Poetry Friday: The Burning Haibun

Yeah, who thought of this one?  A prose poem, burned down to a second poem, burned down to a haiku? Oh, and please use something actually burning in the poem. And don't forget our yearly theme of conversation! 

No wonder that in our Zoom meeting, no one would admit to proposing the burning haibun as our October challenge, but there we were, stuck with it. We discussed various ways of "cheating"---starting with the end haiku, planting needed words, etc.---but in the end, I just went with my normal free-write process, which generated a sort of story, which I then worked into a prose poem. Burning it down into the second and third poems was much harder, because it felt easy to lose control of meaning as I strove to use the words in fresh ways. In the end, (to quote "Burning Down the House") I fought fire with fire, leaning into honing words in the first poem to give the next two more fuel.  Here it is:

Time is funny

My father knew my mother a year before this story, and (I can’t verify this, time is funny) she asked him to a dance (he said no, he was not a dancer, but later, double that age ((time is funny)) he learned how to waltz for my wedding, whaddya know) but it was only when he saw her, curled up, asleep, on a couch in a study lounge, that he talked to her (I suppose this was after— keeping time is funny, right?— she awoke, but who knows?) He said he planned to be a doctor, and that second (not later, or sooner, time was not funny, but only NOW) her eyes met his, and she said: you’ll be a good doctor. It was but a flicker of conversation—but for sixty years, those bright words consumed his coal-black doubts as he sliced into his patients, who floated on the operating table. Oh, time, so funny for those adrift in sleep! He lifted tumors from organs, and repaired bullet holes, and danced inside people’s bodies with his scalpel until it was time (the light was harsh and hot) to bind skin to skin as he closed. Years later, my mom’s lung sunk into her chest, and she curled up again on a couch. She did not wake. Time, always funny, became a riot, slowing and racing, twisting and bucking, until he, living alone, fell. He was only—at the time— reaching for the phone, for connection, for conversation—but it tore the hell out of his thigh muscle, burned it right off the bone. When he saw me, he said: it’s too much, it’s too much. Time told bad jokes while another doctor (who must have believed he could be a doctor, too) picked through the damage, salvaging what was left of my father’s snapped tendon. He emerged, still beating and flowing, too much, and too little. Time to go look in that drawer, he said. Those are her rings—-a promise ring and a wedding ring—they are yours to take. I slip the rings on my pinky finger (my other knuckles bulge) I feel time push me, like gravity, into my shoes. I’m awake. I hear what he’s saying to me: She believed in me. She believed love is round, and (if time is funny enough) that you can return ashes to light.

A year is a waltz, keeping time,

a flicker of bright bodies— 

harsh time, a riot of damage, 

too much, and too little time.

Go, look! those are rings, 

a promise to slip time

I hear she believed in love, 

and if time is funny, that you return

Bright bodies riot,

damage, and promise, I hear—

Love, time is funny

          ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' links here

Tricia

Liz

Tanita

Laura

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Poetry Friday: The Raccontino, once again

 

This month's poem
is dedicated to my Dad,
who celebrated
 his 88th birthday this June

June's challenge was the raccontino, a form we've tried before (although I had no memory of it until I went back to look at my post in 2015.)  Tricia summarizes the form nicely:

• composed of couplets (any number)
• even number lines share the same end rhyme
• the title and last words of the odd numbered lines tell a story

As usual, our Zoom conversation was about how to best approach this form, which on the surface, is similar to last month's golden shovel in that the end words spell out something. For a golden shovel, you borrow a line from another poem for those end words, and there's no requirement for couplets or rhyme. For the raccontino, you ideally use the end words to create your own story, or (as some of us did) you might use a proverb or short quotation as inspiration-- and in between, you insert lines that have to use the same rhyme all the way through, which complicates things.  

I chose a quote from Hamlet---"More matter with less art" which is what the Queen says to Polonius when she asks about her son's madness, and he pontificates instead of answering. It's not exactly a story, but it does provoke interesting conversation, which is our theme for 2025. 

For example:

• In writing poetry, is nailing down the matter (content) your first concern? Or is following the specific rules of the art form (style) the backbone of your approach?  Which serves your process better? 

For me, the last time I wrote a raccontino, I dove into content headfirst, not even bothering to to shape the rhyme or end lines until after I had my content. The rest of the group thought that was insane.  This time, I began with "art"---choosing the form's end lines and rhyme scheme and letting that shape the content.  I found that surprisingly freeing! 

• And what about the "conversation" between that end line story and the rest of the poem?  Is is supposed to repeat the message?  Contradict it? Or, maybe--more subtly-- create tension with it?  

So much potential for conversation!  Which is one reason I love poetry.  It doesn't have right answers, only good questions. And (hat tip to Hamlet) perhaps a respect for both plain speaking and madness.

 Here's my take on matter/art, in a raccontino:

More

To write a poem that will matter,

disregard (for now) rhyme; reason, too;

listen to the words that lurk with

furtive shifting feet, out of view;

the shy dance of poetry is less

about what the sane will say is true

and more about what is left when art

pares away everything not you. 

           ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

My poetry sisters' poems can be found here:

Tanita (who is hosting today)

Liz

Tricia

Laura

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday: Golden Shovel

Spotted owl,
 Encyclopedia Britannica

 

May's challenge was to write a golden shovel, using as inspiration one line from Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "Letter to NY." To refresh your memory, a golden shovel uses each word of the chosen line as the last word of new lines in a new poem while still maintaining some connection, or conversation, with the original poem. (A more in-depth explanation and history can be found here.)  

I wasn't familiar with Letter to NY (maybe you aren't either; if so, please read it here.) On first glance, I found that Bishop wrote a rather sad, cynical take on a relationship that seems to have been tarnished over time. 

Here's a hint of that sadness:

In your next letter I wish you'd say

where you are going and what you are doing;

how are the plays, and after the plays

what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,

driving as if to save your soul

where the road goes round and round the park

and the meter glares like a moral owl

(more here)

For me, the line choices were hard to re-imagine in a new context. (For example, using the perfectly wonderful in context "where you are going and what you are doing" as end words in a new poem seemed to be asking for a vague mess.)  So, I just picked a line that had interesting words in it, and fiddled around. (Most of poetry is fiddling around, right?)  And in the end, I found I'd written a poem that maintained a connection with the original by writing about the beginning of this fictional relationship, instead of its sad present state.   

The line I chose:  "and the meter glares like a moral owl"

The golden shovel I created, with still a hint of foreboding (I hope) 

In the beginning

The conversation is poetry: you and

me, dropping words into the 

snapping fire, not measuring meter

yet, not forcing rhyme, our bashful glares

into the flames heroically funny like

we weren’t feeling the rising heat; a

log cracks, loudly, expending its moral 

energy, but we lustfully ignore it—and the watching owl.

-----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' golden shovels here:

Liz

Laura

Tricia

Mary Lee

Tanita

Poetry Friday is hosted today by the wonderful Karen Edmisten.