The Music In It: Adele Kenny's Poetry Blog

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 15:37:00 +0000

When I started this blog in 2012, I had no long-term expectations for it. I simply wanted to provide prompts as a small service to other poets. Over the past 12 years, there have been 375 prompts, a number of guest blogger posts, and various other poetry-related items offered. It's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot of fun.

I'm happy to report that since 2020 and the start of the Covid pandemic, I've been fully vaccinated and boosted and continue to wear a mask when I'm out. So far, so good, and I'm still Covid-free. Sadly, though, I think we're all Covid-weary and long for our lives to re-inflate.

Having found it challenging to write during the past two years, and because a number of my poet colleagues and friends have expressed similar feelings, I've decided that this may be a good time to take an extended "time out," to regroup, revamp and re-energize. I'm definitely not cancelling the blog and plan to resume posting sometime in the future. In the meantime, I wish you all the best, every success with your writing, and much good health.

The blog will remain up! There are lots of posts, which I hope you'll visit and, hopefully, find useful. If you'd like to be in touch, I invite you to contact me via my website www.adelekenny.com.

God's abundant blessings to each of you!

With my sincerest and most grateful good wishes,

Adele

To be continued!

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 18:13:00 +0000

As this year comes to a close, I wish all of you the best blessings of the season—

light, love, good health, and peace—now and throughout the coming year.

May the treasures of this special season

become the golden memories of tomorrow.

As Tiny Tim observed in A Christmas Carol, "God bless us, everyone."

Love and virtual hugs to each of you!

Adele

P.S. Posts will resume in about a month.

Prompt #375 - Travel Poems from Guest Blogger Nancy Lubarsky

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 15:37:00 +0000

Dear Blog Readers,

First I wish our Jewish friends a Hanukkah filled with light and peace, and I wish a blessed Advent season to our readers who observe it. This is the time of year when we think about love and light and miracles; a time when we celebrate families and friendships; a time when the word “peace” is often spoken. This is a time of year when we travel inward and outward spiritually. We think history, of others, and those who are in need. We live in troubled and challenging times, but the spirit of hope is a constant we can all embrace.

I wish you all the best blessings of this special time of year!

At this beginning of Hanukah and of Advent, I’m happy to share a wonderful prompt that my friend and fellow poet Nancy Lubarsky has written for us.

Nancy has been an educator for over 35 years. A retired school superintendent, she holds a Doctorate in English Education from Rutgers University. Nancy has been published in various journals, including Edison Literary Review, Lips, Poetry Nook, Poetica, Tiferet, Exit 13, Stillwater Review, Howl of Sorrow Anthology, Paterson Literary Review, Poetry Nook, Great Falls/Passaic River Anthology, and US1 Worksheets. Nancy received honorable mention in the 2014 and 2016 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, and Editor’s Choice in 2017. She has also been nominated twice for the Pushcart prize. She is the author of two books: Tattoos (Finishing Line Press) and The Only Proof (Kelsay Press, a Division of Aldrich Books).

Travel Poems by Nancy Lubarsky

Summer is over. Did you get to travel anywhere? Some of us, despite the pandemic, have managed to squeeze out travel, whether by car, by mass transit, or by plane. Maybe your reasons were to just get away, travel for work or to visit someone after far too long. Or perhaps you’ve been cooped up all these months and you keep reflecting on places you’ve been years ago, who you were with, and what it all means to you. (Perhaps your trips have been more utilitarian – to the grocery store or the doctor, no matter.)

Travel is such a rich subject for poetry. It’s a unique way to memorialize where you’ve been. Besides just taking photographs, you can create word pictures of your travels. Travel poems have been written from a variety of perspectives: some focus on the journey, some on the destination, some focus on someone the writer has encountered along the way, some focus on an object, a place or a souvenir that triggers great meaning or memory.

What follows are some excerpts from travel poems (in loose categories with lots of overlap) from some well-known and lesser-known poets (including a few I’ve written) with a brief introduction, just to give you some ideas and or inspiration. Except where noted, if there is an ellipsis, the complete poems are contained in the links at the end of this blog.

Getting There

Sometimes getting there is as interesting than being there. Rita Dove is at the airport observing people as she waits to board. Bob Hickok describes his experience on a Greyhound bus. My poem is about a car trip where my family passed right by our destination!

Vacation

Rita Dove

I love the hour before takeoff,
that stretch of no time, no home
but the gray vinyl seats linked like
unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall
be summoned to the gate, soon enough
there’ll be the clumsy procedure of row numbers
and perforated stubs—but for now
I can look at these ragtag nuclear families
with their cooing and bickering
or the heeled bachelorette trying
to ignore a baby’s wail and the baby’s
exhausted mother waiting to be called up early
while the athlete, one monstrous hand
asleep on his duffel bag, listens,
perched like a seal trained for the plunge…

Go Greyhound

Bob Hiok

A few hours after Des Moines

the toilet overflowed.

This wasn't the adventure it sounds.

I sat with a man whose tattoos

weighed more than I did.

He played Hendrix on mouth guitar.

His Electric Ladyland lips

weren't fast enough

and if pitch and melody

are the rudiments of music,

this was just

memory, a body nostalgic

for the touch of adored sound.

Hope's a smaller thing on a bus…

You Just Passed the Red Apple Rest

Nancy Lubarsky

The Red Apple Rest finally rested in

2007. The New York Thruway killed it.

People stopped going to the Catskills.

Every summer, when I was little, we

visited my aunt’s Monticello bungalow

but, truthfully, it’s a blur. The Red Apple

Rest is all I remember. Each roadside

billboard, strategically placed with a

prominent apple and decreasing numbers,

led us there on our journey along Route

17. We didn’t have to annoy my parents

with, Are we there yet? 25 miles to the Red

Apple Rest, 22 miles, and then 15, 5, 1 mile,

500 feet … Inside the car, our family had a

clear focus, a midway point, a distraction from

the long ride. The Red Apple was the perfect

place to stop, but we never did…

Who’s Along for the Ride

The people you meet along the way can impact the way you experience a place. In Major Jackson’s poem he describes his meeting with the poet Mark Strand at a café in Italy. In my poem, I focus on my experience at a synagogue in Cuba where I encountered a different man named Fidel.

Spain

Major Jackson

for Mark Strand

Beneath canopies of green, unionists marched doggedly
outside The Embassy. Their din was no match
for light lancing through leaves of madrone trees
lining the Paseo then flashing off glossy black Maybachs
skidding round a plaza like a monarch fleeing the paparazzi.
Your voice skipped and paused like a pencil.
Layers of morning pastries flaked gingerly
then fell, soft as vowels, on a china plate. One learns
to cherish the wizened reserve of old world manners,
two blotched hands making wings of a daily paper
beside us between sips of café con leche, a demeanor
in short gentle as grand edifices along this boulevard…

This Fidel

Nancy Lubarsky

The turquoise convertible, with the 1950’s

flair, drops us at a broken sidewalk in front

of El Patronato. Through locked metal gates

we see the paneled doors carved with the

twelve tribes of Israel. Years before, fifteen

thousand Cuban Jews caught whiff of a new

dictator, another upheaval. Most paddled or

flew to seek asylum. Those who remained

stayed silent. Left with nothing but their

birthright, they whispered it to their children.

This Fidel opens the gate, welcomes us. He is

bald, clean shaven, no army fatigues. Born

and raised in Havana, he maintains this

sanctuary with meager resources, waits for

the rabbi to circle back every few months…

Souvenirs

Sometimes your journey is anchored to a special food, an object or an animal. In these poems Charlie Smith remembers a stuffed pastry (called a Crostata) in Italy, Laura Tohe stole a blue Impala in Arizona, and Tom Plante remembers a particular bird in Costa Rica.

Crostatas (complete poem)

Charlie Smith

in rome I got down among the weeds and tiny perfumed
flowers like eyeballs dabbed in blood and the big ruins
said do it my way pal while starlings
kept offering show biz solutions and well the vatican
pursued its interests the palm trees like singular affidavits
the wind succinct and the mountains painted blue
just before dawn accelerated at the last point
of departure before the big illuminated structures
dug up from the basement got going and I ate crostatas
for breakfast and on the terrace chatted
with the clay-faced old man next door and said I was
after a woman who’d left me years ago and he said lord aren’t we all.

Blue Impala (complete poem)

Laura Tohe

That time I stole a blue Impala in Flagstaff

the first year they made those automatic windows, you know?

I was sixteen and I was cruising down the highway

Hot on the trail to Albuquerque

I was hungry

and I was howling, man.

It was like stealing the best horse in the herd.

For That (complete poem)

Tom Plante

Someone asked the poet

where his inspiration comes from.

His hand reached up and he made a fist

as if he were trying to snatch an annoying gnat.

That reminded me of being asked

if I’d written any Costa Rica poems.

I stayed there for a week, ten degrees north of the equator.

Maybe I’ll know in a few years, I said.

The small yellow bird that enjoyed our deck at dawn

inspired me to write but wouldn’t say its name.

When I find out what it’s called, I’ll know

more than I did before. It’s not a swallow,

not a lark, not a vulture. It woke me at 5 a.m.

and taught me to love the dawn. For that I’m grateful.

A Look Back

Your memories of childhood vacations or trips with family (even day trips) are rich sources for reflection and writing. Richard Blanco revisits the Gulf Motel in Florida and it brings back such clear memories. My poem takes me back to one particular ride at an amusement park.

Looking for the Gulf Motel

Richard Blanco

…My mother should still be in the kitchenette
of The Gulf Motel, her daisy sandals from Kmart
squeaking across the linoleum, still gorgeous
in her teal swimsuit and amber earrings
stirring a pot of arroz-con-pollo, adding sprinkles
of onion powder and dollops of tomato sauce.
My father should still be in a terrycloth jacket
smoking, clinking a glass of amber whiskey
in the sunset at the Gulf Motel, watching us
dive into the pool, two boys he'll never see
grow into men who will be proud of him…

Casa Loco

Nancy Lubarsky

Our guide stayed upright as he talked.

He made it look easy. But people began

to slip. We held onto the rail. My parents

struggled to stay balanced. I can’t

remember much about Freedomland, an

amusement park in the Bronx. My parents

weren’t well off. They had health issues.

