Between the ages of eight and twenty-two, cummings wrote a poem a day.
Yeah. That.
And here I am, trying to follow in his pen strokes.
First of all, I had a hard time naming what I was attempting to do. What did "in the style of" mean?
imitating?
mimicking?
shadowing?
following?
tracing?
Then one of the Poetry Seven used a word I liked: echoing. Perhaps I could do that. (thanks, Andi!)
in Just-
dusk when the world is shadow-
mossed the one-winged lightningbug
blinks, incan/descent
and pillbugandmoth come
floating from screenshanks and
scatterall and it’s
dusk
when the world is wing-wonderful
the lop-flighted
lighteningbug blinks
incan/descent
and beetleandroach come scalltering
from rot-hopping and stank-rope and
it’s dusk
and
the
single-oared
lightningbug stutters
incan
/descent
---Sara Lewis Holmes, inspired by "in Just-" by ee cummings
One more thing: we also decided to record these poems. Click on the sound file below to hear me read my work aloud.
Other echoes of ee cummings can be found at each of the Poetry Seven's blogs today:
Liz, echoing "i like my body when it is"
Tricia, echoing "silence.is a looking"
Tanita, echoing "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls"
Laura, echoing "Spring is like a perhaps hand"
Kelly, echoing "maggie and milly and molly and may"
Andi, echoing "a wind has blown the rain away"
As a bonus, we've gathered all our recordings in one place on Soundcloud. (Perhaps we'll continue to record our work? I, for one, love hearing work read aloud.)
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Katie at the Logonauts.
