my smile. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Ven blends both prompts in a refreshing romp of a poem. Take Off Take off all your clothes, feel the sun hit your bare skin. You’re an animal after all. Just meat — and blood, and hair, and cum. You are bestial. So swing your thick limbs, shake your wet, shimmering tongue. You are just a man. Clothes do not make you. So take ‘em off, all the way. You’re not a slave, right? —Draft by Ven Batista    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] As always, many thanks for the poems, Alan, Jed, and Ven. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 26 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Day 26 . . . we are creeping up — no, we're racing up — to the end of National Poetry Month! Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates a call and response. Calls-and-responses are used in many sermons and hymns (and also in sea chanties!), in which the preacher or singer asks a question or makes an exclamation, and the audience responds with a specific, pre-determined response. (Think: Can I get an amen? to which the response is AMEN!) You might think of the response as a sort of refrain or chorus that comes up repeatedly, while the call can vary slightly each time it is used. . . . The call can be longer than the response, or vice versa. But think of your poem as an interactive exchange between one main speaker and an audience." Robert Lee Brewer’s PAD prompt: "For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt: (1) Write a love poem. Or . . . (2) Write an anti-love poem." Got my poem done early today, merging all three prompts. Not even 6:00 A.M. yet! Echo Scene: young man plucking daisy petals and calling out across an echoing ravine. She loves me! She loves me! She loves me not! She loves me not! She loves me! She loves me! She loves me not! She loves me not! She loves me! She loves you NOT! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Jed also merged all three prompts today. Surprise! You made me breakfast? That’s so sweet. I love you.     I love you, too. And folded laundry? Ooh, so neat. Why, thank you.     I love you, too. And look, the bathroom . . . It’s so clean It sparkles!     I love you, too. And there’s no cobwebs Anywhere. Fantastic.     I love you, too. Wait, you ate the last Piece of cake? I hate you. —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] In Alan's poem, the call and response is between Prince onscreen in his 1984 movie and Alan's speaker's 2016 self commenting on the action. As for "love" and "anti-love," read on . . . it's complicated. I Watch Purple Rain for the First Time in Twenty-Six Years Dearly beloved (I know this part with the organ music, I have heard it so many times), We are gathered here today (and it sounds as if a wedding ceremony is about to start, when later The Kid’s father warns him, “Don’t get married”) To get through this thing called life (and now we are off the rails, because this thing is no wedding in a conventional sense) — Electric word, “life”: (as in “I Sing the Body Electric,” because you hope that your man Prince has read a lot of Walt Whitman and knows those lines, “O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, / I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul [and that they are the soul] . . .”) It means forever and that's a mighty long time (Sometimes it has seemed long, Prince, and sometimes it doesn’t, so do not think linearly). But I'm here to tell you (all of us) There's something else: (wait for it) The afterworld, (ah, man, if you thought that the Boss was the first to offer sermons during such concerts, then now you know better — get out that Live in New York City album and listen to Springsteen preach his version of this bit during “The River”), A world of neverending happiness (so that you never know that you are happy, being in an eternal, unchanging state — if only Prince had read Blake, too). You can always see the sun, day or night (which means that you don’t know when night is, either). So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills (he’s supposedly performing this song in Minneapolis) You know the one, Dr. Everything'll Be Allright (I preferred Dr. Roberts from the Beatles’ song myself), Instead of asking him how much of your time is left (because a doctor will tell you how soon you are going to die), Ask him how much of your mind, baby (if you trust someone whose mantra, “Everything’ll Be Allright” will tell you the dead truth about your mind), 'Cause in this life (as opposed to the Afterworld, one assumes), Things are much harder than in the Afterworld (I knew it). In this life You're on your own (which is what the doctor will not tell you), And if the elevator tries to bring you down, Go crazy, punch a higher floor (which we hope the Kid will do, by finally playing the song by Wendy and Lisa onstage, which will symbolize his coming to terms with the overwhelming misogyny of this movie, where there is the persistent risk of date rape, where a woman gets thrown into the trash, where we see two different men strike two different women, where a cut-music impresario tells his women’s group to wiggle “their asses,” and where, between musical numbers, I could not keep from wondering how an audience was primed to accept the interstitial material linking the musical numbers together. Go crazy). —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here is Ven's call-and-response poem for the day. Several telling calls-and-responses. Coupling (in honor of the TV show that I am flat out stealing this idea from) “Where are you going?” “I’m just off out the pub for a bit.” “Oh ok. You want me to come?” “It’s up to you.” “Which one of these chairs should we get?” “It’s up to you I don’t mind.” “Where are you going?” “Restroom.” “It’s up to you, honestly, I don’t care.” “You must have an opinion, it’s important. Where are you going now?” “I’m just gonna lie down for a bit.” “We both chose this. We decided together.” “Yeah, but it was always up to you really wasn’t it?” “So what do we do now?” “I guess I’ll leave for a few days you know. Think things over.” She finally doesn’t ask “where are you going?” He finally doesn’t say “It’s up to you.” —Draft by Ven Batista    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Thanks for the wonderful poems, Ven, Jed, and Alan. A friend posted this meme on my Facebook yesterday. This has been making the online rounds for some time now, but it continues to be one of my favorites. Never fails to crack me up. “Rhyming is a gateway to sonnets”!  