Poetry Friday: Haiku Sonnet

 

Greetings! I've missed the last few challenges, so I'm glad to be back...even if it's to side-eye the confusing mashup that is the haiku sonnet. (No one does side-eye quite like the Highland "coo." Although the one below was a bull.  A very friendly fellow.)  

The form is defined by four three-line haikus, and an ending couplet, for a total of the sonnet's traditional fourteen lines.  Sounds straightforward enough, but could two things be more opposite?  Haiku doesn't use a rhyme scheme, celebrates brevity and images, and is rarely narrative. Sonnets have a myriad of rhyme schemes, and while not epic, are much longer, and written in iambic pentameter or other meter.  I suppose they do have imagery in common, so I decided to focus on that, drawing on memories of my recent trip to Scotland.

Lichen fuzz beards rocks,

their caved cheeks sharp underfoot

we dodge, dip and twist

Black slugs share the trail

while we talk of unicorns,

not white, but mist-grey

Fords laid yesterday

are now rain-swallowed crossings

we must haul new stones

A roofless shelter

sinking in gathering clouds

births reedy saplings

We pause for tomato soup, 

hot and red, it is our sun.

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

You can find my Poetry Sisters' haiku sonnets here:

Liz

Tricia

Tanita 

Mary Lee

Laura

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Mona Voekel.  

Poetry Friday: The Burning Haibun

Yeah, who thought of this one?  A prose poem, burned down to a second poem, burned down to a haiku? Oh, and please use something actually burning in the poem. And don't forget our yearly theme of conversation! 

No wonder that in our Zoom meeting, no one would admit to proposing the burning haibun as our October challenge, but there we were, stuck with it. We discussed various ways of "cheating"---starting with the end haiku, planting needed words, etc.---but in the end, I just went with my normal free-write process, which generated a sort of story, which I then worked into a prose poem. Burning it down into the second and third poems was much harder, because it felt easy to lose control of meaning as I strove to use the words in fresh ways. In the end, (to quote "Burning Down the House") I fought fire with fire, leaning into honing words in the first poem to give the next two more fuel.  Here it is:

Time is funny

My father knew my mother a year before this story, and (I can’t verify this, time is funny) she asked him to a dance (he said no, he was not a dancer, but later, double that age ((time is funny)) he learned how to waltz for my wedding, whaddya know) but it was only when he saw her, curled up, asleep, on a couch in a study lounge, that he talked to her (I suppose this was after— keeping time is funny, right?— she awoke, but who knows?) He said he planned to be a doctor, and that second (not later, or sooner, time was not funny, but only NOW) her eyes met his, and she said: you’ll be a good doctor. It was but a flicker of conversation—but for sixty years, those bright words consumed his coal-black doubts as he sliced into his patients, who floated on the operating table. Oh, time, so funny for those adrift in sleep! He lifted tumors from organs, and repaired bullet holes, and danced inside people’s bodies with his scalpel until it was time (the light was harsh and hot) to bind skin to skin as he closed. Years later, my mom’s lung sunk into her chest, and she curled up again on a couch. She did not wake. Time, always funny, became a riot, slowing and racing, twisting and bucking, until he, living alone, fell. He was only—at the time— reaching for the phone, for connection, for conversation—but it tore the hell out of his thigh muscle, burned it right off the bone. When he saw me, he said: it’s too much, it’s too much. Time told bad jokes while another doctor (who must have believed he could be a doctor, too) picked through the damage, salvaging what was left of my father’s snapped tendon. He emerged, still beating and flowing, too much, and too little. Time to go look in that drawer, he said. Those are her rings—-a promise ring and a wedding ring—they are yours to take. I slip the rings on my pinky finger (my other knuckles bulge) I feel time push me, like gravity, into my shoes. I’m awake. I hear what he’s saying to me: She believed in me. She believed love is round, and (if time is funny enough) that you can return ashes to light.

A year is a waltz, keeping time,

a flicker of bright bodies— 

harsh time, a riot of damage, 

too much, and too little time.

