So yes, we are still amid a global pandemic that has killed a few million people, but it’s spring, we have a sane president, I’ve had both my vaccinations and I’m feeling uncharacteristically optimistic. So I am working on a project, putting together some resources on poetry for university students and community.
So I have two questions.
1. What resources about poetry would you be interested in?
2. What common misconceptions do people have about poetry?
Let me know in the comments!
So last Tuesday, one of my lesbian friends, who teaches 5th grade science at a nearby school, texted me for a poem that she could read at the school assembly. They have been doing a poem a week, and she had asked if she could do something for Pride, which has just kicked off in Boston. I said sure.
I spent two days writing, working on a sestina, my favorite form, since it would give me a way to look at the idea of pride over the years, which would be educational and supportive for the kids, and also reflect some things I’ve been learning from my friends and other queer role models from over the years.
So this is what I wrote.
What We Mean, Now, By Pride
a sestina
Years ago, people always said that pride
Was bad, that it and humility were night and day,
That proud people thought only of themselves.
Being proud meant being vain, and that was a no-no.
It meant that you loved only the person in the mirror.
For centuries, folks used “pride” in that sense.
And if you think about it, that probably made sense.
Ancient Greek playwrights warned of the perils of pride,
How heroes saw themselves as gods in their mirrors
And overestimated themselves on the day
Of battle. That’s a good way to get killed, no
Doubt about it. Heroes need to know themselves
Accurately, what they can do and be. Knowing yourself
Can be difficult. We change as we grow, gaining a sense
Of who we are and who we might become. To know
Who you are is wisdom. To accept who you are is pride,
The good kind of pride, the one that says, “Today
I will be myself in earnest! When I look in the mirror
I will see the good I can do, and those who see me will mirror
That goodness back.” Sometimes we change one self
For another, learning to be better and love better every day.
And it’s true: there will be dark, rainy days. There’s no sense
Denying that. There will always be days it’s hard to feel pride
Or joy or accomplishment: this is a fact we know.
So we must stand up, let the rain run off us, take no
Notice of those who cannot see us as we see ourselves mirrored
Back. We stand tall, proud of our good selves and our good pride,
Proud to be who we are, love who we love, and accept the self
That God or the universe gave us, with a clear sense
That we will give our gifts to the world, now and someday
In the future, when we’ve dreamed and worked our way to a day
When everyone is accepted for who they are, with no
Exceptions. This is not a utopian dream in any sense.
Change happens; the world expands, and then mirrors
Become kinder to those who look at themselves
And smile because they finally know this pride.
Let us begin this work today, start by looking in the mirror
Accepting what we know, accepting our truest self
And our sense, finally, of deep and lasting pride.
I sent it to my friend and she expressed shock that I had written the poem. She had expected me to send her some good gay poem I knew about or found online. But because I knew that she had read my poetry in the past, it never occurred to me that she had meant anything other than that I should write one.
Today was the assembly. Afterwards she sent me a text saying, “I want to thank you for putting the time in and writing that beautiful poem about Pride. It was a huge success….! I even heard there were some tears.”
Success.
Happy Pride Month!
The Legend of Sir Chester Nutt
(or, Thank God for Karma, She’s Less of a Bitch than We Thought)
One day in your car for a whirl,
You swerved to avoid a squirrel.
He swore on his life
That he’d make it right,
Then he went off to train with the girls.
Xena taught him to use a sword,
And Wonder Woman her golden cord.
And he trained his might
To become overnight
The squirrel who quite loudly roared.
Then one night you are held up with knives
And you rightfully fear for your life.
You squirm and you struggle
With this frightful big muggle
And then suddenly, that squirrel arrives.
He’s a great sight for you where you cower
Defeating your foe with great power!
With a whack and a thrust,
He’s the hero to trust,
Defending you in your dark hour.
