Friday, April 3, 2015

At the Fulcrum of the Day: A Raccontino


If you're like me, you had to look up a raccontino to know what it was. Or, more precisely, I had to scramble to Miss Rhumpius's blog to find out that it's a poem that is:

  • 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


The Poetry Seven had different approaches to this form. Some wrote their end line sentence first. Others came up with a theme first. Me? I wrote a non-rhyming poem, made it rhyme and then played with the odd numbered end words and line breaks to form a story sentence.  

As one of our group said of my method: Impossible. 

Heh. Well, I will admit that I didn't mind toying with the couplets or jiggering the rhyme scheme, but moving those end words around into a sentence was killer for me.  It felt wrong to be messing with how I shaped the poem originally.  I like my line breaks to be my line breaks!

But it all came right in the end. 



at the fulcrum of the day

I watch my children as the tides, escaping,
inch by inch, until they are fanned

out, too far out; I call to them: mind the time!  
Thin as a needle, I rise, slow to expand—

How closely sliced are the minutes, as onions shaved
to transparency; I see them, as near as my hand;

I have only seconds before noon slips into 
afternoon; blocks of hours eroded to sand.

Soon it is before supper; Beyond is the dusk
and the night; the tide I can withstand

But great God, let the sun balance, never-ending
Wait there, wait there! I call as l stand.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Amy at The Poem Farm. The other raccontinos--by each of the Poetry Seven--can be found here:


11 comments:

  1. "How closely sliced are the minutes, as onions shaved
    to transparency; I see them, as near as my hand;"

    So beautiful...I am holding this one - with my teenagers, near as my hand but also not - close to my heart today.

    Happy Poetry Friday! xo, a.

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  2. I think this is my favorite of our whole group this month, Sara. It resonates inside me, pounds against my skin. And yet it's totally different from how I would phrase anything. It's like trying on something foreign in a dressing room and finding that it looks like it was designed just for me:>) And...it breaks my heart every time I read it.

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  3. Tides and people we love; often just out of reach... So poignant. I still cannot believe that you wrote the poem first and THEN had the words work out. How??? (0.o) This form loves you!

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  4. Love this. So good to be reading your poetry again. Third stanza is my favorite, loved how the sense of urgency pulled me through the entire poem. Interesting form!

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  5. Like Tanita, I can't believe you wrote it in the manner you did. Lovely, poetic images, too. (Sorry if it posts twice - it's my THIRD time trying!)

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  6. Sara, Love the poem and am impressed by the really difficult route you chose to the summit. Why make the hard more difficult? The result says it all. John

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  7. I'm with Laura -- this is so lovely and it made me sick with nostalgia... Wow, this is fine.

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  8. My favorite stanza:
    " I have only seconds before noon slips into
    afternoon; blocks of hours eroded to sand."

    Simply heartbreaking! And I am in awe, with the others, that you could wrangle all that into the form. Bravo!

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  9. I'll just add an echo down here: WOW! Thanks for sharing your process, but...wow! And it is SO good to be reading your words again here. (wow)

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  10. Hi there Sara, I admire your ability to discipline the poem into such structured form. I love the vision of the dusk in your lines. :) Reading about your process is amazing too.

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  11. I love your poetry! This raccontino and your pantoum both leave me with happy sighs.

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