ヅ  Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 25 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Day 25 . . . 5 x 5 days gone by, 5 days left, 5 poems. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "[W]rite a poem that begins with a line from a another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. This will work best if you just start with a line of poetry you remember, but without looking up the whole original poem. (Or, find a poem that you haven’t read before and then use a line that interests you). The idea is for the original to furnish a sort of backdrop for your work, but without influencing you so much that you feel stuck just rewriting the original! For example, you could begin, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,' or 'I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,' or 'I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster,' or 'they persevere in swimming where they like.' Really, any poem will do to provide your starter line – just so long as it gives you the scope to explore." Robert Lee Brewer’s PAD prompt: "For today’s prompt, write an exercise poem. The poem could be about a specific exercise, or it could just incorporate exercising into the poem. Or it could be dedicated to a piece of exercise equipment–so an ode to an elliptical machine or those hand grippers or something. Of course, not every exercise is physical; there are military exercises, mental exercises, and so on." Today, I'm mashing up the prompts with a light ottava rima. Other Ways to Exercise (opening with a line excerpted from “Little Exercise” by Elizabeth Bishop) “Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a rowboat.” Not getting much exercise that way, probably. But really it’s no problem because the stars are dancing in his eyes and in an agile aerobic dream he’s caught him a gigantic fish, not with a rod and flies but by swimming after it, chasing it down. Now that’s exercise, in Dreamland’s playground. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Jed's poem is mythic today. And he got the word "exercise" in too! Circe (with the first line the same as the first line of the fifth stanza of “The Mutability Cantos,” canto vi, by Edmund Spenser) “For she the face of earthly things so changed” By mere presence from nature most mundane To wondrous, foreign shapes so passing strange That men no more could see themselves as men Before her, but did bleat and bark and howl Like beasts, and like beasts did comport themselves To violence, from Reason’s throne they fell, And tare each other sore. Even myself, Bathed in the light of her strange countenance, Was not myself, though not as other men Dragged down to bestial rage or fear, reduced, But rather raised above my former ken. Such powers exercised I on that day, Great glories which I now can scarce recall, And pride filling my heart did pave the way For my as rapid and as distant fall. I hungered for dominion and I strayed From her embrace and favor. Had I known Before her only could I be arrayed With power, I should not have stayed behind When she departed this base, lesser sphere. But I thought to rule, solitary, here.         Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses John William Waterhouse (1892) —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] That's brilliant, Jed! Great voice . . . you capture the mood well. Alan's poem today melds the prompts to talk about collegiate football. Bootfall “From fields where glory does not stay” return the disappointed fans in T-shirts bought for Saturday and celebrating in the stands a resurrected football team. We paid for coaches and a band. We’re building a new stadium on property with too much sand. We got a logo with the State of Tennessee as middle bar. We got a mascot (faux pirate), with model’s hands and not one scar. To keep our health insurance low, we force adjuncts to work part-time, but not administrators, though their benefits are rated prime. But someone wanted football here, and publicly, they say it’s fine that we’ll play conference games this year with last year’s record 2 and 9. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] The borrowed line is from "To An Athlete Dying Young" by A. E. Housman (1896). Witty title, Alan! Here is Ven's mashup of the prompts: an imitation of his model poet. Sexercise "For each ecstatic instant" we pay a price in sweat. Love as a competition — foreplay turned into bets. It’s not about who comes first but who can finish first most times. It’s not about comfort or words Just instants of rising climbs. So schedule in a session. Close the blinds and block your calls. Ignore that sense of doubt you feel about being able to feel at all. —Draft by Ven Batista    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Did you figure out who the source poet is? The borrowed line is the opening of an Emily Dickinson poem, Johnson no. 125. Bravo, Ven! Thanks for reading! Come back for more poetry tomorrow. Five more days in National Poetry Month!  ヅ  Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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