We rarely went anywhere. But we went to

Freedomland every year for the five years

it lasted…

Humor

Travel can be a great source of humor. Read how Bob Rosenbloom compares his view of the Grand Canyon to a thick deli sandwich. Billy Collins shares his stories about his travels by telling you why he is so happy to stay home.

Grand Canyon

Bob Rosenbloom

When I went sight-seeing, I couldn’t

get over how much the eroded rock

looked like layers of corned beef

and pastrami, the redder rock, the meat,

the paler, in-between, outcroppings,

layers of fat my mother made a point

of asking me to ask the guys at the deli counter

to cut. It should never have been an issue.

Sometimes they did. Other times, they didn’t.

My mother would let me know how I did each trip…

Consolation

Billy Collins

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every road sign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon’s
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyed camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?...

Prompts:

Now it’s your turn to write your travel poem. See if the following prompts can help:

What did you hate about travel? Can you use Billy Collins’s poem as a model and describe why you won’t ever travel again through the places you’ve been.

For those of you who’ve been cooped up for the past few years, think about when you did final venture out. What was that like? Can you capture your fear or trepidation, your relief that you were finally “on the road”? What object, person or experience most captures that moment?

In all of your poems, pay attention to the words that these poets use to describe their travels. In so many of them, they bring us to the seat right next to them, experiencing what they experienced with rich description and sensory detail.

Perhaps you can start out trying to model one of the above poems, or use one of the themes in these poems as a springboard to write your own.

Poems in Their Entirety:

https://poets.org/poems-about-travel

http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=715

________________________

Thank you, Nancy!

_____________________________

Prompt #374 – Someone Who Changed Your Life for the Better

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 12:17:00 +0000

(Me, Charlie's Wife Leni Fuhrman, Charles DeFanti)

For our last prompt, I wrote about my seventh grade English teacher and the autumn poem to which she introduced me. I invited you to write poems about October and/or autumn. This time, I'm writing about another teacher, this time a college professor, who has had a powerful impact on my life.

I started my undergraduate work as a physical education major when I was 17 years old and quickly realized that it wasn't right for me. I decided on phys ed because I was involved in dance and gymnastics, and I thought it would be a good fit. Sadly, it wasn't. One afternoon, I was hit in the mouth with a field hockey stick during a game (oh, how I hated team sports). With a bloody lower lip and all the rage I could muster, I walked off the field to the sound of our instructor yelling, "Kenny, where the hell do you think you're going?"

In those days, we were assigned counselors. Mine happened to be my freshman composition professor, Charles DeFanti. I marched myself, bleeding lip and all, into his office and asked him to get me out of that "blankety-blank" major. He very calmly handed me a handkerchief and asked if I needed medical help. I said, "no" (the cut was small and didn't go through my lip, it just bled a lot).

So ... I sat there fuming and mopping my lip with his handkerchief. When I calmed down and the bleeding let up, DeFanti (as the students referred to him) asked me if I was serious about changing majors. I definitely was! He asked what major appealed to me, but I didn't have a clue. He then asked me what I liked to do. I replied that writing poetry and reading were the things I enjoyed most, to which he replied,"Okay, good, you can be an English major." I had no idea what was involved in transferring from one major to another, nor did I have a clue as to what was expected of English majors in terms of courses, but DeFanti took care of it all. In record time, I was happily and deeply immersed in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the intricacies of American English grammar. I never looked back.

In the years after college, I taught English, creative writing, and gifted ed. After twenty years in the public school system, five years at the College of New Rochelle, and ten years at a local Police Academy, I retired from teaching and have been writing poems and nonfiction since. If it hadn't been for Charles DeFanti (his caring, intelligence, and good judgment), my life would have taken a very different course.

Most importantly, Charlie's influence on my life wasn't momentary. He and I have stayed in touch for 55 years, and he has remained a dear friend, a trusted mentor, and a major source of encouragement in all areas of my life. Without his indelible support and the role model he has provided, it's doubtful that I would have been able to accomplish much in the field of writing at all. My gratitude to him has been, and will always remain, a profoundly relevant part of who I am.

In talking to friends, I learned that a number of them have had experiences with important people in their lives who, as Charles DeFanti did for me, made their lives better just by being there for them. Perhaps you've had a similar person (parent, spouse, friend, child, teacher, mentor) to support, guide, and direct you.

For this prompt, I invite you to think about your life and to pick one person who has helped to empower you, who has directed your course in some special way, and who has led you to actualize your potential.

Suggestions:

1. Begin by thinking about the people who have impacted your life in special ways.

2. Choose one person to write about.

3. Create a list of the ways in which this person has contributed positively to your life.

4. Make a word or phrase bank of your person's special attributes and qualities of character.

5. Keep in mind that most poems have strong emotional centers that don't smother meaning with sentiment. (There's a big difference between sentimentality and poetic sentiment.)

6. Work on a sense of immediacy (even when you write in the past tense). Stay away from the passive voice, and be wary of "ing" endings.

7. Avoid over-use of adjectives and too many details (bulk without substance can be deadly).

8. Remember that imagery is key, and write about things, not ideas. Show, don't simply tell.

9. You poem may be ode-like in content and form, it may be a thank-you poem or a narrative, it may be presented in the form of a letter, and it may be composed in lineated or prose poem format.

10. The idea is to honor someone special who has encouraged you to be your best "you."

Prompt #373 – Autumn

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 15:44:00 +0000

Many (many) years ago, when I was in 7th grade, we had two periods of English every day. One was for all the technical aspects of grammar, and the other was for literature. Diagramming sentences was a little too much like math for me, and all the rules of where to place commas escaped me (I simply put them wherever there was a natural pause). Of course, I loved the literature classes best.

Our literature teacher was a young woman named Dorothy Muccilli (1932-2018). Miss Muccilli introduced us to all kinds of written art, but she had a special love for poetry, and she encouraged us to write poems as class assignments. She was the only teacher who actually told me she thought I had a gift for writing poetry. Needless to say, I adored her and her class.

That October (I was 11 years old at the time and would turn 12 in November), Miss Muccilli read a poem to us by a poet named Bliss Carmen. The poem was titled "A Vagabond Song." I remember how the words of that poem touched me and how my response to it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I could visualize the images but, even more importantly, I "felt" the poem in some deep place that I now call "spirit."

Something special happened with Miss Muccilli's reading of Bliss Carmen's poem that resulted in the moment I consciously realized how much I love poetry, that poetry would always be part of my life, and that I always wanted to write poems. Yes, definitely a conscious realization, although I wouldn't have called it that back then. Why that poem, why then? Who knows, but it brought about a revelation for me that has impacted my life ever since.

I memorized "A Vagabond Song" when I was in 7th grade and, believe it or not, I can still recite it from memory today (60+ years later).

A Vagabond Song

By Bliss Carmen

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

The Prompt

The prompt I offer you is to simply write a poem about October (or autumn in general).

Suggestions:

1. Jot down some ideas about this time of year.

2. Make an image "bank" from which you can draw when writing your poem.

3. Evoke a feeling through the details you include.

4. Put yourself into the poem; write in the first person and consider writing in the present tense to create a sense of immediacy. Also consider not including anyone but yourself in the poem—focus on your reflections and what the season means to you.

5. Watch out for "ing" endings that your poems can live without. Avoid the passive voice.

6. Be judicious in your use of adjectives. Remember that too many can spoil an otherwise good poem.

7. Edit carefully. It might be a good idea to write what feels like your final draft and then let it "sit" for a day or two before you come back to it.

8. Enjoy the writing!

I send you, dear blog readers, my very best wishes

for a healthy, safe, and beautiful autumn season!

On Being a Poet from Guest Blogger Michael T. Young

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:38:00 +0000

I’m happy to once again welcome Michael T. Young to the blog. Mike is an amazing poet who calls me his “poetry mom.” I’m proud to call him my “poetry son.”

Mike’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water (check out the amazing cover image), published by Terrapin Books (www.terrapinbooks.com), was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His chapbook, Living in the Counterpoint, received the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Banyan Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Rattle, Talking River Review, Tiferet, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Michael's Website:

http://www.michaeltyoung.com/

To Order Michael's Books:

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-T.-Young/e/B001K8WCQ6%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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From Michael T. Young

Rilke, in response to a young poet who sought his advice, wrote, “ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I must,’ then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

On the one hand, it’s commendable that Rilke advises the young poet not to seek validation for his art in its publication but in his urge to create. This rings true and is something we could all stand to remember as we pursue publication in the most prestigious journals or long for the big prizes. On the other hand, the singlemindedness of that closing declaration about building one’s whole life around writing, is more like a call to a religious passion and conjures images of monasteries and stained glass rather than someone at a desk striking out a bad line. This perspective goes back at least to the Romantics who deified the imagination. But it’s false and isolating.

Treating the desire to write poetry as a kind of monastic calling implies that if I’m not willing to sacrifice everyone and everything to my writing, then I’m not a poet. To that, I say, “h----s---.” I’m a poet because I write poems, because I like writing poems, I like laboring over the right word, the right rhythm, the image development, and every other nuance of language and poetic transition and metamorphosis. But I don’t have to turn my back on my wife to do that. I don’t have to ignore my children or friends to do that. I don’t have to quit my job and live under a bridge.

Poetry is not an all or nothing proposition; life as a poet is not an either/or ultimatum. To make life as a poet a devotion exclusive of all other things in life except perhaps as fodder for new work is to isolate the poet as a freakish creature from the rest of the world. It is to make of the poet a parasite that merely uses and consumes all around them in the production of their art, rather than seeing it as it is: one element in a full life. It is to turn the poet into a monster and provide a justification to replace the conscience they have sacrificed to the god of their imagination. But this doesn’t have to be. A poet is one who writes poems and likes the labor of writing poems. Plain and simple. This doesn’t require a monkish devotion that excludes all other aspects of life or a sacrifice of them. That is a lie the world tries to sell. As the poet Charles Martin put it in his poem, “A Walk in the Hills above the Artists’ House”:

“But if our writing matters, what

Makes it matter matters more

Than it does.”

___________________________________

Thank you so much, Michael!

