Poetry Friday: A Clogyrnach for my Birthday

 April's challenge was to write a poem to an image, any form, any topic. Such freedom! Too much, perhaps, so I sought refuge in a form I'd tried earlier: the clogyrnach.  It's a traditional Welsh form, "rarely used by today's poets."  Well. For special occasions, then?  Like my birthday?

I love this photo (I'm on the right) but questions come to mind. Is my head really that rectangular...and who gave me that haircut?  Why don't I always eat cake with a spoon? Why do I look like I've been caught stealing?  I have no answers, but questions are always a great place to begin a poem. 

On in years

Do you believe life boomerangs?

In old age, will Frankenstein bangs

feather my forehead?

Will I leap from bed

Arms outspread, greedy pangs

for crumbled cake to smash and spoon?

Close my eyes dark and warm as prunes

as the day’s end nears?

Sing through icing smears?

On in years... same sweet tune.

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

If you're curious, the form is below.  You can repeat, as I did, the form in more stanzas, to tell a longer story.

8 syllables - x x x x x x x a

8 syllables - x x x x x x x a

5 syllables - x x x x b

5 syllables - x x x x b

3 syllables - x x b 

3 syllables - x x a 

(you may combine last two lines into one line)

My poetry sisters poems, written to images of their choosing, can be found here:

Tanita

Mary Lee

Liz

Laura

Tricia

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.

Poetry Friday: The Ovillejo

 

I left this month's challenge until late. What was I waiting for? I don't know, but when I saw the rules of the ovillejo, I was afraid.  It's so tightly arranged.  Take a look:

Line 1: a rhyme in 8 syllables
Line 2: a rhyme in 3-4 syllables

Line 3: b rhyme in 8 syllables
Line 4: b rhyme in 3-4 syllables

Line 5: c rhyme in 8 syllables
Line 6: c rhyme in 3-4 syllables

Line 7: c rhyme in 8 syllables
Line 8: d rhyme in 8 syllables


Line 9: d rhyme in 8 syllables
Line 10: (Line 2) (Line 4) (Line 6)

On the other hand, the punchy short lines and the rhyme seemed fun. But how to make it all work together? My poetry sisters advised starting with the last line and reverse engineering. But...I didn't do that.  Nope. Part of why I write poetry is to discover what I think, and if I write the last lines first, I can't think well...my head is too full of where I'm going. So I just wrote a first line, then another silly one, and so on and so on, until I had...well, a mess that fit the rules but was as goofy as a bad commercial.  

Fortunately, revision came to the rescue. Even in a tight form, you have wriggle room. Even on busy days, you have time.  

Oh, when will the cherry blossoms bloom?

Wait. Wait. Ka-boom!

Bursting, busting, bruising the shocked air—

now, everywhere.

Time roots down as petals swirl; they free

you and me

from overflow; we can be empty

of questions of when; they sticky kiss 

our foreheads, they croon: Time is but this:

Wait. Wait. Ka-boom!— now and everywhere—you and me.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

My poetry sisters' poems are found here:

Liz

Tanita

Tricia

Mary Lee

Laura

Poetry Friday is hosted by Marcie Flinchun Atkins. 

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.