Poem Tryouts: Baby, It’s Cold Outside. No, Really.

11:24 a.m. — Atlanta

listening to my husband coughing — damn allergies (I know. I promised music once back, but I’m fighting with my desktop.)

Hello, everyone. I hope all is well. Me? Rats, rats, rats, rats, rats. Whew! That felt good. My desktop is not speaking to me as far as my blog goes, so I am peering at the screen of my tiny travel laptop. Thanks, Barbara and Misky for your suggestions. When I post this, I’ll log out and work from scratch. Maybe by next Tuesday…

Before anything, if you have not visited last week’s post to read the fruit of that exercise, go! There is some wonderful stuff as a result. Just scroll through looking for the links and ignoring conversations. Then, if you haven’t written your own blazon and are thinking ‘Darn!’ go ahead. Write one. Post it.

Today is a lovely easy prompt. No particular exercising or stretching, unless, of course, you’d like to, hmmm? I want winter, your winter; not necessarily the winter you have [when it happens], but the thing that for you evokes winter. What do you dream of when you think winter? It might be the silence after a snow, fifteen blankets on the bed, cooking stews and soups, or, palm trees — I lived in the tropics for twenty years. We went to London for Christmas break so we could have miserable, cold, wet weather.

If you want, find an image, a photograph or a painting, and use that as your inspiration, giving us the image to see and feel. Sensory detail, people, sensory detail. Have fun making your day, and ours, wintry.

I shall see you next Tuesday for one of my favourite exercises — heh heh heh.

Happy writing, all

 

Poem Tryouts: Blazon It!

7:28 a.m. — San Antonio

listening to the neighbour’s lawn mower

Hello everyone. I can’t believe August starts in a couple of days. The downside of summer is upon us. Today, I want us to explore Blazons. It’s an old form (13th c.), originally used to detail the various parts of a woman’s body; a sort of catalogue of her physical attributes. The term is taken from the official, written description of the coat of arms, called the ‘blazon of arms,’ a system to denote colours, placement, and styling by using an economy of words.

What does this mean for us? Imagery like we’ve never done imagery! Let me show you a blazon by Andre Breton:

Free Union

My wife whose hair is a brush fire
Whose thoughts are summer lightning
Whose waist is an hourglass
Whose waist is the waist of an otter caught in the teeth of a tiger
Whose mouth is a bright cockade with the fragrance of a star of the first magnitude
Whose teeth leave prints like the tracks of white mice over snow
Whose tongue is made out of amber and polished glass
Whose tongue is a stabbed wafer
The tongue of a doll with eyes that open and shut
Whose tongue is an incredible stone
My wife whose eyelashes are strokes in the handwriting of a child
Whose eyebrows are nests of swallows
My wife whose temples are the slate of greenhouse roofs
With steam on the windows
My wife whose shoulders are champagne
Are fountains that curl from the heads of dolphins over the ice
My wife whose wrists are matches
Whose fingers are raffles holding the ace of hearts
Whose fingers are fresh cut hay

The speaker has only reached her fingers! For the rest, if you are curious, go here. The blazon needn’t be positive and can be tongue in cheek. Note Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, where he writes a short blazon listing attributes back handedly [such a rebel, that man].

I see no reason a blazon cannot be written about objects, pets, animals that aren’t pets, pretty much anything that has attributes. The attributes don’t necessarily have to be physical, though those are probably easier to work with. So. Think of someone, or something, List the qualities/aspects of your chosen subject.

To help create images of the more surrealistic kind (should you wish to emulate Breton), consider how each aspect you list affects you sensorily — taste, touch, smell, sight, sound. Let your emotions go.

I look forward to your poems. Blazons fascinate me (I have no idea why). I shall see you again, next Tuesday, for a wintery day.

Happy writing, all.

 

Summertime and the Living is Tuesday Tryouts

8:47 a.m. — Walnut Creek

Finally. I am in California, with my mother, where I will spend the next month. Routine. Lovely. Now, where are we in the Summer Tryouts? Ah, the list poem. I love list poems. There is no wrong way to do one and lists allow experimentation, play, fun.

You can go back to the list you made of summer associations and see if there is a list poem within it.

You can check out Walt Whitman, the king of listmakers.

You can try a riddle ala Sylvia Plath. Those who don’t know this poem, every line is a metaphor, as is the whole poem. Everything adds up.

