Friday, May 6, 2016

Poetry Friday: A Tritina for Dickey Chapelle

The challenge this month was to write a tritina. It's a form with no end rhyme; instead the last words in each line repeat in a compact, cyclical way.  All three words appear again in the last, stand-alone line. Like this:

A
B
C

C
A
B

B
C
A

A B C (in any order)

The only restriction was that we had to draw our three end words from this common pool: stone, cold, mouth, hope, thread, sweet. 

Other than that, the poem could be about anything. (Which, frankly, only makes things harder. Where to begin? What to say in such a short form?)

Fortunately, I was being haunted by an idea already. It was a story I'd read in the Washington Post about Dickey Chapelle, the first American female photographer killed in action.  She covered Algerian rebels, Fidel Castro, the Vietnam war, and WWII, including Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Guam. She died in Vietnam, accompanying a Marine patrol.

I could've written a poem inspired by any one of her photographs in the Post article, but the picture of men digging a grave on Guam sparked an opening line first. It made me think of how she lived, photographing death over and over.

I'm honoring Chapelle's copyright by not posting the photo on my blog without permission. So...

Please go look at the photo here before reading the poem. (Thanks.)



A Tritina

There’s nothing cold
on Guam, even the mouth
of a grave sweats, my sweet

boys; shutter the body, tout suite;
Dip the film in chemicals, cold;
It’s death to fill LIFE’s glossy mouth

but do not swear, when your mouth
burns mine, caramel sweet,
that it’s easier to die from a cold

than sweet rot, cold fame, war’s mouth.


---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)



Here's the full piece in the Washington Post.

Many more photos are here in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

And this story--which rings true, but lists only two books as source material-- reveals what a complicated person she was.  

***One note on the poem: as far as I can tell, Chapelle may never have sold a photo to LIFE. Still, I believe the use of the magazine's name here is accurate because she submitted her work to them (and was rejected) several times.

My poetry sisters wrote tritinas pulled from the same set of words. Wow. The interlinking themes and images and ideas are as good as the stark differences in how we each used those words.

Go see:



Poetry Friday is hosted today by Sylvia at Poetry for Children. 

18 comments:

  1. Man, do I love this poem. What a powerful image you've captured!

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    1. Thanks, Kelly. Never would've gotten around to writing it w/o my poetry sisters!

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  2. "cold fame, war's mouth". Dear God. Sara, your passion burns this one alive.

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    1. Well, when something haunts you, it haunts you. Thank God for poetry to do something in response.

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  3. shutter the body, tout suite;
    Dip the film in chemicals, cold;
    It’s death to fill LIFE’s glossy mouth


    ...A kind of jagged foreshadowing in "shutter the body;" the whole poem just gives us shutter clicks, literal snapshots of life, death, and desperate passion.

    This woman's life was lived like a flame scaling a fuse. I read a lot about her yesterday after you mentioned her. People in the Fifties call a lot of folk "firecrackers" or whatnot - she truly was, on fire. In the end, she was immolated, but she went as she chose.

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    1. Yes, I realized that the first few pieces I read about her only skimmed the surface of her life and....tidied her up a bit too much...the more I read, the more I realized what you say: she was on fire. I'm fascinated by that kind of drive. Thanks for being fascinated along with me!

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  4. Suite for sweet???
    You win a championship cup for that, my friend.

    I'm in love with this poem and with Dickey Chapelle!!

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    1. And I'm in love with my poetry sisters who provide support and a way to explore stuff like this. What would I do without you? xo

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  5. Beautiful and terrible. Amazing. Takes me
    straight back from an airport gate in Hawaii to a flight line in Afghanistan.

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    1. Thanks, hon. I'm glad you are home now. xo

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  6. This one is searing. Dicky is waiting for you, no, expecting you, to do more with her. "even the mouth
    of a grave sweats" -- still my favorite, though so many other phrases come close!

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    1. That line just came to me, Laura--a gift. Maybe from Dickey. Thanks for the encouragement.

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  7. "It's death to fill" is powerful considering the subject, Liz. My father was killed in the Philippines during WWII, a pilot, plane MIA. I am forever interested in those who risk their lives to capture wars, perhaps to stop them? I would hope so, but it hasn't worked yet. It's so interesting to see how those words have been considered by each of you.

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    1. Yes, I agree that many photographers risk their lives to document wars in order that people may know the truth of them. But...no...it hasn't worked...yet. Still, I admire that drive and passion and burning need to DO something.

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  8. Wow. What a different take on subject matter for this form. First there's your poem, then there's Tanita's prose poem in the comments. Fascinating woman.

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    1. Thanks, Mary Lee. I've toyed with the idea of doing more on her life, but I'm not the researcher I'd like to be. But writing this poem definitely opened my eyes to someone I'd never heard of before now.

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  9. I am so happy that this woman has revealed herself to you. I'm not a religious person, nor new-age-y, however, I do believe that something leads us to an interest or a project.

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  10. Wow. So powerful! I just spent a week in Guam in March, so I found this especially real and moving. Thanks for sharing this Poetry Friday!

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