Poetry Friday: A Triolet for the Heat

Triolets began as devotionals.  So for July's poetry challenge, I looked to my prayers (and to heat, as Liz suggested) for my inspiration.

Please don't summon the demon

Oh, mercy, I prayed for these days—

Summer-long, blood-hot, even in shade;

When winter leeched me to pale beige,

Oh, mercy! I prayed for these days:

For gnats, for sweat, for turned mayonnaise,

For blighted tomatoes, burned legs, soured lemonade.

Oh, mercy. I prayed for these days.

Summer-long, blood-hot, even in shade...

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

More heated triolets can be found here:




Liz
Tanita
Tricia
Kelly
Laura
Rebecca
Andi







Poetry Friday is hosted today by our own Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect. 

Poetry Friday: Squaring up the Dizain

The May challenge (chosen by me) is a French Dizain:

One 10-line stanza
10 syllables per line
Uses the following rhyme scheme: ababbccdcd

Bonus points for using the word “square” somehow (since the form IS a square)


For once, my mind went somewhere literal to begin my poem. I immediately thought of a builders square (or steel square) and quickly Googled it to see what that tool actually DOES.  I thought it was for drawing right angles. 


 Ha!  It's so, so much more.  A craftsmen wrote a whole book about it, and then condensed that book down to a booklet, which is now available as part of Google's Project Gutenberg.  And boy, is he opinionated about how to use it:

"I will not attempt in this small treatise, to give an historical account of the origin, growth and development of the square, as the subject has been treated of at length in my larger works, as I do not care to pad out these pages with matter that is not of a severely practical nature." ----ABC of the Steel Square and its Uses by Fred T. Hodgson

Severely practical...okay then.  

But..here's the thing...he then can't resist this bit: 

"It is no sin not to know much, though it is a great one not to know all we can, and put it all to good use."

And he goes on to chastise those too lazy to learn what to do with their tools. Not only practical, but MORAL severity.   It's enough to chill a poet facing a new form....

Am I using my tools well? 
Have I learned all I can? 
What if I'm only "padding out pages"?? 

Thankfully, I also discovered that beneath Mr. Hodgson's gruff exterior is a heart for making things of beauty and use.  And, I'm happy to say, his trade...a builder's trade... is filled with poetic language. 

That steel square?  The two arms are called the blade and the tongue.  

Building a roof?  The rafters might need to be "cheek-cut." 

Plus carpenters use all sorts of solid, juicy words like "run and rise" and "pitch" and "joist." 

I can get behind that. 
   

A Builder's Creed

Stair math: rise and run (or how high? how long?)
Roof math: pitch and width (or how steep? how spanned?)

Each step, each rafter, sawn true, and laid strong

by tools wiped of sweat, kept square and at hand.

So, too a poem is constructed and planned;

words measured by tongue, syllables cheek-cut

into blade-sharp lines which open and shut,

rhyme-fit like a bloodied paw to a snare;

a poem, a cathedral, both framed out of what

is redoubted, joisted, strung to mid-air.

                                 ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

Participating poetry sisters can be found here:

Liz
Tanita
Rebecca
Tricia


Poetry Friday is hosted today by the incomparable Jama Rattigan at Alphabet Soup.

Poetry Friday: Anagram Poems

Anagram poems are wily.  They seem easy, but run you ragged. Also, they come in a myriad of forms, but for this challenge, we'll stick to the variations below (Each is linked to an example.)


1. lines or stanzas with word pairs that are anagrams (composed of the same letters), or
2. lines made up of all the same set of words, or
3. when end words all use at least four letters from words in the title.

I'm also going to add this definition (found by Tanita Davis):

4. a poem which anagrams the poet's name to find a title...and any poem you can create out of said title (usually humorous.)


All that to say:  I didn't really follow these rules.  (No one is surprised, right?)

Anyway, I landed instead, on a form that combines variations #1 and #3. (Honestly, #1 was fine, but I got tired of trying to find multiple pairs. #2 seemed too hard....and not really anagram-y. And #3 seemed more like a word search game.) 

So...  instead of multiple pairs, I decided to use only ONE set of anagrams, a list of six words which all use the same letters, and I used them all as end words, too.

Oh, AND I learned a new word.

From Creative Joys

Forgive me, I never knew your name

Unsung, sepal

props bud as it leaps

to bloom after long lapse,

sturdily bells to full calyx, but pleas

for love are unheard peals.

Beside blossoms, all pales.

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

More about sepals here (one of the four basic parts of a flower, how could I not know?)

And for more beautiful pictures of sepals by one who obviously DOES appreciate them, please see here.


Readers, I confess: the temptation to go silly was strong.  I made myself attempt a "serious" poem first.  Then I indulged in Variation #4.  Yes, I anagrammed my own name.  Found a title.  Wrote a poem to match.



WHOLESALE SIMARS
 by Sara Lewis Holmes

For sale! For sale!
A simar or two….modest shifts for you and you!
Or is it better hawked as “wispy” dress?
Or say, a trailing scarf? Brought in at yonder wharf?
Or maybe it’s actually a jacket? With fur-lined placket?
Definitions diverge. Still, prices low. Splurge!


I'm saving you from my other anagram title:  "I am Showerless, Al."


My poetry sisters anagram poems (of all variations) can be found here:

Liz
Tanita
Laura
Tricia
Andi


Poetry Friday is hosted today by the delightful Karen Edmisten.