Myth and Allegory in Contemporary Poetry, Guest Blogger Robin Rosen Chang

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 12:47:00 +0000

I'm so happy to share with you a special guest blog written by Robin Rosen Chang, author of The Curator's Notes (Terrapin Books, 2021). Her poems appear in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Journal, Diode, The Cortland Review, Poet Lore, Cream City Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, North American Review, Paterson Literary Review, Stillwater Review, and other literary journals and anthologies. She was the recipient of the Oregon Poetry Association's Fall 2018 Poets' Choice Award and an honorable mention for Spoon River Poetry Review's 2019 Editors' Prize. An earlier version of her book was a finalist for Warren Wilson's 2018 Levis Alumni Award for a manuscript in progress. She has an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She teaches college-level ESL and tutors. She can be found online at https://www.robinrosenchang.com/.

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Myth and Allegory in Contemporary Poetry

A few years ago, I surprised myself by writing a poem about Eve. I was perplexed. What was I, a relatively non-religious person, doing with Eve in my poetry? Before I had an answer, I had penned poems about Adam, the snake, the apple, and the fig leaf. Why and how had these allegorical figures crept into my poetry?

Myth and allegory have appeared in poetry for thousands of years, and they continue to be prominent in contemporary poetry. But what is it, we might wonder, that makes them still resonate? Why do such old stories continue to be told? Examining some relatively recent poems that employ myth and allegory can shed some light on these questions.

In his essay “Ulysses, Order, and Myth,” T.S. Eliot stated that myth reflects “the continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity.” In other words, myth helps unveil echoes of the distant past that are evident in the present. We can, in fact, see this in many contemporary poems. For example, Robert Haas’s “Heroic Simile,” from his book Praise, begins with a speaker thinking about the felling of one of Kurosawa’s Samurai swordsmen and Ajax before the speaker conjures two woodsmen cutting up an enormous tree. The woodsmen want to cart off the logs, but they are predestined to fail since the speaker acknowledges that he has “imagined no pack animal/or primitive wagon.” The woodsmen work tirelessly, but their efforts indeed are ineffective. Haas amplifies the notion of failure manifold by relating it to the heroic yet ultimately doomed Ajax and Samurai. By showing the downfall of these emblematic heroes, Haas is able to take the sting of futility and misfortune from the level of his woodsmen and speaker and make it an almost inevitable human condition. That is, through the lens of myth, the poem is about more than the shortcomings of the woodsmen and the speaker. Defeat is rendered as a universal and inevitable experience. Myth is also connecting the present with antiquity.

Since myths and allegories are so well known, they also provide an immediate literary framework for writers. This is evident in Lucille Clifton’s “lot’s wife 1988” from Blessing the Boats. In this poem, Clifton presents readers with a speaker who initially sees her childhood homes as a metaphor for being rooted in the world. Those houses, however, eventually turn into vacant lots. In the poem’s final stanza, Clifton turns to allegory, forging a connection with Lot’s wife. The speaker says, “I look back like lot’s wife/wedded to her weeds and turn to something/surer than salt and write this, yes,/I promise, yes we will.” By connecting the narrative to the story of Lot’s wife, Clifton adds additional weight and significance to the dramatic situation. The poem moves from being about the speaker as an individual, family member, or community member to the speaker as part of a long history of women who have looked squarely in the face of adversity and moved forward. Moreover, using allegory, Clifton can show that she is not only referring to a current problem but one that has endured through the ages. Again, we see that “continuous parallel’ between then and now that Eliot wrote about.

Myth is also employed as a literary substructure in Ada Limón’s “The Other Wish,” from Bright Dead Things, yet in this poem, it is used as a point of departure and resistance. Limón pushes back against the myth of Icarus. She uses a female speaker who ponders Icarus’ sanity. Contrasting herself with Icarus, the speaker says that if she had had his feather and wax wings, she’d have chosen “the moon, always the sister moon.//Cold, comely queen of the sky” instead of the sun. The glowing sister moon is deemed more desirable than the scorching male sun, and the speaker is more ambitious than Icarus. She would be ready “to fall from the terrifying height/of her, the dust of my years crazy and flashing//lit up by the victory of my disastrous flight.” She is not afraid to shoot for the moon and fall rather than foolishly flying too close to the sun, and she equates the attempted journey with success. By placing Icarus in a contemporary context, Limon wrestles the story from the masculine domain and, in the process, makes a feminist statement.

Myth and allegory are also means for tackling difficult subjects. Nina Kossman, author of Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths, says that myths and allegories are sometimes used as masks and personas. They offer an extra layer of separation to the speaker and the poet, and ideas that are expressed can be attributed to someone else. (Although we are taught that a poem’s speaker is not the same person as the poet, it is often erroneously assumed to be.) Additionally, a mask can also increase narrative distance to better enable the poet to address certain topics. Take Marie Howe’s most recent book, Magdalene, which is written entirely in the voice of a modern Magdalene. In her poem “Before the Beginning,” the persona asks if she were ever a virgin as well as other questions that suggest a profound violation. Sexual abuse is an extremely challenging topic. Using a mask to explore this issue not only affords a measure of distance and safety, but the persona of Magdalene also adds substantial emotional gravity to the poem. After all, if Magdalene could have been a victim, so could anyone. In A Poet’s Glossary, Edward Hirsch explains that “the hero of an allegory is also a cipher or a designated figure for the reader, since it’s understood that the action takes place in the mental landscape of the audience.” The protagonist can be viewed as an archetype. Magdalene can be any woman. In this way, the use of allegory also helps reflect those continuities between the past and the present.

I’ve presented only a handful of examples, but myth and allegory thrive in contemporary poetry. Their presence has many different effects, including extending poems’ reach, making them universal and immense. They also can also bring inherited beliefs and conditions forward to reveal how little some things have changed or be a vehicle for delving into difficult subject matters.

Having considered a few of the many ways in which myth and allegory can magnify a poem’s scope and implications, try your hand at using it in your own work. Below are two prompts. Write a poem to either, or both, of them. Good luck!

Write a poem using a mythological or allegorical figure to help you shed light on a contemporary issue or condition. Feel free to affirm or reject the myth. You may choose to draw from your own life or make it entirely fictional.

Write a poem using a mythological or allegorical figure as a mask to help you write about something you may have otherwise found too difficult to address.

References:

Clifton, Lucille. Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000. BOA Editions. 2000.

Eliot, T. S. “Ulysses, Order, and Myth.” University of Virginia. 8 Aug. 2017, Originally published in The Dial, Nov. 1923.

Hass, Robert. Praise. Ecco, 1979.

Hirsch, Edward. A Poet’s Glossary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.

Howe, Marie. Magdalene. W. W. Norton, 2017.

Kossman, Nina. Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Limón, Ava. Bright Dead Things. Milkweed Editions, 2015.

I’m very grateful to Adele for inviting me to contribute to her blog, The Music in It.

Thank you, Adele!

________________________________________

Thank you so much, Robin!

Dear Blog readers, I hope you'll order a copy of Robin's new book!

It's a superb collection of beautifully written poems from Terrapin Books, presented in Terrapin's elegant signature style.

You won't be disappointed!

Purchase Link for Book:

https://bookshop.org/books/the-curator-s-notes/9781947896376

It’s also available on Amazon.

Prompt #372 – The Cherita

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 18:58:00 +0000

As summer stretches on, and the heat continues where I live, it's nice to have an easy prompt to relax with and to write from. Accordingly, I've culled some info from the Net about a form of poetry called the Cherita. Here's hoping you'll find it an enjoyable "summer form."

The "Cherita" is a creation of ai li, the founding editor of "still: home for short verse," and now its independent e-zine offshoot "dew-on-line."

Cherita [pronounced CHAIR-rita] is the Malay word for story or tale. A Cherita consists of a single stanza verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse. It can be written solo or with up to three partners. The Cherita tells a story. More can be found about the cherita's origin, on the still website at still: home for short verse Here you will find examples of ai li's cherita, and others, by looking under the section "linked forms" and under that for "Cherita."

“Cherita forms its own plural just ad “haiku” and “tanka” do.

For additional info on this form, please visit www.thecherita.com.

Believing that the reading of the form surpasses any effort to explain it, here are a few examples by some of the Cherita's first and finest practitioners.

Two Cherita by Larry Kimmel

his clothes to charity

unpacking the suitcases
of the vacation no longer awaited

finding
the Valentine meant
for today
__

after seeing you off

taking the path along
the canal

a rustle of
leaves
underfoot

Two cherita by ai li

drifting paper boat

the rain
on banana leaves

indoors
by an open window
poet
__

Two Cherita by Sheila Windsor

the agoraphobic's room

along the windowsill
porcelain dolls

perfectly aligned
and smiling
at any passer-by
__

Two Cherita by Ed Markowski

wildflowers unfolding

in a field between two
sagging barns

she reassures me
"it's so much better
than a room at the Drake."
__

Benny's Diner

"the blue plate special, meatloaf
mashed, a wedge of cream pie

$4.99-5765
off at ten,"
the waitress winks

Suggestions:

1. Have fun writing a cherita or two. It’s that simple! Read some cherita, get an idea of the form, and then try writing some. Enjoy!

Prompt #371 – Condense, Condense, Condense

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 14:13:00 +0000

Here we are in the "dog days" of summer, and where I live, we're just beginning to move toward a respite from extremely humid, 95º+ days. I find myself looking forward to autumn! In weather like this it's hard to concentrate on writing, and perhaps even harder to work on refining poems already written. This prompt will revisit one from the first year of the blog that I hope will be helpful to you, whatever weather you may be experiencing.

In poetry, condensing and compression are about making poems more compact and less wordy. They are skills that enable poets to use the fewest possible words and to extend beyond literal understanding into nuances and associations that offer deeper meanings. In poetry, less really is more. As Dylan Thomas wrote, "The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps ... so that something not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in." Those holes and gaps can't happen in an overwritten poem.

In the earlier prompt I mentioned an interesting article that presents a view toward boosting awareness of condensing in our poems. From the article (http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/a/ginsbergsentenc.htm):

"Allen Ginsberg was a full believer in condense, condense, condense – which is a Pound dictum..."

