Poetry Friday: In the Style of Valerie Worth

One of my favorite small things: 

French green lentils

November's challenge is one of the most fun:  an invitation to write in the style of a well-known poet.  It's a chance to learn by imitation, and an opportunity to delve into the choices each poet makes when they create. This time it's Valerie Worth, who's best known for close observation, spare lines, attention to the "small things" (either in size or in importance) and an affinity for a child's viewpoint.  One of my favorite quotes about her work comes from Valerie herself: 

“It has always seemed to me that any tree or flower, any living creature, even any old board or brick or bottle possesses a mysterious poetry of its own, a poetry still wordless, formless, inaudible, but asking to be translated into words and images and sounds—to be expressed as a poem. Perhaps it could be said that written poetry is simply a way of revealing and celebrating the essentially poetic nature of the world itself.” ---as quoted in a profile of Valerie Worth, written by  Lee Bennett Hopkins for Language Arts, Vol. 68, October 1991 

I tried to honor that approach by  picking two small objects and finding the "mysterious poetry"  in them. 

The first poem was inspired by a soup I was making during our Sunday ZOOM meet-up, and by Worth's poem, "Safety Pin" in which she explores a pin both open and closed.  I did the same for a humble lentil, plucked from a bag, and examined both raw and cooked.  

Lentils

Raw,

they chatter

against the bowl,

a patch of pebbles

blotched as

turtle shells.

Cooked,

they fatten

to a chorus, sing 

of one hundred days 

in snug pods,

unspoiled sun.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

By the way, did you know there's a MasterClass in growing lentils?   I relied on that as I revised my poem, making it more specific with details like how long lentils take to grow, and how much sunlight they need. Research for the win! 

The second poem was a response to the most humble thing I could find in my office: the doorstop. At first, I thought: I can't write about that.  But then I thought: but Valerie Worth would.  So I did. 

Doorstop

an outstretched arm,
its white rubber tip
a gloved fist, dampens

the fling of an opening
door, the coiled spring
catching the energy

of the wild children
who enter. 

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

Funny story:  the first picture I took of the doorstop showed me a dust bunny hiding behind the door.  Had to grab that and take another photo.  But maybe I should've written a Valerie Worth ode to the dust?? 

Find out more about Valerie Worth from my poetry sisters' explorations of her style and their wonderful poems.  Grateful to be writing all these years with these kind and talented poets:

Liz

Laura

Kelly

Tricia

Tanita

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Ruth. 

Poetry Friday: Let's play with Bouts-Rimés

Quotes fill the walls
at Planet Word,
Washington, DC 
(highly recommended) 

This month's challenge is another game, or as Mary Lee puts it, "a word puzzle."  Bouts-Rimés is an old game, played by poets since the early 17th century.  The name means "rhymed ends" and the game is played by giving a poet a list of rhymed end words, and challenging her to write a poem to fit.  Supposedly, the harder the end words, the better the game.  We weren't too cruel to ourselves, but the list did have a few doozies: 

A: profuse/abtruse/chartreuse/truce

B: incline/shine/resign/supine

C: various/gregarious/hilarious/precarious

D: ceasefire/quagmire/higher/dryer

E: transform/barnstorm/uniform/conform

F: humility/futility/nobility, tranquility

G: perturb/superb/reverb, disturb

We also decided to use these rhymes in any form of a sonnet. I always have to look up the variations, so here they are: 

Petrarchan: ABAB ABAB CDE CDE  or ABBA ABBA CDC DCD

Shakespearean: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Spenserian: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE

Other: AABB CCDD EEFF GG

And of course, we should try to work in our theme for the year of transformation (conversion, alteration, metamorphosis, mutation, growth, evolution, revision, modulation, change) 

Whew.  Enough with the rules...on to the game! What would you do with these words and that theme and these rhyme patterns?  I chose to pick an A word, ask a question with it, and use the "other" sonnet form to think out my answer. 

My solution is below:

Change (no, you change)

What is the nature of our truce?

Is our pause deadly quiet or sharply profuse?

If we decide to lie, hand in hand, supine,

unspeaking, could we still re-sign

with anxious fingers passionately gregarious

the terms to end this battle; quit this precarious

stumbling over words, un-mine this quagmire

and declare, with silent volumes, a ceasefire?

Or must we open with a hail of words, barnstorm

mutual defenses, stun by direct apology, and with uniform

speed, sheath every confession with disarming humility,

and wordily, warily, negotiate renewed tranquility? 

Either—but choose, no truce lasts undisturbed,

Speak then the piercing language of love, superb.

                                                        ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

My poetry sisters' solutions to this poetry puzzle can be found here:

Mary Lee

Liz

Tanita

Tricia

Laura

Kelly 

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in my Orchard. 

Poetry Friday: Exquisite Corpse (Clunker Edition)

Dead or not?
Mystery photo taken
 November, 2016

August's challenge was a fun one. As a group, we played a version of the "Exquisite Corpse" game, where one poet passes a set of two lines to the next poet, who adds her own two, and then sends only the new ones on to the next person, and so on, until everyone has added (in secret) two lines to the whole poem. The big reveal of ALL the lines was during our Sunday ZOOM session. And there was a twist: each of us added one original line and one "clunker" taken from Linda Mitchell's clunker exchange and comments here. 

Wow. At first sight, our draft poem actually held together (see it below my poem.) We couldn't believe it! Still, the challenge for the year was transformation (conversion, alteration, metamorphosis, mutation, growth, evolution, revision, modulation, change) so we couldn't stop there.  Each of us took the raw material and created something new. Here's how my transformation ended up:

Cuttings

I’m no longer winsome to the world—

I’m a yesterday shadow of the sun’s rise, 

the one that got away, a nub of flower,

plucked, no snap, no sass to sweeten September

when trees turn so orange the road looks blue;

when words tangle, colors muddy the palette

and thoughts of you sprout. I bury

them, and yet in they creep, weedy-thick,

until the prickly buds of odd logic bloom:

I don't cry anymore, so why do I sing all the words—

each line in a different language as the light shifts,

every scattered petal saying “but you loved me”—

and then I remember

love was exactly what you wrote

about the green beans.

                      ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

Here's the raw material we all had to work with:

They say the mind is garden-like, with thoughts as sprouting seeds

but I'm left holding cuttings I'm not sure where to plant

Weedy-thick, the prickly buds of odd logic bloom: 

You don't cry anymore, but you sing all the words.

Each line in a different language as the light shifts,

trees turned so orange the road looked blue.

Words tangle, colors muddy in the palette.

I am no longer winsome to the sun.

a whole sun’s rise to share

there goes the one that got away

found a bit of sunflower

and plucked every petal (by the way, he loves me)

and then I remembered

that’s what you wrote about the green beans

Stockpile, then, that snap and sass to sweeten your September.

See what beauties my poetry sisters created here:

Liz

Laura

Tricia

Kelly

Tanita 

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Linda at TeacherDance.