The first line of this poem comes from a poem by Trumbull Stickney. It got stuck in my head the other day, and since I was working on an oratorio or possibly musical about the Hanging Gardens allegedly built by Nebuchadnezzar, I thought I would play around with the ideas some more, and because I am a glutton for punishment, use blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) to do it. If you are going to go classical antiquities, after all, go all the way.
“Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream,”
Just as Eden was a paradise
Where animals could frolic, never die,
And trees provided all the fruit for all
The hungry mouths who had not yet learned pain.
Such dreams are necessary for our hearts
To learn the blueprint of a truer world.
When Babylon, the center of the world,
Was young and shining in the desert sun,
The emperor, it’s said, once came upon
His consort, Amytis, just lingering
Alone and staring eastward toward her home
In far-off Persia–fair, beloved, and green–
And in that moment knew what pity was.
A moment only. (Though that moment was
Enshrined in history. Three thousand years
Have passed and carried with them this one tale,
The birthing of a wonder of the world.
We know such men as emperors do not
Amass empires in order to appease
The heartsick longings of a simple girl,
However regal her paternal price
In dowered lands.) A moment later, he
Envisioned legacy, his glorious name
Forever linked to this vast garden, tiered,
Wild, green and flower-blazoned (built by slaves
In exile, sons of Israel of old),
And fountains blossoming to ward off heat.
Herodotus recorded measurements–
How high the walls, how tall the topmost tree–
But archaeologists, who deal in truth,
The truth that lies in layers of dirt on dirt,
Tell us Herodotus did not see truth
The way we do, that history back then
Was story first and only afterward
A thing of facts. The poet was not wrong:
The Hanging Gardens were a dream. It’s true.
But then, what does it mean that this green dream
Has filled the sleeping minds of women, men,
A thousand generations sharing these
Wild, verdant tendrils of this single dream?
Through this, a need is answered, so be still.
Okay, so I am trying the form from yesterday for myself. I think that it is fair to say that I won’t be doing too many of these anytime soon. It’s a lovely little form, but it is hard to say anything much in eight lines with such a strict rhyme scheme and the need to repeat the image three times–I think I only managed two. Still it’s always worth trying new things.
It is the essence of the candle to provide light:
Gently calling, out of the shadows, structure,
The table you step around, the chair you sit
In. So the candle, even though it is not bright,
Protects you, enables you not to injure
Yourself, bumble around in the darkness,
Walk right into the table or even hit
The chair. This is how humble candles bless.
I learned about this form of poetry, the Cascade, from Kat Myrman. With a three-line stanza, and capital letters representing repeated lines, the form is ABC deA fgB hiC. (I have also seen this done where the repeating line is the first line of the following stanzas rather than the last, now that I think of it.) Naturally, I chose a seven-line stanza because I am a bloody showoff. Don’t go there, people, or at least not without stretching out first.
Home is the place where you write your name
In the dust and it remains your name,
Your dust, your cat’s pawprints telling the tale
Of small peregrinations, domestic pilgrimages.
All the books are yours. You have read them all.
You make your way from room to room in the dark
And as day recedes, your bed embraces you.
In other places, you wander, a stranger
Unremarked and nameless, a cipher
To those you pass by, who do not think
To wonder about your loves and dislikes.
They have their own shopping lists of worries.
Out in the world, you are ever nameless.
Home is the place where you write your name.
The geography of naming is such that
Your name points the way back to your birth
Or rebirth. Tell me who you are and I will
Point you toward the river whose water runs
Through your veins, calling itself blood.
Drop your name down a well or toss it
In the dust and it remains your name.
The story of your life would require volumes
Or a skilled raconteur with a very long string
Tied end to end and woven into itself,
A cat’s cradle of intention, obstacle, outcome,
And the serendipities that every life engenders.