The article continues (and this is what caught my attention), "Check Allen's poetry for articles (remember "a," "an," "the"?) and you'll see where he starts – these bitty words all but disappear in his work, which not only condenses but gives a rushing sense of immediacy to his work." The article goes on to discuss Ginsberg's reaction to haiku, a genre that I credit with teaching me much about condensing and compression. Ginsberg's answer to haiku first appeared in his book Cosmopolitan Greetings in the form he called "American Sentences." According to Ginsberg, an American Sentence is simply one sentence that contains seventeen syllables (the writing of which is a great way to focus on condensing and compression).

So here goes – our prompt this week is to create American Sentences in the manner of Allen Ginsberg, and then to look at our already-written poems with an eye toward condensing and compressing them.

Before you begin, be sure to read some American Sentences online and become familiar with how they work.

Suggestions:

1. Pick 3-5 topics (anything that catches your fancy).

2. Write an American Sentence on each topic you chose (have fun with this and be aware of how you condense and compress).

3. After you've written a few American Sentences, take a look at some of your already-written poems. Think about how you might condense and compress to improve them.

4. Are there unnecessary prepositions that you can lose?

5. Are there articles (a, an, the) that you don't need?

6. Are there conjunctions (and, but, although, when, while, yet, because, for, until, etc.) that your poems can live without?

7. Do you include more details than necessary? Do you "tell" with words rather than "show" with effective imagery? The best [poems show without overt telling.

8. How can you condense and compress to create greater immediacy, energy, and power?

Prompt #370 – Choice or Chance

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 24 Jul 2021 16:00:00 +0000

In looking back at some of the prompts from years ago, I came across this one (based on a Robert Frost poem) that I thought might be interesting to revisit during these hot July days. We've all made decisions in our lives that we either bless or regret. Frosts's "The Road Not Taken" is about the process and the repercussions of making choices. I’ve always loved this poem for its symbolisms, accessibility, and universal appeal. This one of the best known and most often quoted of Frost’s poems. There is, of course, much more to this poem than a surface understanding reveals.

For this week’s prompt, “The Road Not Taken” will be our inspiration poem. Before beginning, please give it a read.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken

As you read, note that one of the poem’s fascinations is its archetypal dilemma. Be sure to note that it is later in his life that the narrator looks back, reflects upon the meaning of choice and chance, and marks this decision as a defining moment in his life.

Suggestions:

Frost’s poem is about actual and figurative roads, and the fork in the path is an extended metaphor for making choices.

1. Write a poem about a metaphorical road that you didn’t take. Not the choice you made, but the one you didn’t. “Forks in the road” and “roads” seemed clichéd today, so be sure to create other symbolisms and metaphors for making choices that are fresh and new.

2. Write a poem about a “road not taken” in your life? Have you ever had to make a decision and then wondered much later how making the other choice might have impacted your life? Do you have any regrets?

3. Some analyses claim that Frost’s poem is about lost opportunities. Write a poem about a lost opportunity in your life?

4. Write a poem about the complexities of choice making. How do you feel about choice and chance?

5. Write a poem about a time that you had no choice.

Other Examples:

“Choices” by Tess Gallagher

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178872

“The Decision” by Jane Hirschfield

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/181480

Guest Blogger Yvonne Zipter "Healing the World, One Poem at a Time"

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 12:42:00 +0000

For this post, I'm very happy to introduce you to poet Yvonne Zipter. I first encountered Yvonne's poetry when I saw the cover of her book Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound and knew that I had to read the poems inside. Her publisher, Diane Lockward of Terrapin Books (www.terrapinbooks.com), kindly sent me a review copy, and I was immediately struck by Yvonne's skill and spirit. Here's a brief except from the review I wrote (Tiferet, Autumn/Winter 2020):

“It isn’t often that a book cover is so visually stunning that a potential reader is immediately captivated. Sometimes, however, a book’s contents don’t measure up to the cover. In this case, Yvonne Zipter’s poems do not disappoint! Her work is extraordinarily rich in metaphor and meaning and skillfully crafted in language that is both compressed and compelling. The poems in this collection come to bear on love, loss, and grief—things the poet has been forced to learn about herself, things we are all, ultimately, required to learn.”

Yvonne is the author of the poetry collections Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound (https://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com/book/9781947896291), The Patience of Metal (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), and Like Some Bookie God. Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals over the years, and her published poems are currently being sold individually in Chicago in two vending machines to raise money for the nonprofit arts organization Arts Alive Chicago. She is also the author of the nonfiction books Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet and the Russian historical novel Infraction. She appears in and provided some narration for the documentary A Secret Love about All-American Girl Professional Baseball Player Terry Donahue and her long-time partner Pat Henschel. Retired from the University of Chicago Press in 2018, where she was a manuscript editor, she lives in Chicago with her wife and their former racing greyhound.

Healing the World, One Poem at a Time

I have long suspected that poetry is healing. As long ago as forty years, after my mother died at age forty-one when I was twenty-four, I started processing my grief through poetry. A lot of it wasn’t good poetry, but even those lousy poems gave me some place to put my pain and figure out how to move on. It was also a way of keeping my mother alive for myself in some small way—our happy moments together as well as the tough ones, when she got sick—and a way of sharing with others what a wonderful woman she was. But mostly, especially in the beginning, it was a way for me to find comfort in the face of unthinkable loss. To put it another way, writing poetry can create a sense of control or order over what otherwise seems like chaos.

It’s not only writing poetry, however, that can be healing for the psyche, but reading it can be as well. Anecdotally, I once had a young college student write to me that a poem of mine about incest helped him realize he was not alone in that experience. Therapists Phyllis Klein and Perie Longo echo this experience, saying, “When we read a poem that speaks to our experience, there is a shift, a click within. Someone has understood our darkness by naming their own. We feel less alone.”

The National Association of Poetry Therapy actually publishes an entire periodical devoted to research on the use of language arts in a therapeutic capacity: the Journal of Poetry Therapy. At the association’s website, there is a short history of poetry therapy, in which the unnamed author points out that it was not uncommon for witch doctors and shamans to chant poetry during religious rites intended to promote well-being. But my favorite bit of the history given there—or should I say bite?—is that, “in ancient Egypt, words were written on papyrus and then dissolved into a solution so that the words could be physically ingested by the patient and take effect as quickly as possible.” To the best of my knowledge, no one has physically ingested one of my poems!

Poetry isn’t just helpful in dealing with psychological trauma. It can also help with physical pain. Psychiatrist and poet Robert Carroll writes about research that has shown that expressive writing can result in a reduction of symptom complaints by patients and can decrease physiological stress. Physician and poet Rafael Campo says that one of the ways that poetry can heal “is through the rhythms in poetry. There’s actually some science to back this up. Much like meditation, when we hear rhythmic language, when we read poetry aloud, our breathing and our heart rates synchronize. So just as meditation might be beneficial for certain health conditions, the same can be said of poetry.”

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, writing or reading poems is far from being a cure-all. Obviously, writing a poem is not going to fix a blocked artery or get rid of a malignancy. But even with psychological issues, poetry writing can only do so much if those issues of very deep (think: Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton). Nevertheless, poetry can be very helpful in a variety of ways, as indicated above.

Poetry also makes for better doctors—which can make for better medical outcomes. McMaster University, some years ago, created a literary companion for pediatric residents there. In the introduction to the list of recommended readings for doctors, they say that “exposure to creative works allows for development of skills essential for the practice of medicine, especially empathy.” (As an aside, I’m proud to say that the list—which is divided into different areas of medicine—includes a poem of mine: “Osteosarcoma: A Love Poem.”)

Rafael Campo concurs that poetry can make for better doctors, saying: “I don’t think of poetry as an irrelevant diversion. I think it’s central to how we can best treat our patients. How we can heal. We doctors, who deal with life and death every day, who look into the eyes of people who are in pain, who are dying, or who are giving birth and having one of the most joyous experiences of their lives, need the humanities to help us make meaning of those experiences for ourselves, and for our patients. That to me is what being a healer truly is.” Campo so strongly believes in the healing power of poetry that he edits the “Poetry and Medicine” section of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Books on the subject of poetry and both physical and psychological healing abound, with literally thousands of books on the subject listed at Amazon, including collections of poems that address varying medical conditions, such as Alzheimer’s and breast cancer, as well as other stressful occurrences. One such collection, for example, Poetic Medicine in the Time of Pandemic: A Collection of Poems from around the World, sought to gather poems from various countries in “an international effort to unite humanity in a fight against Covid-19.”

The pandemic has without a doubt been a traumatic health crisis for many worldwide, inflicting both physical harm and psychological pain. But what has had me thinking lately about poetry and how it can heal has been my own personal journey during the latter half of 2020. Smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, I ended up developing a partially collapsed lung from pneumonia and being diagnosed, as well, with early-stage ovarian cancer. Through two hospital stays over twelve days and through most of my time during chemotherapy treatments, my wife was not allowed to visit because of Covid precautions, making a scary series of events even more difficult.

Certainly, the kindness and competence of my many doctors and nurses eased some of my anxiety. But I feel confident saying that I was able to deal with all that I had to go through because I was writing poetry through much of it. I also strongly suspect that I had an easier time with chemo than many people do because I could pour my fears, my confusions, and my small moments of victory into poems. And the poems, in turn, let me share with friends and family what my experience was like, and in a more profound way than I could have if I’d only provided them with the facts. From the procedure to implant a port in my chest (for the delivery of the chemo into my veins) to the procedure to remove it, months later, I documented nearly everything—including probably far too many poems in which I fixated on losing my hair and getting it back!

While some of the poems were written directly on the heels of whatever they addressed, letting me poetically vent about the good and the bad of it all, others have needed months to take shape, the PTSD of some things requiring time on my part to process them. For instance, surgery for the cancer took place in August of last year, but there were no poems specifically on that topic until I wrote “Valedictory for My Womb” in December. And the pain of two or more blood draws every day for my eight-day hospital stay in July for the collapsed lung wasn’t documented until I wrote “Night Nurse” in April of this year. The point is, even when it takes months or years to be able to write a poem confronting an event, the work they do in terms of bringing some closure is no less powerful.

As social worker Phyllis Klein says, “Because a poem has a border, a frame, or structure, as opposed to prose, the form itself is a safety net. Strong emotions will not run off the page.” This holds true for the poet no matter her skill level, as well as for those who read the poems, looking for comfort, for understanding, for shared experience.

