Poetry Friday: Inspired by Poet Laureate Arthur Sze

The Tree of Life

February's challenge was to write a poem inspired by/in conversation with a poem by the new Poet Laureate of the U.S., Arthur Sze.  I first found him via a podcast transcript, which featured Sze in an interview for Poetry Magazine's 110th anniversary. In it was this gem:

Sze introduces the ancient Sanskrit idea of Indra's net: Everything that happens in the cosmos is like a crystal. If you imagine the cosmos as an immense chandelier and shine light into it, each hanging jewel reflects and absorbs the light of every other. “That’s one of the things poetry does,” Sze says. “We’re not writing in competition—we’re all trying to create poems, and they’re all shining light on each other."

Wow. Each poem, shining a light on the other.  That's what the Poetry Sisters are all about. 

Next, I went in search of some of his poetry. I admit to not knowing much about his work, even though he's been around for decades, writing reams of poetry. So this article (Selections) was helpful in narrowing the field.  In it, I learned about Sze's translation of Chinese poetry, and his even wider interest in the struggle of every poet to "translate life to the page."  The poem given as an example of this struggle was  "Pe‘ahi Light," which I read, and fell hard for these lines:

Drizzle, rain, downpour—

I have no words for these kinds of rain;

I mark a conch shell doorstop, a dictionary

of etymology: rain, from Old English,

regn—a frond emerges out of the dark—

rain stops, water beads at the tips of ferns.

Words. Where they come from. What they say. What they can't say. I thought I could write a poem in response to that. 

No Words

ache, pain, sting—

I have no words for these kinds of pain

bite, gnaw, twist, rip—

words caught in teeth, as if we must feed

on this pain we have no words for

burn, spasm, catch—

words of unregulated jerking, as if our hearts

cannot steady this pain we have no words for—

but maybe no one does—

for in my dictionary, pain roots 

from the Latin poena:

penalty, cost, fine—

it is that which is taken,

like a pound of flesh

hence, the chart with grimacing faces 

or the numbers by which we rank

sensation, moving pain away 

from words, which are, at base, 

untranslatable from the body

which only knows how 

to bead and quiver

in the light that shines

on all the others,

giving words to

no words 

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

My poetry sisters all picked different poems by Sze to respond to. You can find them here:

Liz

Tricia

Laura

Mary Lee

Tanita

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Margaret Simon.

 

Poetry Friday: A Trio of Tricubes

The power of three
in storytelling

The challenge for January was tricubes, a short non-rhyming form--just three stanzas of three lines each, with only three syllables per line. (Get it? 3 x 3 x 3 = a cube)  It was supposed to be a low-key entry to a new year of poetry... and surprise! it actually WAS pleasantly dreamy to write these...Liz even used the word "meditative" (which is poet speak for wild fun.) We also had a discussion about the well-documented magic of three in storytelling, and about all the ways one could approach tricubes.  If you want to write one, here are six ideas for to begin:

1) Write a story in three parts: beginning, middle and end for each of the the tricube's three stanzas

2) write a list poem, as if you were jotting three-syllable notes to yourself (or someone else) 

3) Pick a three-syllable word and write your poem as a definition of that word. 

4) Or simply use a three-syllable word as inspiration, weaving it in as a line in the final poem (or let it go after you've revised it into something better.) 

5) brainstorm a grab bag of three-syllable lines about any topic. Then play with the order of the lines, mixing and matching to make the most interesting stanzas.  Tanita likes to "intensify" the poem as she moves through the stanzas. 

 

6) Be inspired by the math itself, and play with the rich lore of numbers

 ...which is what I did, writing three tricubes, all about the number three:  

Threesomes

Valentine

math is odd:

adding one 

to two shakes

up old ties... 

classic love

triangle,

new friendship

or third wheel?

 

Caution

in Japan 

sugar cane

field warning:

 

Don’t be third

in a line

of walkers:

one: snake sees

two: snake coils

three: snake strikes.

 

Fortune

 

Bad luck sprouts

in threes, spreads

like poison

But good luck 

falls like trees:

a rich rot

thick with life

green with love

multiplied

            ---all poems, all rights reserved by Sara Lewis Holmes 

Please visit my poetry sisters to see their tricubes:

Liz

Tricia

Tanita

Mary Lee

Laura

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Amy VanDerwater at the Poem Farm 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Friday: End of Year Poems about Light, Hope and Peace

 

Christmas, 2019
(Year of the Bûche de Noël)

December's challenge was designed to be simple:  a poem, of any form, about light, hope and/or peace.  Like many simple things, however, it took work to get to the heart of what I should do with this task. In the end, I decided to lean upon our yearly theme of conversation, and seek out a poem about light that I could be in conversation with.  With Liz's help, I found Lucille Clifton's poem, "the light that came to lucille clifton."  Do you know it?  It begins:

the light that came to lucille clifton

came in a shift of knowing

when even her fondest sureties

faded away. it was the summer

she understood that she had not understood

and was not mistress even

of her own off eye

That's how I've felt lately. My fondest sureties faded away, driven from me by the death of my son, Wade.  I haven't written about it, not a word, because I haven't been able to--and because some piece of me didn't want the Internets to have him, strange as that sounds. I wanted to hold him close, not scatter the news of him out there for garish ads to devour. But it's time to say his name. After less than a year of battling cancer, Wade was buried at Arlington National Cemetery this past summer.  My grief is never-ending.  But there is still light. Light he would want me to see.

 I didn't write this poem with him in mind, but it enabled me to tell you about him.  That is a gift I wasn't expecting from this simple challenge.  And I'm deeply grateful to my poetry sisters, who have grieved with me, and supported me in the most beautiful, tender ways.  

In conversation with Lucille Clifton poem,

 “the light that came to lucille clifton”

I brought the recipe for the light

to my daughter’s house one Christmas—

it was in the shape of a Bûche de Noël—

that clever, cocoa-tinged log of sponge,

spiraled about a layer of espresso buttercream, 

then slicked with frosting as dark as walnut bark, 

combed with the tines of a fork to mimic the roughness 

of woodgrain, and garnished with clustered bulbs

of creamy marzipan mushrooms, meticulously made—

all to be destroyed, sure as the Yule Log 

it mimics used to blaze, crying for the sun to return—

what a burst of merrymaking, yes? 

So I brought the recipe for the light

to my daughter’s house one Christmas—

and asked her to make it. She was much better 

at that kind of thing, and she would enjoy 

the making of it, right?

I can see that you can see

where this is going: The cake, in the end

was correctly, beautifully, gloriously made, 

perfect, even. But I was wrong. 

I only saw that years later, because 

that is how light works. It takes forever

to get from a combusting star to your blind eye,

and in the meantime, you stumble

in the darkness, not knowing that

you are not mistress

of the cake, not mistress of Noël,

not mistress of even your own “off eye”

as Clifton so mysteriously says—

You are servant to the light,

which instructs you to make toast,

if that’s what you can do, and butter it

all the way to the edge, and let it be enough—

or light might say: make the same damn soup,

the one with lentils, and lots of garlic,

and lovely curls of greens, and a wedge of gooey

parmesan melting in the middle. Light might say:

Noël was, and will be; see it there, it comes. 

It is on the table. Amen.

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

You can find my poetry sisters' poems about light (and hope and peace) here: 

Tricia (who is hosting Poetry Friday today!)

Liz

Tanita

Laura

Mary Lee