Poetry Friday: Dictionary Time Travel

This month's challenge was a fun one:  using your birth year, tap into the Merriam-Webster "Time Traveler" site to generate a list of words new to the dictionary that year. Write a poem (any form) from the result. Here's a screenshot of some of "my" words:  

Words, words, words...

First of all, the complete list of words from 1963 was eye-opening. Who knew zip code wasn't in the dictionary until then? And while some words have gone out of style (phat and snarf) and some tech out of use (dot-matrix printer, anyone?) others words have become ordinary (mind game, upscale, scam.) 

Beyond that, though, this challenge sparked a discussion among the Poetry Sisters about word choices, and how language can be behind or ahead of cultural change. For example, sexism was officially recognized by M-W in 1963. Of course, sexism has existed since the beginning of time, but being able to name it was a sign we were also seeing it more clearly. Maybe. (For an explanation of what "first use" of a word means, see here.) 

The challenge, though, was not just about words. It was about how to use them in a poem...how to create something more than a word salad (not a 1963 word, that's 1904.) For example, was writing a sonnet possible with vocabulary like "checkbook journalism" and "support hose" or was free verse the only answer to employing such sore thumb choices? Should we select words that already had something in common (sports words or culturally-charged ones or medical jargon) or should we string words along a personal narrative of memories from our year? 

As usual, having so many choices didn't make the challenge easier. Liz called her first attempt kin to making modern art. Mine was more like graffiti. (Graffiti as a noun---1945, graffiti as a verb---1964.) 

In the end, I found structure in a definition poem. Perhaps an obvious choice for a dictionary challenge, but I didn't plan it that way. As I told my Poetry Sisters, I rarely start with a plan...I write in order to find out what my plan IS. And after some scrounging (1909) and scrawling (1612!) this poem wanted to talk to me about love.  

1963 words are in purple.

Love is….

Love is not a bully 

pulpit or a bodysuit, 

zipped to fit. It’s not 

a mind game.

Not a mini-series, bent

on one-upping itself. 

Love is a space walk. 

Love is a play-action

pass. Love is phat. But oh,

my dragon fruit, love is 

passing rare. We’ll fall off 

the leaderboard. We’ll be

the after-burn of slings

and arrows. We’ll be 

elevator music. What a

dirty trick, and yet…

there we fly, doubled

on a banana seat bike, 

plastic fronds thwapping

from the handlebars. We

ride because love is 

a gut check. Love has

no delete key. Love is 

umami.

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

My poetry sisters time-traveling poems can be found here:

Liz

Laura

Tanita

Kelly

Tricia

Andi

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Bookseed Studio.  

Poetry Friday: Wish I'd Been There

The theme for December's poetry challenge was "Wish I'd been There or a wistful look back at a historic event."  Hmmmmmm. I'm not much of a wistful person. Nor a history-focused student.  I prefer to think ahead, to what's possible, instead of looking at the past. (Although, I DO love historical drama. Maybe it's the clothes.) 

Anyhow, I was stumped on this one until I stumbled across this article from Mental Floss about the Winter Solstice, and learned that several revolutionary events happened on the "shortest day" in 1620, 1898, and 1968.  Add in the fact that Solstice roughly translates to "sun stands still" and I had myself a poem. 

Be well, all.  You still have time. 

The Sun Stands Still

Sounds lonely,

doesn’t it? 

Sol, hovering

as she did

for Pilgrims,

cloaked and anxious,

setting booted foot upon rock.

Sounds ordinary,

doesn’t it?

Sol, loitering

as she did

for Pierre and Marie Curie,

gaping at radium,

opening the atomic age.

 

Sounds quiet, 

doesn’t it? 

Sol, idling

as she did

for William, Frank, James,

hearts shaking, rumbling

moonward in Apollo 8. 

 

Don’t hold

your breath, then

when Sol suspends

us.  

Be lonely, be ordinary,

be quiet. Sounds poetic,

Doesn’t it?

 

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

You can find my Poetry Sisters' wistfulness here:

Tanita

Kelly

Liz

Laura

Tricia

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Irene Latham. 

Poetry Friday: In gratitude for unfinished work

The task this Poetry Friday was to write a poem in conversation with one of our older poems (or to revise it) in keeping with our overall 2020 theme of hindsight/foresight. 

Well.  MUCH could be said about this year in hindsight. And I have a well of poems I've written (most with my poetry sisters) with which I could converse. But I wanted to go back to December of 2019, when our task was to write a poem of gratitude.  I wrote such a poem, then.  I was happy with it.  But I also found a fragment of a poem from that challenge that I'd never finished (the first stanza below.) 

Why not see where it led? Where does gratitude...even a fragment of gratitude... lead you? 

I am grateful for 

silence, marshmallow rich, 

that grows as I walk, alone;

I can feel the silence expand 

to the sky, to the half-moon,

to the constellations.

I am grateful for

evenings, tender-crisp,

on the edge of shared winter;

I can feel the night collapse

to the marrow of the earth,

to the well of oldest time. 

I am grateful for

hearts, layers-deep

beating apart and together;

I can feel the rhythm move

us to our fingertips, to the end 

of love’s reach.  

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

My poetry sisters' hindsight can be found here:

Liz
Laura
Tanita
Tricia 

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Carol's Corner.