References

Robert Carroll, “Finding the Words to Say It: The Healing Power of Poetry,” Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2, no. 2 (June 2005): 161-72, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142208/.

Harvard Medical School Community, “Imagination and Healing,” March 27, 2019, https://hms.harvard.edu/news/imagination-healing.

Phyllis Klein and Perie Longo, “The Therapeutic Benefit of Poetry,” nd, https://phyllisklein.com/writing-for-healing/the-therapeutic-benefit-of-poetry/

“McMaster Paediatric Residency Literary Companion,” nd, https://www.macpeds.com/documents/MacPeds_Literary_Companion_11JUL16.pdf.

“History of NAPT,” nd, https://poetrytherapy.org/History.

_______________________________________________

To order a copy of Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound,

CLICK HERE.

Prompt 369 – This Is Not Grand Theft Poetry!

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 14:41:00 +0000

Hi Everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve posted regularly. An aged iMac (15 years old) has had a lot to do with that. Happily, I’m now working on a refurbished iMac that belonged to a former college professor and friend. When he and his wife got new computers, he had this one fixed up for me, and it’s a joy to work on. Of course, there are things I still have to learn, and I don’t have Office on this machine. As you will note, I'm still not completely adept at formatting yet. I’ve been plodding along but figuring things out at the same time.

Sadly, two very dear poet friends, Vincent Tripi and Laura Boss, passed away recently. Neither had Covid, but the losses, coming during the pandemic, have been disturbing. I haven't written much in the last few months, and I just happened to remember a form called the Cento. We’ve worked with it before on the blog, and just “playing” with a few cento poems helped me to recharge enough to write a couple of new (not cento) poems.

Sometimes, it’s fun to revisit an old post and try it out in a new year. This year, with Covid’s specter looming over all of us, has been both challenging and frightening. Finding inspiration isn’t always easy but, often, another poet’s words can be a rich source of inspiration. Cento derives from the Latin word for patchwork (as in a patchwork quilt). In poetry, a cento is a kind of collage poem made entirely of lines taken from poems by other authors. The rules are simple: no more than one line may be taken from any one poem; any number of quotes is acceptable; and centos may be lined, prose poems, or any form that strikes your fancy. Though some poets adapt this form to include borrowed lines from other poets’ work along with lines of their own, a true cento is composed only of lines from other sources.

Remember that “borrowing” other poets’ words is typically regarded as an honorific practice when the work is well done and sources are properly credited. Be sure to provide credits (usually at the end of your poem).

Historically, the cento is ancient. Early Greeks built poems from such works as The Iliad and The Odyssey. Roman poets composed centos taken from the works of Virgil, and Renaissance poets worked with lines from Petrarch and Cicero. Modern cento forms include variations (i.e., a single borrowed line that’s echoed throughout a poem), and today’s centos are often witty or ironic.

One of the things that appeals to me about the form is that reading poetry by other poets is part of the process, we read and write all within the space of a poem.

Remember, this isn’t a prompt about “grand theft poetry”—it’s a prompt about how other poets’ writing can inspire your own.

Guidelines:

1. Centos are reasonably easy to “put together.” For this prompt activity, create a cento based on a particular idea or theme (don’t simply collage randomly—start with a subject idea in mind). Using a poetry anthology is one way to get started. Read some poems and write down any lines that particularly strike you (be sure to include the poets’ names and the titles of the poems in your notes so you’ll know the poems and poets from which the lines you use in your cento originated). Alternatively, the Internet offers many poetry sites at which you can look for poems by poets or by titles and themes. Another place to look for inspiration might be in any copies of poetry journals that you have handy.

2. At some point, be sure to read “The Dong with the Luminous Nose” (a cento by John Ashbury that takes its title from Edward Lear and includes lines from poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, T. S. Eliot, and Lord Byron, (http://dougkirshen.com/dong/start.html), and "Ode: Salute to the New York School 1950-1970" by Peter Gizzi, http://www.jstor.org/pss/20132337).

3. Next, read some poems by other poets (time-honored or more contemporary).

4. Let yourself be inspired gently—take whatever suggestions the poems you read might have to offer, but don’t be locked into anything.

5. Spend a lot of time, “playing” with the ideas you gathered from other people’s poems. Where do they lead you? What moments of inspiration do they bring? How can you “piggy back” from these ideas into something spectacular of your own?

6. Be sure to reject anything that doesn’t fit the poem you begin to write and make sure that each line you use is taken from a different poem.

7. Remember that, although you’re assembling a selection of lines from various poems, your poem must make sense. This is important!

8. Keep your poem short, don’t ramble.

9. After you’ve written a draft, look for “lifeless” parts of the poem and delete or rework them.

10. In the end, your new poem should bear little or no resemblance to any of the poems from which you’ve borrowed lines.

11. Be sure to list each poet’s full name and the name of the poem from which you’ve borrowed. this can be done at then end of your cento (see the example below for one way to do this).

Tips:

1. Think of poetry at the line level.

2. Work on associative thinking and making connections among various poems.

3. Pay attention to tone, syntax, and mood.

4. Think about context, arrangement, and form in writing.

5. Examine how art can be disassembled and reassembled to create new works of art.

Examples:

That Was by Adele Kenny

That was the real world (I have touched it once),

which, though silent to the ear,

licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

where wings have memory of wings…

Ah, sweet! Even now in that bird’s song,

even now I may confess,

we are what life made us, and shall be –

more glory and more grief than I can tell.

All pleasures and all pains, remembering –

(I learnt the verbs of will, and had my secret).

These are the years and the walls and the door.

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,

(long after the days and the seasons)—

better by far that you should forget and smile.

I lift my eyes in a light-headed credo,

then let you reach your hat and go.

Acknowledgments:

Line 1: (Edwin Muir, “The Labyrinth”)

Line 2: (Percy Busshe Shelley, “Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici”)

Line 3: (T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”)

Line 4: (William Butler Yeats, “Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation")

Line 5: (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Blessed Damozel”)

Line 6: (Alexander Pushkin, “I Loved You”)

Line 7: (Algernon Charles Swinburne, “At a Month’s End”)

Line 8: (Emily Bronte, “Stanzas”)

Line 9: (Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”)

Line 10: (Dylan Thomas, “From Love’s First Fever To Her Plague”)

Line 11: (Elizabeth Bishop, “Visit to St Elizabeths”)

Line 12: (William Wordsworth, “Resolution and Independence”)

Line 13: (Arthur Rimbaud, “”Barbarian”)

Line 14: (Christina Rossetti, “Remember”)

Line 15: (Seamus Heaney, “ Remembered Columns”)

Line 16: (Hart Crane, “The Bridge”)

Perfect (a cento)

By Wendy Rosenberg

I put you into my memories on purpose –

a balm for the nerves –

the notion of some infinitely gentle thing.

You do not have to walk on your knees

like a willow swept by rain.

Beauty is momentary in the mind,

conceived in a wordless encounter

by means of a searching pause.

We all have reasons for moving –

I never knew survival was like that.

I would like to be the air –

more like a memory of heaven

and certain certainties.

Your face sounds like that.

Let me hear every perfect note.

_____________________________

Line 1: Julia Cohen “In the Dark We Crush”

Line 2: Alberto Rios “Coffee in the Afternoon”

Line 3: T. S. Eliot “Preludes”

Line 4: Mary Oliver “Wild Geese”

Line 5: Wallace Stevens “Peter Quince at the Clavier”

Line 6: Wallace Stevens “Peter Quince at the Clavier”

Line 7: Naomi Mulvihill “Poetry”

Line 8: Naomi Mulvihill “Poetry”

Line 9: Mark Strand “Keeping things Whole”

Line 10: Ada Limón, “Before”

Line 11: Margaret Atwood: “Variation on the Word Sleep”

Line 12: Li-Young Lee “Discrepancies, Happy and Sad”

Line 13: T. S. Eliot “Preludes”

Line 14: Julia Cohen “In the Dark We Crush”

Line 15: Jonathan Wells “Love’s Body”

https://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happens-Wendy-Rosenberg/dp/0692812709

National Poetry Month 2021

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 19:40:00 +0000

Established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month begins on April 1st and runs through April 30th. The largest literary celebration in the world, this month-long celebration of poetry is held every April “to widen the attention of individuals and the media to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern.” During April, poets, poetry lovers, publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, and schools throughout the United States celebrate poetry.

One of the challenges of NPM is to read and/or write a poem every day. So ... in the spirit of the observance, as I’ve done for the past several years, I offer you a prompt re-visit that I hope will be inspirational for each of April’s thirty days.

Guidelines:

1. Each day, think about the key word (in caps next to the date).

2. Then click on the link and read the poem—one each day of the month. Let each day’s poem inspire you.

3. After thinking a bit about the content of the poem you read, identify something in that poem that “strikes a chord” for you.

4. Working from that “chord,” try to write a poem of your own that somehow incorporates the key word (doesn’t have to be exact) and which may or may involve content similar to the example poem.

5. I’ve deliberately made some leaps in the ways my key words sometimes differ from the content of the poems to which I’ve matched them—take some leaps yourself!

Tips:

1. Don’t feel compelled to match your content to the examples’—in fact, do just the opposite and make your poems as different as you possibly can. The inspiration titles and the example poems are only intended to trigger some poetry-spark that’s unique to you, to guide your thinking a little—don’t let them enter too deeply into your poems, don’t let their content become your content.

2. Let your reactions to the key words and poems surprise you. Begin with no expectations, and let your poems take you where they want to go.

3. Give the topics your own spin, twist and turn them, let the phrases trigger personal responses: pin down your ghosts, identify your frailties, build bridges and cross rivers, take chances!

4. Keep in mind that writing a poem a day doesn’t mean you have to “finish” each poem immediately. You can write a draft each day and set your drafts aside to work on later.

