“Found Poetry”

There are fliers and posters promoting community service around every corner on campus.  I picked up a few, and am “finding” poems in them.  One calls for volunteers to help kids read.  I worked two haiku out of this one (went with haiku because of the minimal wording of the flier.)  Another advertises a MADD walk.  That one has significantly more words printed on it, and some really great word groups (i.e. “gently-used views” and “eliminate participation.”)  Am having trouble with how exactly I should connect all these groups… maybe the reader doesn’t need connectors.  I certainly didn’t when I was circling the words!

Found Haiku

Volunteers work with

children on how to commit,

center in service.

 

Application of

required reading with child

is found on first floor.

Susan & Elizabeth Congratulating Each Other

My Dear Elizabeth,

We are down and out

of our minds to

scream and wish

to land behind

each others

eyes in brave

attempts to shield

the storm, then protect

those without

the gift of grace

given freely to me

in place of weaker hearts.

Affectionately,

Susan

 

My Dear Susan,

We are cut

and sewn together

forever of brutal

beautiful cloth that wherever

we wander and lose

our minds in torment

will bear the weight of

what we meant the world

to know

the time we went

out and injured the hatred

that we knew so much about.

Affectionately,

Elizabeth

 

Villanelle

“You’ve been invited, are you able?”

Eve asked Mary, in all earnestness

“I’ve set your place at Heroine’s Table.”

 

Then Mary looked, saw through the fable

and tried to warn Maggie- “Mind the mess!

You’ve been invited, are you able?”

 

Then Maggie, she screamed across all the sable

sands of time to Boudica with her orneriness

“I’ve set your place at Heroine’s Table.”

 

Then on her way in, tucked in a gable,

she found notes from Sappho on the test

“You’ve been invited, are you able?”

 

Then Alice and Lucy, who were called “unstable,”

“wanna-be men” and all the rest,

took their places at Heroine’s Table.

 

Then Modern Woman came in on a cable

asks “What right do I have?” after all the best

who were invited and able

to take their places at Heroine’s Table.

Blank Verse on Literature 2

The father of a prostitute is drunk

and waxing philosophical.  He knows

that he cannot redeem the sin he saw

reflected in his daughter’s eyes, he has

this circular and psychic insight, peers

down into mysteries that usually

avoid the stares of men but Marmeladov

is different because he thinks he’s not.

Sofia is his daughter’s name, a whore

the only one, besides his God, who looks

at him with sympathy.  It’s not to say

that Marm desires pity, anything

unnecessary to his self-imposed

eternal suffering, but spirits lift

him up and sing.  While he is crucified

he passes nails to angel’s hands and hopes

that they are not incapable of love.

Friday, March 11, 2011

I got more words, by far, out of the “poems on poems” suggestion (although I substituted literature for poetry) so I am doing that again.  This time I’ve chosen a passage from Crime and Punishment to work from.  It goes, “This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.”  The character that speaks these words is a minor player in the novel, but I think his approach to humility is vital to the story and I would like to commemorate his contribution.

Blank Verse on Literature

The lady Jenny never understands

the awful circumstances God hands down

(to Arthur first because he was the king

that she and Lance betrayed at night, they led

him all the way to places such as lone-

liness and desperate to glorify

his God) on top of Lance’s head that dreams

of ancient men who warn poor Lance of poor

belief and evil faith.  The sin of pride

he says to Jenny causes loss of “sweets”

because sometimes he just cannot relate

to her and in a moment such as this

he wishes for some peace in which to sit

and ponder all his victories gone by,

how none of them had ever come this close

to being able to produce profound

emotions like the one he felt the time

the black knight came upon poor Lance and struck

him down with all the force of might and dark

before our Galahad became a man

completely willing to accept defeat

in murky waters near Mortoise and still

remember to say thank you God for my

one, heavenly life-time of adventure.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

For my next poem I’m going to start from one of my favorite passages in literature, Lancelot speaking to Guenever.  “I knelt down in the water of Mortoise, Jenny, where he had knocked me- and I thanked God for the adventure.”  from The Once and Future King by T.H. White.  Am going to write in blank verse because I want to have the freedom for words that I wouldn’t have if trying to rhyme them.  The Mists of Avalon is a book with a unique take on Arthurian legend, told from the perspective of the characters who are usually vilified.  This is one of my favorite fiction works.  The passage from …King is strangely supportive of the …Avalon world in that, if taken in context, it shows us that Guenever is not capable of deep spirituality, a point the “evil” characters spend quite a lot of time trying to convince Arthur of.  Guenever is traditionally revered as a pious Queen, so this passage, hidden in the middle of all that adulation, reveals her to be something more of a simpleton.  This tension surrounding “what she’s really like” is exciting for me, therefore…

Post-“Formula”

I decided to attempt to keep the Italian sonnet in iambic tetrameter, but I should have done iambic pentameter instead.  Four feet per line is not enough space to include:  1. jarring or very touching imagery of any kind (at least in the first several drafts,)  2. recipe-like instructions, and 3. still work within the rhyme scheme.  Probably would still have been difficult had I chosen pentameter.  I think like the poem says it will take some incubation.

Formula

Recall the cruelest act you’ve seen-

first knead, then cover and let rise.

Bowl overflows with your surmise

of reasons why things always seem

unfair.  Drudge up some broken dream

and torture it until it tries

to dissolve.  Mixes well with lies,

and leaves you feeling very keen

 

On starting over quietly,

stay busy by refusing hate.

Add memories especially

important to what you create.

The pan will burn you pleasantly

sit quietly and incubate.