Go, look! those are rings, 

a promise to slip time

I hear she believed in love, 

and if time is funny, that you return

Bright bodies riot,

damage, and promise, I hear—

Love, time is funny

          ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' links here

Tricia

Liz

Tanita

Laura

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Poetry Friday: Taylor Mali is...

April's challenge for Poetry Month was to write "in the style of" Taylor Mali.  If you're only vaguely familiar with this poet (as I was) here's a great link to several of his spoken word poems.  They are sweeping, circular explorations, sturdy with extended metaphor, and pointedly opinionated. During our ZOOM session, I tried to explain why Mali's long, re-iterative poems hit a nerve for me, and why such poems are a joy to dive into, but even so, I had to agree that WRITING in that style was going to be a big ask. 

So I went back and re-engaged with that list of his poems. One, called Labeling Keys, sang to me. His father's secret language for coding which key belonged to which lock is a beautiful way to talk about poetry---and it reminded my that any form can be a a way to unlock what you want to say. So, despite my love of his expansive poetry, my "in the style of Taylor Mali" poem is concise. 

Haiku concise.  Yeah.  That was a surprise. 

 I did try to imitate his flair for unusual metaphor, his humor, his repetition, and his penchant for mild swearing. If you feel like it, drop me  a "Taylor Mali is...." haiku  in the comments. 

Getting There

Taylor Mali is

the road unpaved; throwing bones;

the long confession

Taylor Mali is

what you wish you’d said right then—

tart as blackberries

Taylor Mali is

the backbeat; what’s up your sleeve;

your heart exploding

Taylor Mali is

waking up past your bus stop;

a backpack of bees

Taylor Mali is 

an unfolding map of words;

not your damn haiku

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

My Poetry Sisters' "in the style of" Taylor Mali poems are here:

Liz

Tanita

Tricia

Andi

Laura

Mary Lee

Kelly

Poetry Friday is hosted today by  Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Poetry Friday: 2020, The Year of Hindsight (and Foresight, too)

2020 is a great year for poetry. (And for hindsight, too, apparently.)

How do I know? Because any year, any day, is a great time for poetry. And also, of course, because the Poetry Sisters have plans---plans to write all twelve months of this year, with the added twist of looking forward and looking back every so often as we create our poems.  

January kicks it off, gently, with a haiku, on the theme of foresight, or the new year, or both.  

I live on a tidal river, so I always feel aware of time, or at least, of the physical movement that accompanies time. So I know that every year turns into the next by the slow work of the tide. And that work can be seen---every day.  So what then, is "new" about each new year? And what does it mean to see "forward" or to have "foresight" about that year? 

I don't know the answer to those questions---or at least not enough to fill a haiku! 

But I do admire the life that lives in and around the tides of the river.  Perhaps foresight is being in the flow of the world, but not dragged under by it.  Like oysters. Like egrets.  Perhaps. 


oyster shells steady
low tide mud; at high, egrets
guard the fey river.  


My sisters greet the new year here:

Liz
Tanita
Kelly
Rebecca
Laura
Andi
Tricia


Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jone, at DeoWriter.

Poetry Friday: ISO Haiku

Once, my son found a "help wanted" ad:

Remove nest of baby copperheads
from under porch. Will pay $20.

I always wondered if anyone was desperate enough to answer.  I mean, come on---they're BABY copperheads, right?

That's the thing about classifieds. They suggest (perhaps willfully) that if only you answer them, the full story will be revealed. More likely, the truth is that if you answer the ad, you become part of the story, too.

I think the same give and take applies to poetry. Which is good, because this month, the Poetry Sisters are playing with haiku/senryu in the form of classified ads. I wrote several because I couldn't help myself.

WANTED: rain, heavy

Must pelt/soak; no peevish squalls

Will pay in fresh corn.

LOST: my perspective

No reward; meet me for cake 

mountains>molehills>crumbs.

FREE: to a good home:

One book, never read, but loved.

#coverseducedme

POETS: Start today; 

word your way up; could capture

moon in fifty years.

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

See what's LOST/FOUND/WANTED/FOR SALE from my Poetry Sisters here: Liz, Tanita, Tricia, Laura, Kelly, Andi. 

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference.