Wednesday Poetry: Places...

Wednesday Poetry Practices:

WHERE?????

Where do you come from?

Where do you feel most at home?

Where are you going to?

Can you describe the place from the broken shutter right down to the smell of the pillowcases? Can you hear the sea crashing on the rocks, or the wind in the trees? Maybe you can hear the city sounds of people coming and going, while I can only hear the ice cream truck.

A lot of writers create vignettes, moments in time that are nostalgic, or remembered, or imagined. Writing about a specific place can be a great way to record a memory, or set goals for the future. Writing a scene can often have the dramatic punch of writing dialogue, even more so in my opinion; you can cross words and phrases with environments and feelings and hang the result like crossed sabers inside your poem.

Everyone has heard the expression ‘write what you know’. No disputing the truth in that. Still, people are more of the ‘dreamer’ cast, will be drawn to places/ events/ scenes they have only imagined. Both approaches are perfect and promising.

Let’s look at a ‘vignette’ by Derek Mahon called ‘Jardin du Luxembourg’:

A merry-go-round of freshly painted horses
sprung from a childish world vividly bright
before dispersing in adult oblivion
and losing its quaint legendary light
spins in the shadows of a burbling circus.
Some draw toy coaches but remain upright;
a roebuck flashes past, a fierce red lion
and every time an elephant ivory-white.

As if down in the forest of Fontainebleau
a little girl wrapped up in royal blue
rides round on a unicorn; a valiant son
hangs on to the lion with a frantic laugh,
hot fists gripping the handles for dear life;
then that white elephant with ivory tusks –
an intense scrum of scarves and rumpled socks
though the great whirligig is just for fun.

The ring revolves until the time runs out,
squealing excitedly to the final shout
as pop-eyed children gasp there in their grey
jackets and skirts, wild bobble and beret.
Now you can study faces, different types,
the tiny features starting to take shape
with proud, heroic grins for the grown-ups,
shining and blind as if from a mad scrape.

As a note, for those of you who read Sunday’s original blog (and are interested in traditional forms and rhyme patterning) this poem is very, very unusual because the rhyme pattern is as follows (ABCBDBEB, AABCDEFB, AABBCDED)—the point I’m making is that this poet has stressed, or emphasized certain words of phrases by patterning this rhyme scheme. You do not HAVE to use an existing rhyme pattern to make the words sing!

This is a moment in time; frantic and wildly fun, childlike, exciting – and mentioning the grown-up faces amid the juvenile riders can’t help but throw both into violent contrast. This poem might sometimes be found in anthology chapters about childhood, or about aging and the passing of time. A poem about a moment in time doesn’t have to be all description—you can use a carousel as a metaphor for the passing of time, the wild ride into adulthood— just as you could use a grandfather clock, a sundial, or the number of cats you’ve had since you were a child. (see tomorrow’s blog, that’s foreshadowing).

Let’s move on to Hugo Williams, this poem is called ‘Scratches’:

My mother scratched the soles of my shoes
to stop me slipping
when I went away to school.

I didn’t think a few scratches
with a pair of scissors
was going to be enough.

I was walking on ice,
my arms stretched out.
I didn’t know where I was going.

Her scratches soon disappeared
when I started sliding
down those polished corridors.

I slid into class.
I slid across the hall into the changing-room.
I never slipped up.

I learnt how to skate along with an aeroplane
or a car, looking ordinary,
pretending to have fun.

I learnt how long a run I needed
to carry me as far as the gym
in time for Absences.

I turned as I went,
my arms stretched out to catch the door jamb
as I went flying past.

Again, more metaphors! And so much action in this poem, so much energy. You’re meeting a character with momentum; who seems to seamlessly slide from childhood corridors into adulthood with the equipment his mother gave him. It didn’t seem like enough equipment at the time, but he was wrong!

I always like to include a traditional example, and not just the work of contemporary poet’s. So let’s reread one I know you’re read or heard in the past. This is a short series of 4 couplets that revolve around a moment in time. This is Leigh Hunt’s ‘Rondeau’:

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and welth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

  

Just as accessible, simple, and lovely is this poem called ‘In Mrs. Tilscher’s Class’ by Carol Ann Duffy:

You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.
That for an hour, then a skittle of milk
and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.
A window opened with a long pole.
The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.

This was better than home. Enthralling books.
The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.
Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley
faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.
Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found
she'd left a gold star by your name.
The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved.
A xylophone's nonsense heard from another form.

Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed
from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs
hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce,
followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking
away from the lunch queue. A rough boy
told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back home.

That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity.
A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot,
fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her
how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled,
then turned away. Reports were handed out.
You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown,
as the sky split open into a thunderstorm.

Duffy is bringing you back to a time of routines and rites, and rituals; she celebrates the exotic by returning to a moment when children are first learning about the wonders of a giant world they are only beginning to know. Possibility and promise, daydreams and imagination are anchored by familiar things like the smell of a pencil and the happiness of getting a gold star. The faraway places are safely anchored onto a piece of paper while the children safely discuss them from their classroom setting, while both the reader’s and presumably the children’s minds are lost to wandering.

This next poem is exactly what it claims to be: a ‘Still-life’, written by Elizabeth Daryush:

Through the open French window the warm sun
Lights up the polished breakfast-table, laid
Round a bowl of crimson roses, for one -
A service of Worcester porcelain, arrayed
Near it a melon, peaches, figs, small hot
Rolls in a napkin, fairy rack of toast,
Butter in ice, high silver coffee-pot,
And, heaped on a salver, the morning's post.

She comes over the lawn, the young heiress,
From her early walk in her garden-wood,
Feeling that life's a table set to bless
Her delicate desires with all that's good.

That even the unopened future lies
Like a love-letter, full of sweet surprise.

No characters in this scene except the Madonna-like young lady coming toward the scene; that in itself creates a sense of urgency. The reader almost feels that he or she needs to scram before the woman comes in to read her mail. The invisible staff who set the table are absent; the hot rolls didn’t warm themselves, nor did the silver coffee pot start mystically percolating. The image of a grand house, though not described, is assumed as fine and delicate as its young mistress. Among all of the sweet things that await her; breakfast is only one of many.

One more poem that works as a place/ a vignette. This is by Douglas Dunn and it’s called ‘Modern Love’:

It is summer, and we are in a house
That is not ours, sitting at a table
Enjoying minutes of a rented silence,
The upstairs people gone. The pigeons lull
To sleep the under-tens and invalids,
The tree shakes out its shadows to the grass,
The roses rove through the wilds of my neglect.
Our lives flap, and we have no hope of better
Happiness than this, not much to show for love
Than how we are, and how this evening is,
Unpeopled, silent, and where we are alive
In a domestic love, seemingly alone,
All other lives worn down to trees and sunlight,
Looking forward to a visit from the cat.

This poem had none of the romanticism of the preceding poem.  The tone is not one of hope; on the contrary it’s rather hopeless.  This couple’s happiness is found in their silence—in the rare moments wherein they are alone, and free from the responsibilities they shoulder. Without using desperate words, the writer manages to very effectively put these lives into a crucible and burn them into ashes. While it may not translate as depressing to every reader, I don’t think anyone could feel the carousel fever of Mahon’s poem, the kinetic momentum of William’s, or the guaranteed happy-ending of Daryush. This couple is planning to sit at the table as quietly as possible, with nothing more thrilling on the horizon than the visit of a cat. Very different mood, but still a powerful vignette.

NEW FORMS

THE NONET

A nonet has nine lines.

The first line has nine syllables, the second line eight syllables, the third line seven syllables, etc...

until line nine that finishes with one syllable.

It can be on any subject and rhyming is optional.

line 1 - 9 syllables

line 2 - 8 syllables

line 3 - 7 syllables

line 4 - 6 syllables

line 5 - 5 syllables

line 6 - 4 syllables

line 7 - 3 syllables

line 8 - 2 syllables

line 9 - 1 syllable

Example:

A Pirates Playground

the ocean is a pirate's playground

they live their lives upon the sea

battles are fought to the death

the loot is divided

they drink to those lost

set sail again

a pirate's

life for

me

THE PENSEE POEM

Fill in these fields on a piece of paper and see what you’ve got…

Subject (2 syllables)

Description (4 syllables)

Action (7 syllables)

Setting (8 syllables)

Final Thought (6 syllables)
Bottom of Form

Sample:

Book Room
Filled with great thoughts
Floating on happy pages
Last door at the end of the hall

Wonderful library!

The Pensee poem is a wonderful way to write about a place… it’s a short format that spins around the last line (not a bad idea to start with the last line).

A List Poem

Start by thinking of an interesting place in your house that has an unusual assortment of things in it to write about.  Consider one of these suggestions (What’s on the top shelf of my closet?  What’s under my bed? What’s in corner of the basement?  What’s in the pocket of my winter coat? What’s in that old box in the garage? What’s in the kitchen junk drawer?) or come up with one of your own.  Make that your opening line.  The rest of the poem is just a list of the items you find there.

Line 1 What’s in 

Line 2 
Line 3 
Line 4 
Line 5 
Line 6 
Line 7 
Line 8 
Line 9  

Sample:

 

What’s in the kitchen junk drawer
One bag of AA batteries from 1984
A Scotch tape dispenser that doesn’t
Pieces of curly, dried out contact paper
Twisty ties that never will again
Stained Domino’s Pizza menus
Expired coupons and old Acme receipts
Sticky pennies
Dusty tic tacs melted onto a paper clip

This form is already a vignette. It’s a tiny window into a specific place. You can be creative with the place you choose—or course it doesn’t have to be a physical place (why not an emotional place) (or an imaginary place).

I found all 3 of these forms on:

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

And couldn’t help but think they are both GREAT exercises to get you started with writing poetry!

   

Good luck… hopefully these examples have ignited something in your memory, heart, or even your wrist… 

Coming tomorrow: Poetry about Aging and Revelations (sounds depressing, but I’m going to surprise you!)