New Forms... and Practice Exercises on Poetry Tuesday!

Tuesday Poetry Practice: People

I’m starting where I think the natural beginning is. In the end, we’ll all write about ourselves; but I have always found it much more difficult than writing about other people. Their situations, their stories—always seem so much more dynamic and romantic than my own.

So let’s start with writing about other people. I’m putting this forward in the form of a little seed that has been dropped into the soil, patted down, and watered.  Maybe you can use some other person as the theme of your poem.

(note: any traditional form I mentioned in the Sunday blog will work beautifully, but ballads work particularly well when you’re telling someone else’s story)

Writers often think of characters—people—as archetypes (everyone does, don’t they?) We use this word ‘archetype all the time lately. But it’s not one of these flash-in-the-pan phrases that sounds hip and savvy and immediately plummets into obscurity. To think of a person as an archetype is not to pigeon hole them or judge them; it’s just a starting point. Is the person a clown, a seeker, a prostitute, a virgin, a thief, a tyrant, a mouse, an angel, a baby, a fool, a sucker, a god…? 

Maybe you want to write about a person you’ve never met—you will start with an archetype whether you know it or not. More specifically – a combination of archetypes—this will make for a more complex, more interesting character.

Now, using an exercise is Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge’s excellent book Poemcrazy, you can start to evolve your image of the person before you even begin to write. Ask yourself questions about the person; questions like ‘Is he or she….’

Like a sound?

Like an element of nature?

Like a color?

Like a food?

Like a piece of furniture?

Like a kind of tree?

Like an animal?

Like a shape?

Is this person a waterfall?  A seahorse?  The color yellow? Does this person smell like Christmas or have one special word hiding behind his or her eyes? I am the shape of a wishbone, and I move like tumbleweed, and I sound like a lullaby – in my mind.  Maybe someone else thinks I am the shape of beach glass and I move like a car with two flat tires and sound like a crosswalk signal. Not a thing to be done about that; it’s up to the poet to decide.

Sometimes it’s easiest to write about someone you have some claim on—you somehow own. Think of your family tree. With such a tremendous interest in ancestry lately, do you sometimes think about your ascendants? Are there any rumors of a Druid priest? A stargazer?  A slave? A Celtic musician? A gypsy? If not, then start a rumor; your great, great, great grandchildren will thank you.

Once you’ve collected some images in your mind and you are REALLY seeing your subject, you can begin to write. You can and you should.  Let’s look at some poems about people. This first one is by Slyvia Plath (yes, The Bell Jar) called simply ‘You’re’:

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,

Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,

Gilled like a fish. A common-sense

Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.

Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,

Trawling your dark, as owls do.

Mute as a turnip from the Fourth

Of July to All Fools' Day,

O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.

Farther off than Australia.

Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.

Snug as a bud and at home

Like a sprat in a pickle jug.

A creel of eels, all ripples.

Jumpy as a Mexican bean.

Right, like a well-done sum.

A clean slate, with your own face on.

So this poem touches on what we were just thinking of… lots of material equivalents. What is this person like? Well, he’s as jumpy as a Mexican jumping bean (food). He’s a bent-back Atlas (shape), He’s a creel of eels (animal). It may seem far-fetched to start by writing those types of descriptions for your subject – and you may or may not use them all – but it will be a great starting point. 
And you see how seamlessly Plath puts them together.

Let’s move on to this poem by Gwen Harwood. It’s called ‘In the Park:’

She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt
Someone she loved once passed by – too late

to feign indifference to that casual nod.
“How nice” et cetera. “Time holds great surprises.”
From his neat head unquestionably rises
a small balloon…”but for the grace of God…”

They stand a while in flickering light, rehearsing
the children’s names and birthdays. “It’s so sweet
to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive,”
she says to his departing smile. Then, nursing
the youngest child, sits staring at her feet.
To the wind she says, “They have eaten me alive.”

No, this isn’t a warm-all-over fuzzy sentiment. But it’s honest and true. There are a thousand mother (Madonna) and child pieces that are fuzzy and pretty and soft. But this poem is really shines a light on how the person is feeling. Harwood is giving you a very well-developed setting, and placing, inside of that setting, characters (archetypes) that you think you know. But the last line changes everything.

Here’s another by Sylvia Plath; she often writes about people and she does it SO WELL. This one is about a newborn, and it’s called ‘Morning Song’. A very different mother/ child perspective than the poem above:

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

This poem is a moment in time. It’s a subject very many people can 

relate to; the images are original but familiar. A mouse opening as 

clean as a cat’s—you can see that perfect pink palette inside. The little 

body looking like a statue – all the lumps and bumps between the 

tummy and the elbows and the little flat feet. Many shapes again, as 

with her first poem above. Everything is soft and mostly visual (save 

the soft breath) until the very last stanza when the baby starts to use 

his/her voice. A surprise. I sudden worry for the parents. The poem 

starts like clockwork (fat, gold watch, the smart slap on the feet), 

drifts into sleepy softness (moth-breath disappearing into the rose 

blanket or wallpaper) and ends with noise! It’s startling, it’s a surprise, 

it’s the new beginning-- and the parents anxieties and fears about 

parenthood. Sylvia Plath could have easily written another poem that 

begins exactly where this one left off--- or you can. 