5. Whatever you do this month, find some time (a little or a lot) to enjoy some poetry!

April 1—REMEMBRANCE

“If You Forget Me” by Pablo Neruda

http://allpoetry.com/If-You-Forget-Me

April 2—THE COLOR RED

“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams

http://allpoetry.com/The-Red-Wheelbarrow

April 3—AGING

“When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats

http://allpoetry.com/When-You-Are-Old

April 4—PEACE OF MIND

“Where the Mind Is Without Fear” by Rabindranath Tagore

http://allpoetry.com/Where-The-Mind-Is-Without-Fear

April 5—SOUND or SOUNDS

“Echo” by Christina Rossetti

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8449151-Echo-by-Christina-Georgina-Rossetti

April 6—MUSIC

“I am in Need of Music” by Elizabeth Bishop

http://allpoetry.com/I-Am-In-Need-Of-Music

April 7—A DAY TO REMEMBER

“A Golden Day” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

http://allpoetry.com/A-Golden-Day

April 8—BEING ALONE

“Alone Looking at the Mountain” by Li Po

http://allpoetry.com/Alone-Looking-at-the-Mountain

April 9—HAPPINESS

“A Moment of Happiness” by Jalal al-Din Rumi

http://allpoetry.com/A-Moment-Of-Happiness

April 10—LOVE

“April Love” by Ernest Christopher Dowson

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8509781-April-Love-by-Ernest-Christopher-Dowson

April 11—BIRDS

“Birdhouse” by Diane Lockward

http://www.versedaily.org/2010/birdhouse.shtml

April 12—PATTERNS

“Patterns” by Amy Lowell

http://allpoetry.com/Patterns

April 13—RAIN

“The Rain” by Robert Creeley

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171562

April 14—BOREDOM

“Dream Song 14” by John Berryman

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176994

April 15—NAMES

“The Naming of Birds” by Edwin Romond

http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=2173

April 16—INDIFFERENCE

“Twilight” by Henri Cole

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/247914

April 17—ROMANCE

“The Romantic” by Gerald Stern

https://poets.org/poem/romantic

April 18—LISTENING

“The Risk of Listening to Brahms” by Michael T. Young

http://www.rattle.com/the-risk-of-listening-to-brahms-by-michael-t-young/

April 19—CHANGES

"The Moment I Knew My Life Had Changed" by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

http://www.inspirationalstories.com/poems/the-moment-i-knew-my-life-had-changed-maria-mazziotti-gillan-poem/

April 20—WAKING

"Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver (Audio)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4O_QcpJlzc

April 21—FAILURES

“Failure” by Philip Schultz

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2007/10/failure.html

April 22—PROMISES

“Family Promises” by Laura Boss

https://laurabosspoet.wordpress.com/poems/

April 23—FAMILY MEMBERS

“Fists” by Joe Weil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq1wYgavJ2U

April 24—LIFE

"The Yellow Brick Road" by Donna Baier Stein

http://www.saintjulianpress.com/donna-baier-stein---the-yellow-brick-road.html

April 25—FAITH

“Breakfront” by Bob Rosenbloom

http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=180

April 26—THE FUTURE

“To the Next Centuries” by James Richardson

http://www.thenation.com/article/next-centuries/

April 27—SPRING

“Spring” by Christina Rossetti

http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=3668

April 28—MAGNOLIA BLOSSOMS

“Dear Magnolia Blossom” by Grace Marie Grafton

http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=3439

April 29—ANIMALS

“Hedgehog” by Paul Muldoon

https://www.best-poems.net/poem/hedgehog-by-paul-muldoon.html

April 30—MORNING

“On The Pulse of Morning” by Maya Angelou

https://poets.org/poem/pulse-morning

Happy National Poetry Month!

Prompt #368 –Txt Msg Poems

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 19:21:00 +0000

With all the social distancing we currently practice because of the Covid pandemic, it's logical to assume that our forms of communication have become largely device-driven. This prompt is a re-visit of one from many years ago that I hope you'll enjoy, particularly in view of how we communicate other than in-person.

Text-based communication (including mobile text messaging, instant messaging, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter) has resulted in a new text language tailored to the immediacy and compactness of popular communications and is widely used. There are thousands of texting abbreviations (also known as shorthand), and hundreds of strange expressions have emerged: ty (thank you), yw (you’re welcome), omg (oh my God), w/e (whatever), and lol (laughing out loud) are among the thousands. Upper case is allowed for emphasis, but a whole message in upper case is considered shouting and therefore rude. For the uninitiated, this new "written language" might appear as gibberish or perhaps an abbreviated form of Jabberwocky.

Text messaging, or texting, involves composing and sending brief, electronic messages between two or more mobile phones, or fixed or portable devices over a phone network. The term originally referred to messages sent using the Short Message Service (SMS) but has grown to include messages containing image, video, and sound content (MMS messages). The sender of a text message is known as a texter, and this week, you will be a poet-texter.

Interestingly, Carol Duffy, who became Britain’s first female poet laureate in 2009, has made connections between poetry and texting and was quoted in an interview with England’s Guardian, “The poem is a form of texting ... it’s the original text. It’s a perfecting of a feeling in language – it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is. We’ve got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future—and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them. It’s a kind of time capsule—it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form.”

If you do any texting yourself, you’re well aware of texting shorthand, which facilitates brevity and immediacy, you probably know many of the most popularly used shorthand abbreviations. For this prompt, the challenge is to write a poem in the form of a text message. Your topic may be anything, but your language must be text message-based and the poems should contain numerous text abbreviations.

Guidelines:

1. Write a poem in which you use text message shorthand for some of your words. Don’t attempt to write the whole poem in text message lingo, just use some of the better-known symbols.

2. An alternative idea might be to take a short famous poem and rewrite it using text message shorthand. Or, you might take one of your already-written poems and rewrite it using some text message abbreviations.

3. If you’re not well versed in texting shorthand, you can visit these sites for help. http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/anoguera/web/glo/abreviaturas2.html

Tips:

1. Keep your poems short—no more than 10 or 12 lines.

2. Avoid less commonly used or known abbreviations to ensure that your readers will understand.

3. A humorous approach might work well for this prompt, but certainly isn’t required.

4. In keeping with the spirit of text messaging (brevity and immediacy), keep your lines short and perhaps limit yourself to one stanza—stichic form).

5. Try writing a text message parody of a famous poem.

Example:

This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold.

_______________

A Texting Parody of “This Is Just To Say”

This is jst 2 say

I ate ur plums

that were in

the icebox.

w/e u

saved them 4

I do not care.

OMG,

pls understand

I am not sorry, LOL.

Go to Dunkin Donuts

TY and TTFN.

Prompt #367 – A Short Form of Poetry for the Shortest Month

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 11:50:00 +0000

February is the shortest month, and I thought it might be a good time to revisit a very short form of poetry (one that we’ve worked with before)—haiku. Haiku, despite its brevity, always has a freshness and a richness that we can come back to.

Haiku’s origins have been traced to a form of Japanese poetry known as haikai no renga, a kind of linked poetry that was practiced widely by Matsuo Bashō (1644-94) and his contemporaries. Over time, the first link in a renga, the hokku, evolved into the haiku as we understand it today. A minimalist form of poetry, haiku has been popular among modern poets since the 1960s, when a western-world haiku movement generated increased interest in the form. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Billy Collins, John Ashbery, and Paul Muldoon have written haiku, and haiku-like poems are found in the works of such literary greats as Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and Richard Wright. Although something other than “mainstream” poetry and very much its own genre, haiku is a unique and demanding form to master.

In traditional Japanese, the haiku is typically written vertically on the page (from top to bottom). Each haiku contains seventeen sound symbols. However, early translators were mistaken when they assumed that Japanese sound symbols were equivalent to syllables in the English language and that haiku should be written in three lines containing 5,7, and 5 syllables respectively. Although incorrect, these “defining” qualities of haiku are still regarded as “haiku format” by many. A more acceptable standard for English-language haiku is 10-20 syllables in 3 lines with a longer second line and shorter first and third lines. That said, the parameters are often stretched depending on content and meaning. Three lines have become the norm, but haiku of one and two lines are also seen, and syllable count varies

Traditional haiku contain a kigo (season word) to indicate the season or time of year in which the haiku takes place, along with two phrases (or images) that are inherently unrelated but are juxtaposed to show some commonality within a particular experience. Normally, one idea is presented in the first two lines and then a switch occurs in the third. Alternatively, a single idea is presented in the first line and a switch occurs in the second and third lines. Nearly every haiku has this kind of two-part, juxtapositional structure. The shift is achieved with what is called a kireji or cutting word, which “cuts” the poem into two parts. The kireji is a kind of caesura (and similar in theory to the volta in a sonnet) that signals a pause in the poem’s “thought” and suggests a parallel to the preceding phrase, the following phrase, or provides a “dismount for the poem that offers a finely tuned sense of closure.

Haiku is, in a sense, an art of detachment in which the poet is removed enough from the subject to write without self-interest or self-absorption but, rather, with a sense of both inward and outward direction. The best haiku are life-affirming and eternity-conscious, spontaneous and unpretentious but entirely focused and either gently or startlingly profound.

Note: The word haiku forms its own plural – haikus is incorrect.

Guidelines:

1. Haiku describe things in a very few words – they never tell, intellectualize, or state feelings outrightly. They never use figures of speech (similes, metaphors, etc.) and should not rhyme.

2. Haiku is more than a simple genre or form of poetry—haiku is a way of seeing, a way of capturing experience, a kind of “aha” moment or instant when something in the ordinary captures our attention and leads us to a closer, more concentrated look at its connection to nature, and human nature.

3. Haiku don’t have titles, although haiku sequences do.

4. Brevity is key, along with a sense of immediacy (written in the present tense) and often a sense of relationship between nature and human nature. Some haiku poets feel that one measure of a haiku’s success is its ability to be read in a single breath. Most will agree that a successful haiku is characterized by crystal-cutting clarity and in-the-moment presence.

5. Haiku are about spiritual realities, the realities of our every-day lives, and the realities of human- and natural-world relationships. Most importantly, haiku honor the inside of an experience through attention to the outside.

6. Compact and direct, haiku appear to be light and spontaneous, but their writing requires careful reflection and discipline—haiku may even be considered a kind of meditation. Finely-tuned powers of observation reveal the haiku moments that happen continually in the world around us.

7. Don’t be bound by any notions of 5,7,5 syllable structure—focus instead on use of season words, two-part juxtapositions, and objective sensory imagery.