Come to the window. Trace out your tale in
Your dust, your cat’s pawprints telling the tale,
Which would include a heroic company of friends,
Sister travelers, the wise one, the warriors,
A ring to find, a cup to destroy, some evil
To overcome, and now and then a resting place
Like this homely place, a place to pause between
The small battles and the long weariness
Of small peregrinations, domestic pilgrimages.
Returning home to your bed, your armchair,
Your cat sleeping on all the notes you took
On your travels, you settle in almost as if
You had never left. But now you see it
Anew: You have chosen every picture that hangs
On the walls. You have sat in every chair.
All the books are yours. You have read them all.
All of it is as familiar as your own hands:
Small and compact peasant hands that belie
The spectacles and teeming brain, the sword
Hanging over the fireplace. You can lay your hand
On any book you want at a moment’s notice,
Predict the pattern of new spring leaves in the window.
You make your way from room to room in the dark.
At dawn, both sun and cat pat your face,
Clamoring for your attention. As the sun passes
Overhead, the light turns this way and that,
Caressing doors and bookcases, chairs and the cat
Who stretches out in the bright patch of carpet.
In the afternoon, he ambles over to welcome you back.
And as day recedes, your bed embraces you.
Art by Laura Wilder.
In response to my little rant the other day about rhyme, I received the following poems, the first from 10000hoursleft (also known as Mek):
After looking up the meaning of profundity
I came to the conclusion you’d likely be
Lumping me in
Oh for my sin
With those in the 98 per cent
Who keep aiming for ascent
To the lofty heights of the minority
To be a 2 percenter my priority
Joys of creative expression
Need not get a mention
Now, I’ll have to stop rhyming
And the second from Mike Allegra over at heylookawriterfellow:
Master sculptor, bearing chisel,
Paused his work so he could wizzle.
And so the marble had to wait,
For sculptor to evacuate.
(Drops mic and strides purposefully toward the exit.)
So I offer here as an apology a sloppy English sonnet. It’s got the rhyme scheme, but I dropped that whole iambic pentameter thing because I am tired after a long day’s work, and iambic pentameter would just be too much on an empty stomach at 7:41 pm.
Apology
I pick up the mic dropped there by Mike
And scanned the sky for ascended Mek.
They used dread rhyme in a way I like
Unlike those whose Yules get decked.
You see, the Food Network is to blame
For my Poetry Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Their December hacks of Clement Moore
Send me screaming to the border.
It seems that rhyme may perhaps have uses
For getting the poet’s ideas across.
It’s not just used by silly gooses;
Sometimes its users are just the boss!
So I will try to embrace the rhyme,
But please, Lord, please, not all the time.
I am reposting this scintillating sonnet by Robert Okaji because it is genius.
If You Were a Guitar If you were a guitar I would play you till my fingers grew rough from your body’s touch, till the moisture in the clouds withdrew and only music rained on. But what breeze coul…
Source: If You Were a Guitar
“‘In Flanders Fields’ is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. ‘In Flanders Fields’ was first published on December 8 of that year in the London-based magazine Punch.”
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
.
A good source for war poetry from around the world is Carolyn Forché’s anthology, Against Forgetting.
“In Flanders Fields.” Wikipedia. 11 Nov. 2015. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
It seems a bit strangely appropriate that, on the weekend when we celebrate a bunch of Europeans getting lost on their way to India and making the most of it by taking custody of the land, I will be grading papers. Thirty-six of them, to be exact.
Here is a poem for today by the Coeur d’Alene poet Sherman Alexie. Refer back to my post about the problem-solution nature of sonnets if you have trouble seeing how it is a sonnet.
Totem Sonnet #3
.
Crazy Horse
Sitting Bull
Captain Jack
Black Kettle
Ishi
Joseph
Qualchan
Wovoka
.
Anna Mae Aquash
Wilma Mankiller
Tantoo Cardinal
Winona LaDuke
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Maria Tallchief
.
Alexie, Sherman. The Summer of the Black Widows. New York: Hanging Loose Press, 1996.
buildingapoem 