And one last example for today.  This is a CLASSIC poem, ballad form (written all in couplets, meaning pairs of rhyming lines), by John Greenleaf Whitter. It is called ‘Maud Muller’, and it is one of the great poems of all time. Whittier was a 19^th century American poet – a Quaker, a great abolitionist – I talk about him quite a bit on the New England tours. The reason I mention his era is because you will notice toward the end the poem becomes very moral, and the perspective becomes very broad – very third-person. It’s a device of that era, and you can certainly still use it now. But if you use this poem as a prototype, it’s important to notice (for yourself) that not just the tone, but the ‘voice’ changes. Incidentally, this is the first poem I ever memorized. It’s very tender, and romantic, and of course tragic.

MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day,

Raked the meadows sweet with hay.

 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth

Of simple beauty and rustic health.

 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee

The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

 

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,

White from its hill-slope looking down,

 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest

And a nameless longing filled her breast--

 

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,

For something better than she had known.

 

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,

Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

 

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

 

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed

Through the meadow across the road.

 

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,

And filled for him her small tin cup,

 

And blushed as she gave it, looking down

On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

 

"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught

From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

 

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,

Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether

The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

 

And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,

And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

 

And listened, while a pleasant surprise

Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

 

At last, like one who for delay

Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away,

 

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me!

That I the Judge's bride might be!

 

"He would dress me up in silks so fine,

And praise and toast me at his wine.

 

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;

My brother should sail a painted boat.

 

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,

And the baby should have a new toy each day.

 

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,

And all should bless me who left our door."

 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,

And saw Maud Muller standing still.

 

"A form more fair, a face more sweet,

Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

 

"And her modest answer and graceful air

Show her wise and good as she is fair.

 

"Would she were mine, and I to-day,

Like her, a harvester of hay:

 

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,

Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

 

"But low of cattle, and song of birds,

And health, and quiet, and loving words."

 

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,

And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,

And Maud was left in the field alone.

 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,

When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

 

And the young girl mused beside the well,

Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

 

He wedded a wife of richest dower,

Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,

He watched a picture come and go:

 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes

Looked out in their innocent surprise.

 

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,

He longed for the wayside well instead;

 

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,

To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

 

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,

"Ah, that I were free again!

 

"Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,

And many children played round her door.

 

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,

Left their traces on heart and brain.

 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot

On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

 

And she heard the little spring brook fall

Over the roadside, through the wall,

 

In the shade of the apple-tree again

She saw a rider draw his rein,

 

And, gazing down with timid grace,

She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls

Stretched away into stately halls;

 

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,

The tallow candle an astral burned;

 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,

Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

 

A manly form at her side she saw,

And joy was duty and love was law.

 

Then she took up her burden of life again,

Saying only, "It might have been."

 

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge!

 

God pity them both! and pity us all,

Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

 

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies

Deeply buried from human eyes;

 

And, in the hereafter, angels may

Roll the stone from its grave away!

Dear, oh dear. Poor Maud.

MORE FORMS

Perhaps you need a little more help. If so, try this format below. This is called an Ocotopoem (from the EXCELLENT cheating website):  

http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm

Just fill in blanks and see what you wrote… look at the example below first.

Octopoem

Top of Form

1st line: A color
2nd line: A season
3rd line: A place
4th line: A type of weather
5th line: A type of clothing
6th line: A piece of furniture
7th line: A TV Show
8th line: A type of food

Bottom of Form

Sample:

Wild gray outdoor cat
Hungry for summer treats
Draped and lazy across my front stoop
When steamy July thunderstorms rumble through
She pants and huddles inside her war torn fur coat
Feline survivor
Thriving at the neighborhood buffet

The Limerick

Please, no one from Nantucket! A Limerick is a rhymed humorous or nonsense poem of five lines which originated in Limerick, Ireland.   

The Limerick has a set rhyme scheme of : a-a-b-b-a 

with a syllable structure of:  9-9-6-6-9.  

 The rhythm of the poem should go as follows:

Lines 1, 2, 5: weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak, STRONG, weak, 

weak, STRONG, weak, weak

Lines 3, 4: weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak

This is a familiar form, and it really IS easy to write Limericks about people- 

you just need to come up with some good rhymes and keep the rhythm of it 

on track. Here are some examples by famous people: 

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'
by Edward Lear 

There was a small boy of Quebec
Who was buried in snow to his neck
When they said, "Are you friz?"
He replied, " Yes, I is —
But we don't call this cold in Quebec"

by Rudyard Kipling

T. S. Eliot is quite at a loss
When clubwomen bustle across
At literary teas
Crying, “What, if you please,
Did you mean by The Mill On the Floss?”

by W. H. Auden

Our novels get longa and longa
Their language gets stronga and stronga
There’s much to be said
For a life that is led
In illiterate places like Bonga
H. G. Wells

And here’s an anonymous one with absolutely no artistic merit:

There was a young man from Rangoon

Who farted and filled a balloon.

The balloon went so high

That it stuck in the sky,

And stank out the Man in the Moon.

So you see, the Limerick isn't famous for its highbrow appeal. Here’s one I thought of at 5:15 am while I was laying in bed this morning trying to get back to sleep…

There was a young lady from Leiden

Who longed for someone to confide in.

Once she found a priest

Her troubles, at least

Were hid ‘neath a habit to hide in.

And it’s as easy as that. Remember Sunday’s blog included several traditional forms you may want to try your hand at. Not just the Limerick and the Octopoem.

I hope you enjoyed these selections, and I hope you are feeling electric with inspiration! Actually, I hope you are radioactive with creative energy… Go! Go! Go!
Tomorrow, I’ll be focusing on Places (moments in time/ places) with an entirely new angles, new exercises, and more great poetry!