Tips:

1. Bashō said that each haiku should be “a thousand times on the tongue.” Before writing anything, read many haiku from a range of sources to get a “feel” for the form. Be sure to read some haiku that have been translated from the Japanese, but spend more time on good haiku written in English. Read some of the haiku aloud, and listen deeply.

2. After you’ve read many haiku and have a sense of what they’re about, think about an experience you’ve had.

3. Remember the season in which you had the experience, and then think of a word or phrase that suggests that season. For example, peonies is a season word for spring; snow and ice are season words for winter. A simple phrase like “autumn leaves” can evoke feelings of loneliness and the coming of darkness (shorted days, longer nights) in winter. While many haiku appear to have a nature focus, they are more-specifically based on a seasonal reference that as much about nature as it is within nature.

4. Organize your thoughts into approximately three lines. First, set the scene, then suggest a feeling and, finally, make an observation or record an action. Write in the present tense, don’t use figures of speech (similes, metaphors), and keep things simple.

5. Be sure to include a contrast or a comparison. Remember that haiku often present one idea in the first two lines and then switch quickly to something else in the third. One of your goals is to create a “leap” between the two parts of your haiku without making too obvious a connection between the parts or leaping to a distance that’s unclear or obscure. At the same time, you must reveal the emotions (not ideas) that you want to communicate without stating them overtly.

6. Try to think of haiku in terms of your five senses—things you experience directly, not ideas or your interpretation or analysis of “things.” Think in terms of sensory description and avoid subjective terms.

7. Spend time working on punctuation. In poems so brief, punctuation is important. Read some of the examples and see how other haiku poets make punctuation work for them in their haiku.

Questions to Consider When Editing and Refining Your Haiku

How many lines have you written? It’s easy to over-write a haiku. Longer than 3 lines isn’t really a haiku. Haiku can be 1, 2, or 3 lines, but not more.

Is your writing simple and clear?

How long are your lines? Sometimes, we write too much in each line. Think about what you can take out if your lines seem long. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but good haiku usually contain about 20 syllables or less.

Did you focus on a single moment (detach from everything else) and recreate that moment in as few words as possible?

Did any figures of speech creep into your haiku (similes, metaphors, etc.)? If so, remove them along with anything that seems forced or contrived.

Did you include a season word (kigo)?

Did you include a shift between the two parts of your haiku (did you create a two-part juxtapositional structure)?

Have you taken out take out any words that aren’t essential to the haiku; for example, there are many times when you can delete words such as “a,” “and,” and “the.”

Have you worked toward economy of language? Very few, if any, adjectives?

Have you avoided prepositional phrases?

Instead of writing “the brightness of the starts,” take out the prepositional phrase and write, “the stars’ brightness.”

Another example: “the depth of the water” can become “the water’s depth.’

And another: “the vastness of the ocean” can become “the ocean’s vastness.”

Examples:

From the Japanese Masters

Winter seclusion –

Listening, that evening,

To the rain in the mountain.

— Issa

My life, –

How much more of it remains?

The night is brief.

— Shiki

Over the wintry

forest, winds howl in rage

with no leaves to blow.

— Soseki

No one travels

Along this way but I,

This autumn evening.

— Bashō

Contemporary Haiku From Modern Haiku magazine

http://www.modernhaiku.org/previousissue.html

Contemporary Haiku from Frogpond (Journal of the Haiku Society of America)

Frogpond 37.1 • Winter 2014

Frogpond 36.3 • Autumn 2013

Frogpond 36.2 • Summer 2013

Frogpond 36.1 • Winter 2013

Frogpond 35.3 • Autumn 2012

Frogpond 35.2 • Summer 2012

Frogpond 35.1 • Winter 2012

Frogpond 34.3 • Autumn 2011

Frogpond 34.2 • Summer 2011

Frogpond 34.1 • Winter 2011

Frogpond 33.3 • Autumn 2010

Frogpond 33.2 • Summer 2010

Frogpond 33.1 • Winter 2010

Frogpond 32.3 • Autumn 2009

Frogpond 32.2 • Summer 2009

Frogpond 32.1 • Winter 2009

Frogpond 31.3 • Autumn 2008

Frogpond 31.2 • Spring/Summer 2008

And, by way of sharing, a few of my own:

migrating geese –

once there was so much

to say

(1st Place Henderson Award, 1984, http://www.hsa-haiku.org/hendersonawards/henderson.htm#1984)

between the moon

and the billboard,

a jet liner rising

(42^nd Street Art Project, displayed on the Rialto West Theater Marquee, NYC, 1994.)

a flurry of bats

and then

the Milky way

(Haiku Quarterly, First Prize, Autumn 1989)

moonrise:

at the edge of the words,

we listen

(From Castles and Dragons, 1990)

through darkness

churchbells on the cusp

of the hill

(From Questi Momenti, 1990)

Prompt # 366 - Surrealism in Poetry: Something Other

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 14:38:00 +0000

During the last few decades, there’s been renewed interest in Surrealist poetry, and most recently, the genre has become more and more popular as our world is increasingly suspended among political turmoil, racial injustice, gender biases, and the crushing effects of Covid-19. Most of us know the word surreal in a non-poetry lexicon, meaning weird, strange, incredible, or unreal. In the context of art, however, Surrealism began as an artistic movement in 1920s Paris.

Although Guillame Apollinaire first used the word “surreal” in reference to the concept that an independent reality exists beneath conscious reality, poet and philosopher André Breton (1896-1966) is generally credited with being the founder and driving spirit of the Surrealist movement. Surrealism gained momentum with Breton’s 1924 publication of The Manifesto of Surrealism. In this work, he sought to combat the way art was viewed and understood, focusing on the “disinterested play of thought” and the “omnipotence of dreams” rather than on reason and logic.

Along with Breton and Apollinaire, other poets who advanced the Surrealist movement included Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Éluard, and Peruvian poet César Vallejo. Also prominent among the early Surrealists was Spanish poet Federico García Lorca who is still considered by many to be Spain's greatest poet and dramatist. During the 1920s, Lorca joined a group of avant-garde artists that included Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel. Called “The Generation of ’27,” this group introduced Lorca to Surrealism and greatly influenced his writings. Noted woman Surrealist poet Gisèle Prassinos was discovered by Breton in 1934 when she was only fourteen years old. A photograph by Surrealist photographer Man Ray shows the fourteen-year-old schoolgirl reading her poems to members of the Surrealist group, including André Breton and Paul Éluard (National Galleries, Scotland).

Initially, Surrealism grew out of Dadaism, an art movement introduced in Zurich during WWI as a negative response to the horror and senselessness of the war. Deliberate irrationality and contravention of the traditional artistic canon were features of Dada. Surrealism developed as a mechanism of knowledge, and those who embraced the movement believed that the subconscious contained true reality. They believed that the unconscious mind is deeper than the conscious mind. Early Surrealist poets focused on reality created by the “waking consciousness,” which unites the world of imagination with the real world—subjectivity and objectivity, and dream states and wakefulness.

In The Communication Vessels, Breton stated that the real and dream worlds are actually the same and that the mind communes in each state like two connected vessels. This principle is also known as “point sublime” or the realization of surreal harmony—the point at which contrasts (life and death, beauty and ugliness, dark and light) merge. World War I left its generation profoundly traumatized; the comforts and certainties of life as most people knew them were largely obliterated by the war. The world was bitter and broken, and very little seemed to make sense. In addition, during the final months of World War I, what would become a worldwide flu pandemic broke out in 1918. This would become a global pandemic much like the one that is devastating our world today.

Catalyzed by the state of their world, Surrealist painters and writers began to feel that by embracing the world’s disorder, and the disorder in individuals’ lives, they might turn consciousness away from the war’s aftermath and the flu’s devastation. In a very real sense, the Surrealists, by recognizing the confusion and fear of their time, were able to offer a measure of healing from the damage wrought by what the world had seen and suffered. Most importantly, the Surrealist movement looked toward ways in which people might be freed spiritually and psychologically—freedoms that were much needed at the time, just as they are today.

Breton and his colleagues drew heavily on Freudian psychoanalysis and the power of unconscious thought, including such strategies as “automatic writing,” as they strove to open their imaginations to deeper truths. When Surrealist poets used automatism, or automatic writing, they wrote whatever came to mind without controlling their conscious thoughts. Breton stated that poets should not filter, edit or shape automatic writing because the words should be dramatic and unprocessed. This resulted in wild illogical vaults, elaborate imagery, and strong tonal shifts.

Along with automatism, Surrealist poets also experimented with cut-up, collage, and other types of what we might call “found poetry” today. Because Surrealism was first a Parisian movement, it also took hold among young students from Martinique (an insular region of France in the West Indies) who were studying in Paris. In the spirit of poetic revolt and social revolution, Black Surrealists, who shared the racial history of slavery, were touched by Surrealism’s defense of human rights and its suggestions of creating change in the world. The first woman Surrealist of African descent was Simone Yoyotte. Active within the Paris Surrealism group, she was the only woman in the Légitime Défense (self-defense) group formed exclusively by students from Martinique during 1932. She published poems in the Légitime Défense journal. Sadly, only one edition of the journal was produced and virtually nothing is known of her life.

The advent of World War II and the rise of Nazism and Fascism was not an easy time for the Surrealists, and numbers of them came to America where they continued to shape changes in literary philosophy. After World War II, certain “diluted” forms of Surrealist poetry appeared, and a second generation of surrealist writers emerged in various parts of the world, especially in Latin America (where interest in Surrealism began as early as 1928 in Argentina). Poet Pablo Neruda wrote in various styles, including Surrealism, and Octavio Paz was also influenced by the genre. Surrealism has also interested many modern and contemporary poets such as Americans James Tate, John Ashbery, Dean Young, George Kalamaros, and Will Alexander, Englishwoman Helen Ivory, Romanian Tristan Tzara, and Slovenian Tomaž Šalamun.

Although the active movement came to an end after the Second World War, a substantial group of today’s poets turn to Surrealist imagery and ideas in their efforts to stretch the margins of literary art and to make readers think. Given the stresses of contemporary society and international relations, it’s hardly surprising that poets would turn to an aesthetic that looks toward ways of overcoming the inconsistencies of our conscious minds.

