Poetry Friday: The Dansa

    Another Poetry Friday!  The days are tumbling by fast, my friends. 

October brings the "dansa", an old poetic form once popular with the Occitan-speaking troubadours who wandered France and Spain.  There's not much to be found on the internets about them other than the basic rules, and that they were often accompanied by joyful dancing.  At Tricia's suggestion, I focused on the "joyful" part.  

The rules are these:

-Opening quintain (or 5-line stanza) followed by quatrains (or 4-line stanzas)
-The opening line of the first stanza is the final line of every stanza, including the first
-Rhyme scheme in the opening stanza: AbbaA (capital A represents the refrain)
-Rhyme scheme in all other stanzas: bbaA
-No other rules for subject, length, or meter.

And here are the dance steps I composed: 

Apple Dansa 

These trees planted, row on row
burst with Stayman, Fuji, Northern Spy—
apples, apples of my loving eye—
beauties, born from best in show:
these trees planted, row on row,

some for eating, some for pie:
Macoun, Gravenstein, Winesap, oh, my…
tenderly, I take them, it’s the least I owe
these trees planted, row on row;

spilling fruit, their rosy faces cry

they—Blondees, Ginger, York—are why

the world rejoices— above, below—

these trees planted, row on row

are an orderly riot, a pugnacious reply
to bruising dark, and all that must die;
I bag them one by one, a rapacious crow.
Oh, these trees planted, row on row!

                    ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

Creative license was taken in this portrayal of apple orchards---not all varieties of apples ripen at the same time, as I learned on our apple picking trip.  For more accuracy, a fun list of apple varieties and when they are ripe is here.  

Also:  I tried a Blondee for the first time, and it's a new favorite.  What's yours?

My poetry sisters' poems are here:

Tricia

Liz

Tanita

Mary Lee

Laura

Kelly

Andi

NOTE: You're invited to our challenge in the month of November! Here's the scoop: we're creating recipe poems! Your choice of form, length, meter, or topic, but each poem will be an assemblage of elements, using recipe text/cooking instructions to create …something. From a recipe for disaster, to your favorite aperitif, you have a month to craft your creation and serve it forth on November 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Whatcha waiting for? Join us!

Poetry Friday is hosted today by the wonderful Jone Rush MacCulloch. 

Poetry Friday: The Definito (and related forms)

At Planet Word's photo booth, 

acting out the definitions of SAT words

Last month, I had to take a break due to travel, but for this month's challenge, I'm definito-ly here. 

        Oooh, that joke was...

Awful:

Not filled with awe,

but the opposite,  

things that drain you

of delight, on the scale 

of bad to worse,

it's nearly dreadful--  

 

a dire expression of shared

pain:  awwwww, noooooo...

that's---

awful.  

          ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

See how easy that was?  A definito (according to its creator, Heidi Mordhorst) is "a free verse poem of 8-12 lines (aimed at readers 8-12 years old) that highlights wordplay as it demonstrates the meaning of a less common word, which always ends the poem.  You can see her full explanation and several wonderful examples here. 

I admit, this kind of poem is right up my alley. Definitions? Word play? Less common words?  Yes!  But it also got me thinking, as great poetry does:  What about the,..

In-definito??  Would that be....

A poem that vaguely

runs on and on and on...? 

Well....not exactly...

It's hard to say...

I can't pin it down...

Maybe it's just... 

unbounded...

not settled...

word-wobbly... 

Oooops. 

I didn't mean

to define an

Indefinito.  

          ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

Then there's the Imagin-ito.  

That's where you write a poem that defines an imaginary word---or as I call them "words that should be words."  I keep a list of such words on my phone. Not sure why-- maybe it's in honor of Frindle by Andrew Clements. Or to use in my own books one day.  In any case, here's one:

Dimpert

a person

who hides their

true smarts

behind a perky

attitude, appearing

dim-witted

until they skewer

you unexpectedly

with a dimpled smile.

            ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

So what word would you like to define, imaginary or real?  Drop your Definito, In-definito, or Imagin-ito in the comments.  

My poetry sisters Definitos can be found here:

Liz

Tricia

Kelly

Laura

Tanita

Mary Lee

Andi

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabitha Yeatts. 

Poetry Friday: Maya Angelou Recruits Me to her Girl Gang

Quilt by Chawne Kimber*
from the Renwick Gallery's new exhibit
"This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World"

July's challenge was to compose a phrase acrostic, taken from Maya Angelou's iconic poem, Still I Rise.  If you haven't read it, do that now. And perhaps her amazing bio, too. Only then will you appreciate the audacity of creating a new poem from hers. We spent half our ZOOM time talking about that! 

But in the end, you'll see that each of us came up with a plan to tackle the challenge---Liz chose to repeat one phrase three times, Tanita took a stab at using one phrase for the beginning of lines and one for the ending (double acrostic) and Mary Lee wove Angelou's phrases into her titles, too.  We'll see what everyone else decided...

As for me, I responded most to Angelou's personal voice in the poem, which comes from her own experience, and from a long history of Black experience, but also seems to speak directly to those who would "write (her) down in history" and twist the truth. Which, in turn, made me think of how her words gave her the power to affirm differently. And how, by extension, she also so beautifully invites all of us to tap into that power, too--to join her in her irrepressible rising--you know, for some sort of rowdy, righteous writerly rumble. What would that look like---that recruitment rally for her poet girl gang? 

Yeah, that's how my mind works. Bear with me. Leaning into that theme, I took three phrases (actually lines) from the poem, each five words long. (Okay, one was six words, but I threw the last two together because...see definition of ICONIC.)   

The phrases I used were:

Does my sassiness upset you?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops

But still, like air, I'll rise 

And then, I let Angelou's words stir me up.  As Liz said in the ZOOM chat, this form is fun--if you allow it to carry you away.  We could all do with some of that.   

Maya Angelou Recruits Me to her Girl Gang

Does the day crush you? The years suffocate you?

My poet-baby, you squeeze back. 

Sassiness wells from pain, and eases it, too. 

Upset? Feel set up? Don’t forget: 

You reverse the universe.

Shoulders are for standing upon. Hips are for everything else. 

Falling? So does the night, every day. Stand back up, not

down. You know, ”easily digested” is how they ripped me.

Like my trip-wire timing didn't explode their lies.  

Teardrops are just oil and water. Let them lubricate you.

But don’t stop there. If you want to

still the crowing— the “I know better” undertowing   

(like “poetic virtue” is a thing they own) I swear

air makes fire leaping wide. Burn. Only then

I’ll rise, I’ll break the day, and you, the same as I. 

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

If you want to know more about the artist and the quilt in my photo, see the artist's blog here.

Links to my sister poets' phrase acrostics are below. I marvel at the variation and the power!

Liz

Tanita

Mary Lee

Tricia

Kelly

Laura

Andi

If you'd like to look ahead to August's challenge (and perhaps join us?) we're writing Bop Poems.  See here for the rules of the form. 

Poetry Friday is hosted by Marcie Atkins.