Metaphors

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

You can try your hand at a BLAZON, for no other reason than it’s a cool name for a form. Here’s an excerpt from a blazon, a poem that itemises the qualities of something or someone beloved:

Free Union
a 1931 poem by Andre Breton

My wife whose hair is a brush fire
Whose thoughts are summer lightning
Whose waist is an hourglass
Whose waist is the waist of an otter caught in the teeth of a tiger
Whose mouth is a bright cockade with the fragrance of a star of the first magnitude
Whose teeth leave prints like the tracks of white mice over snow
Whose tongue is made out of amber and polished glass
Whose tongue is a stabbed wafer
The tongue of a doll with eyes that open and shut
Whose tongue is an incredible stone
My wife whose eyelashes are strokes in the handwriting of a child
Whose eyebrows are nests of swallows
My wife whose temples are the slate of greenhouse roofs
With steam on the windows
My wife whose shoulders are champagne
Are fountains that curl from the heads of dolphins over the ice
My wife whose wrists are matches
Whose fingers are raffles holding the ace of hearts
Whose fingers are fresh cut hay

If you wish to read the entire poem, you can find it here. Note that Breton starts at the top and is working his way down the form of his wife. That is one of the conventions of a blazon.

A list poem may be short, as in ‘The Grocer’s Children’ by Herbert Scott

The grocer’s children
eat day-old bread
moldy cakes and cheese,
soft black bananas
on stale shredded wheat,
weeviled rice, their plates
heaped high with wilted
greens, bruised fruit
surprise treats
from unlabeled cans,
tainted meat.
The grocer’s children
never go hungry.

A site on wikispaces offers a good working definition of a list poem, to go with ‘The Grocer’s Children’: ‘List poems are made up of common (but not plain) items, sensory details, metaphor, and uncommon observations or comments. Basically, the poem is a list of images, but at the end the poet sort of answers the “So what?” question we are begging to ask.’

Go forth. Make lists. Play. Post. I am looking forward to reading your list poems. I will also [plan to] finish catching up on last week’s poems as soon as mom and I have groceries. She knew I was coming in on the 2nd. She thought the 2nd was today.

Happy writing everyone.

 

 

Tuesday Tryouts: Black Belt Acrostics

8:40 am — Atlanta

Okay, so maybe they aren’t that difficult, but they are more challenging than the acrostics I started you with last week. So, how did you do? I ask because I have no idea how many of the 50 or so of you who visit, try the exercises. I know a couple do, as they have occasionally let me see a poem. Does this bother me? Only in the sense that I am curious. I love having all of you come by, but if you do write I am curious. I wondered if some of you don’t have a blog where it is suitable to post a draft of a poem, in which case let me invite you to post your tries in the comments for each Tuesday. Hmmmm. Clearly I need my second cup of coffee. Hang on…

Okay–nestle back in chair, smell hot coffee, watch steam rise, relax, breathe–how is everyone? It’s good to be with you. I enjoy my blog days and writing to you. This week’s acrostics are both more fun and more challenging.

SENTENCE ACROSTIC

Find a line from a poem, a song, an article, anywhere. For your first, you probably want it roughly ten words. Write the line vertically and use each word as the beginning of a line. Below is an example of one I wrote.

No more talk of darkness, forget these wide-eyed fears.(“All I Ask of You” Phantom of the Opera)

No looking into tunnels,
more following the light–
talk only of what’s possible
of the sun’s warm touch, of
darkness‘ healing sleep.

Forget the shadows hiding
these thoughts of endless night.
Wide open doors await,
eyed by hope and held by
fears of all that is unknown.

You will be surprised how well having the first word of each line in place makes things easier, and in no time, you have a poem. And, if you like it, start the revision process. The first words no longer need to stay in that position, or can be changed completely.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

And, if you are still looking for a challenge, we have the double letter acrostic. “Acrostics can be more complex than just by making words from initials. A double acrostic, for example, may have words at the beginning and end of its lines, as this example, on the name of Stroud, by Paul Hansford .” “Acrostics” Wikipedia

Set among hills in the midst of five valleys,
This peaceful little market town we inhabit
Refuses (vociferously!) to be a conformer.
Once home of the cloth it gave its name to,
Uphill and down again its streets lead you.
Despite its faults it leaves us all charmed.

Now that is complex. The Wikipedia entry on acrostics is excellent and there are several examples of what writers have done with varying the form. The calendar acrostic is particularly worth checking out.

I will see you on Thursday for a discussion of the list of no no words I posted last week, and Friday for our roundup of prompts and exercises from the poetry world. Next Tuesday we will look at either a ballad or a blazon. If you know anyone who would be interested in any of this, feel free to share through one of the buttons below.

You are welcome to post a poem and link to your blog, or post a poem in comments, or, despite my pre-coffee mini-rant at the beginning, to do neither, but continue to visit, for you will always be welcome. Happy writing.