Today’s Surrealist poets, like their predecessors, are producing a body of literature with imagery that affirms the supremacy of fantastic and often bizarre juxtapositions. They advocate contrasting images and ideas and embrace Freudian ideas of free association that move readers away from societal influences, thus encouraging readers to open their minds in regard to what reality is. Metaphor and imagery are the main techniques used by Surrealist poets to cause their readers to think more deeply and to seek subconscious meanings in their poems. Readers are thus propelled to examine their unconscious and to analyze what they discover.

Rarely is Surrealist poetry narrative; instead of telling actual stories, it is concept-forward and emphasizes dreamlike “settings,” nonlinear timelines, incongruous content, and unbound associative leaps in thinking. Typically, Surrealist poetry has a certain shock value that characterizes the form. Often, in today’s poetry, we see softly surreal qualities that speak to Surrealist influence. Our place in world history is challenging at best; the current pandemic is taking a huge toll. Is it any wonder that poetry today is ready to contemplate realities other than what we read about in print media and see on Internet and television news?

In this time that cries out for spiritual and psychological freedom, and for relief from harsher realities, Surrealist poetry, with its dark corners and its flashes of light, is a rich source to which poets and poetry lovers can turn to buttress their need for something “other.”

Acknowledgment: By Adele Kenny, Reprinted by Permission from Tiferet Journal,

Guidelines:

1. Understand that it’s not easy to “teach” anyone how to write a Surrealist poem. Begin by reading examples of Surrealist poetry for inspiration. You’ll find many online. Google poets such as Andre Breton, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Éluard, and César Vallejo. It may also be helpful to look at some Surrealist paintings.

2. There’s an excellent resource for writing Surrealist poems at this website: https://www.wikihow.com/Write-Surrealist-Poetry. Try some of the ideas and suggestions.

3. When you begin writing, don’t consciously “think” or plan your poem.

4. Clear your head and realize that nothing currently active in your mind will appear in your poem. Just let your thoughts flow, and jot some of them down even if they seem disjointed and unrelated.

5. Choose one of the things you jotted down and write about it. Don’t be deliberate, just write. The idea is to go in a particular direction and not to just write gibberish that has no meaning. That said, keep in mind that intentional symbols aren’t part of the plan. The unexplainable images that pop into your mind are what we’re after.

6. Continue to write until you feel you’re finished. Shorter is probably best for starters.

7. Now, think about what your poem means—not an overt meaning but subtle, subconscious things that have crept into your writing.

8. If you find yourself looking for “something other” by way of prompts, try writing a “Surreal” ekphrastic poem based on Salvador Dali’s "The Persistence of Memory" at the beginning of this post.

A Couple of my Own Examples:

http://survisionmagazine.com/Issue8/adelekenny.htm

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 17:00:00 +0000

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language.

And next year’s words await another voice.

—T.S. Eliot

Dear Blog Readers,

I send you my very best wishes that this New Year will bring you good health, a peaceful spirit, and many blessings!

2020 was a difficult and challenging year for people around the world. May Eliot’s “words” that “await another voice” bring an end to the pandemic in 2021 and a return to life as we knew it; and may we all join together in the “poetry of life” with generosity, compassion, gratitude, and love.

In prayerful and grateful hope,

Adele

Prompt #365 – A Covid Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 22:54:00 +0000

This spring and summer, we had to learn a new vocabulary that included words such as pandemic, Covid, self-isolation, quarantine, and social distancing. Those and related terms remain in our lexicon. We wear masks and gloves, and we stay at least six feet away from people in stores, doctors’ offices, and everywhere groups used to be. We avoid crowds, and we don’t shake hands or hug any one other than those with whom we live. Many families didn't make annual summer trips, many were unable to visit parents and children who live far away; we weren’t able to hold family reunions, attend weddings (and even funerals). We weren’t able to spend time together as we normally would; and the recent “second wave” of soaring infections is cause for solemn concern. With a vaccine suspended in the realm of hope but not yet available to the general public, and with some people refusing to follow simple safety guidelines, things are likely to worsen.

This year holiday celebrations around the world will undoubtedly be different: no large parties at work and among friends and family members, local community gatherings will be limited in numbers or cancelled, gatherings at restaurants will be restricted to just a few people (if they happen at all), masks and social distancing will remain in place, in-home get-togethers will be limited, and travel will be risky at best. Mall Santas won’t have children sitting on their knees, and any Santas we might see collecting for the poor will be wearing masks. Attendance at Midnight Mass and other church services will be limited to just a small percentage of people—no standing room only this year. And New Year’s Eve celebrations will be seriously curtailed in Times Square, as well as in all the places where large public celebrations occur around the world.

Despite restrictions on households mixing, with strict curbs on hospitality already in place, and with all the precautions we have to take, this holiday season doesn’t have to be a “wash.” Perhaps this year, we can all find ways to enter the spirit of the season without the usual trappings of social festivities, big dinner parties, visits, travel, and gift giving. Perhaps this year we can find ways to experience the message and meaning of the holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza) in quieter, more personal ways and be able to bring holiday spirit to loved ones and friends without close in-person contact (Zoom, Skype, telephone, email, texts, etc.).

For some of us, writing about this time in human history and its effect on the holiday season may offer a bit of relief from all the related stresses and disappointments and, perhaps, bring us closer to the inner peace and joy we all seek. Writing for its own sake, expressing our thoughts to define and clarify them, and writing poems to give others clearly isn’t going to make the pandemic go away, but our moments of writing, reading, and sharing poetry, may become moments of good that we can gift to loved ones, to friends, and to ourselves.

Suggestions:

1. Write about what it’s like to celebrate this Christmas with the threat of Covid so present in our lives.

2. Write about a holiday about your past (dig deeply into family memories).

3. Write about seasonal ghosts that haunt you (per Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” and, in particular, you might write about the specter of Covid this holiday season).

4. Write about what you’ll miss most this holiday season—write about aspects of winter holiday traditions that won’t be part of this year’s annual celebration.

5. Write about one special person with whom you always associate the winter holidays.

6. Write about the faith and/or cultural aspects of your winter holidays.

7. Write about a holiday song that replays in your mind because of its associations (or, write your own words to a Christmas carol or other winter holiday song).

8. Write a poem based on an old Christmas, Chanukah, or other winter holiday photograph.

9. Write a holiday prayer, reflection, or meditation.

10. Write about a winter holiday yet to come—a holiday season without Covid.

Tips:

1. Keep in mind that holiday literature can be tricky—be sure to sidestep the pitfalls of sentimentality, schmaltziness, nostalgia, and clichés.

2. Work toward fresh and original language, figures of speech, and an integrated whole of language, form, and meaning.

3. Show through examples and imagery—don’t simply tell.

4. Try to write in the active, not the passive, voice. To do that, it can be helpful to remove “ing” endings and to write in the present tense (this will also create a greater sense of immediacy).

5. Be on the lookout for prepositional phrases that you might remove (articles & conjunctions too).

6. Think about your poem, what it reveals about being human, and how your readers may relate to it.

I wish each of you the blessings and peace of this special season,

along with my best wishes

for your spiritual and temporal well-being.

I’ll be taking my annual hiatus in December

and will resume posting again in mid to late January.

In the meantime stay safe and be well.

With grateful good wishes,

Adele

Prompt #364 – Giving Thanks in the Time of Covid-19

noreply@blogger.com (ADELE KENNY) — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 15:49:00 +0000

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you,

it will be enough.

— Meister Eckhart

Thanksgiving will take place later this month and is a day set aside here in the United States (other countries have similar days) to remember and give thanks—it is a time when families and friends gather—a celebration of sharing, community, and gratitude. This year, our Thanksgiving celebrations will be curtailed and different because of Covid-19. Even in the best of times, it’s easy to fall into the habit of grumbling about what we don’t have, miss, need, etc. This year has been particularly challenging with the specter of Covid 19 haunting all of us. Many of us have lost family members and friends to Covid, many of us have lost jobs, and our businesses have failed. Our social lives are much less than they were, and meeting family members and friends is more often done via programs such as Zoom and Skype than in person. There may seem to be a lot less to be thankful for this year, but I’m going to ask you to dig deeply into yourself and to think about the blessings you have been given.

The challenge for this prompt is to write a poem that focuses on abundances rather than deficits—despite Covid-19.

Guidelines:

1. Begin by thinking about things for which you're grateful. Think in terms of particulars and details—not ideas, but specifics (i.e., not love, but an example of love that you've known; not friendship, but a particular friend).

2. Think of past places in which you've been especially thankful (the “geography of thanks”). Think of the people who were part of the story.

3. Write a few ideas for “thankful” refrains (repeated line, phrase, or word) before you begin writing the poem. You may want to use this refrain in your poem.

4. A form that lends itself to this prompt is the kyrielle. Once very popular, the kyrielle originated in France, dates to the Middle Ages, and takes its name from kyrie (found in many Christian liturgies). Many hymn lyrics were written in this form, but kyrielle content is not limited to religious subjects. A traditional kyrielle is often short, octosyllabic (each line contains eight syllables), and is typically presented in four-line stanzas. A traditional kyrielle also contains a refrain (a repeated line, phrase, or word) at the end of each stanza.

Begin by writing a quatrain (four-line stanza) about a particular thing for which you're thankful. Each line should contain eight syllables. If you wish, you may create a rhyme scheme. The last line, phrase, or word in your first stanza will become your refrain.

You may write about one thing for which you're grateful, or each quatrain may be about individual things that have inspired your gratitude.

5. Alternatively, you may choose to write another kind of formal poem. There are many from which to choose: sonnet, villanelle, haiku, tanka, haibun, etc.

Tips:

1. If you choose to write a kyielle or other formal type of poem, it is vital that the form does not “drive” your poem. If the form begins to feel forced or unwieldy, you may switch to something less deliberate (i.e., free verse, prose poem).

2. You might address or dedicate your poem to a person for whom you're thankful, or you might go to the flip side and write about a challenging time (this year, for example) that somehow led you to feelings of gratefulness (my mom used to say that good always comes from bad).

Examples:

Kyrielle by John Payne (1842-1916)

A lark in the mesh of the tangled vine,

A bee that drowns in the flower-cup's wine,

A fly in sunshine,--such is the man.

All things must end, as all began.

A little pain, a little pleasure,

A little heaping up of treasure;

Then no more gazing upon the sun.