30 Poems in 30 Days 2009: Day Twenty-Three
September 23, 2009 by J.C. Hewitt
I don’t particularly enjoy writing poetry in forms, especially more restrictive forms such as sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, pantoums, and the like. I’ve tried most of the major forms. It is an interesting challenge trying to fit your thoughts into forms with restrictions on meter, rhyme, line and stanza. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a single good poem that I’ve written using these forms. The poems always leave me dissatisfied. That doesn’t mean the effort was wasted. Working with all of those restrictions is a mental and poetic workout, but it isn’t enjoyable for me.
I do like to give myself constraints when I write poetry. Constraints help me to focus my thoughts. I just don’t like to overdo it. One or two constraints are plenty. Because I am running this project, you are stuck with my views for the most part. I feel bad about that. There are excellent arguments for using poetry forms. I’m just not the one to make them. That is why I am happy to recommend someone else. Someone who knows quite a bit about poetry forms, and has the added bonus of being funny. His name is Stephen Fry.
Stephen Fry is not a professional poet, he is a proud hobbyist. He writes poems because he enjoys it, not because he thinks it will make him famous. Luckily for Stephen, he is already famous. Stephen Fry is an actor, talk show host, game show host, novelist, and an all around funny guy. He is much more famous in England than elsewhere, but if you don’t recognize his name, I am sure you would recognize his face.
Fry has written a book called The Ode Less Travelled . It is both a primer on poetry writing and a defense of poetry forms. Fry believes that free verse is something to be earned after one learns to write forms in much the same way that freeform jazz cannot be properly performed by someone who has not spent a great deal of time learning to play and write music. He makes many excellent points, and he is funny. There aren’t many books about learning poetry forms that are also funny, so you should pick it up for that reason alone.
I’ll leave you with this thought from the book:
“But genuine feeling is not enough in enough in poetry any more than it is in painting or music. Genuine feeling which isn’t pressed into some sort of shape is a tantrum or a sentimental mess.
Today’s Poetry Prompt
Write a poem using iambic pentameter. If you aren’t familiar with Iambic pentameter, it is discussed in full here.
Note: My entry is disgusting and childish. Read it your own risk.
You Think it’s Gravy but it’s Not
I caught a lot of snot right at that spot
This goo this slime this stank flew from my hank
To flank my hands my face in green disgrace
The ground it pound and all around I found
It pumped and dumped in clumps and bumps and lumps
It rained again across my shoes my wife
She screamed my hopes my dreams are creamed it seems
She tripped she fell as snot began to gel
She yelped help me army navy someone
Stop my dear man’s evil nasal gravy
It flowed some more across the floor up to
The door which shook then broke under my yolk
Outside the flies stormed to the rise in sleaze
They ate they swam they sunk into the gunk
Empty at last my head had cleared this blast
My wife and me we ran we rode we drove
Far from the paste we raced until that place
And our profound distaste had been erased
Disgusting indeed – kids would love it.
You could make a fortune writing disgusting verse for children. (The way that some children’s novelists have done, such as Andy Griffiths with “The Day My Bum Went Psycho” and its many sequels … also in times past poet Edward Lear, and poet and fiction writer Roald Dahl.)
Thank you. Kids do love disgusting, although I think the poem would work better in tetrameter than pentameter. Most silly verses are four feet long you know.
So rewrite it when you decide to take this new career path!
@John,
Most silly verse is written in anapestic tetrameter… (12 beats, not 10)
The anapestic makes the poem feal funny, because most spoken prose is inherantly bi-polar, (pun -fully intended) bi-podal, meaning that the metrical feet have two beats, such as Iamb, or Trochee. Tetrameter makes it more lyrical, meaning easier to set to music, as most songs are tetrameter. This having to do with how music is constructed. So try re-writing it in anapestic tetrameter, and see how it works out. (this is no small task)
If you are re-writing it for children, consider changing the reference from wife to sister, if you want the sense of equality but feminine, or mom if you want the matronly feel. Children do not have wives or husband (at least in this country) and do not have personal experience with that relationship.
While you are at it, try to work in a little rhyme. Kids really like rhyme as well.
And they love alliteration and assonance.
Lastly, use only the 140 most common words in the language, and you will rival that great poet:: Dr. Suess!
homage homage to the great, the singular, the fantastic, Dr. Suess.
(you think I am joking? Take a poetic look at some of his works.)
Is his work trivial? He deals with such themes as being trustworthy, imagination, dreams, hopes, & goals, and does so in a way that reaches the youngest of readers.
Best of luck.
You can do it.
I think Dr. Suess was a true master, which is why I would never do myself the disservice of trying to imitate him. If I were to write for children, I would have to do it my way.
Pardon my poor attempt. Iambic pentameter not really my thing….
======================
Let go
Let go of what you cannot control and
You will be happy or at least less sad
Learn to let go and you will be happy
Be what you can and want not ask not
And you realize that you can be happy.
Valley of the Incas
I caught a glimpse of morning in Peru
through someone else’s holiday account
and suddenly I climbed those slopes again
the steep and winding streets, the blocks of stone,
the mighty, rocky Andes, homes of gods.
He writes “Ollantaytambo” and I thrill
remembering the amphitheatre there
and how I lay full length on one flat stone
and opened to the sun, while somewhere close
an Indian man played softly on a flute.
Another tourist came and gawped at me.
“The sacrificial altar isn’t here,”
he said. “You’ve got it wrong.” I turned my head
and went on with my ritual, silently
communing with the Apu of that place.
In Aquas Calientes when we strolled
along the river path to those hot springs
in nothing but our swimsuits and our towels,
it was the locals gaped (at work below
breaking up the rocks to clear the stream).
At Machu Picchu only half a day,
I sat beside a spindly little tree
alongside one great boulder on the grass
and watched the climbers from the Inca Trail
descend into the ruins single file.
We’d been through fire-black areas at height
and looked across to Wiracocha’s face
emblazoned on the great peak opposite.
I, with my fear of heights, had almost pranced
around those paths and ledges, those deep drops.
The shaman whom we met was prophesied.
It’s nice to read he still has that same shop
where we sat down eleven years ago
to take our journey to the jaguar cave,
and afterwards we wept as we embraced.
Those boys we knew are men already now,
the orphans of the streets who helped us learn
the good cheap cafes where the locals ate
and how to not say “good” when we meant “well” –
their English better than our Español.
The Urubamba River frothed and seethed
beside the trainline for a certain way
and glaciers gleamed along the topmost peaks.
Inside stone walls now topless we could hear
the screaming victims of the sacrifice
loud in our heads, and clapped hands to our ears.
We talked with healers, three, just newly trained.
“Show us your way,” they said, “and witness ours.”
They stood and prayed. We joined them. Sparks of light
danced across their palms and ours too.
The older woman channelled messages.
“Return!” the angels said. “They love you here.”
And down in deepest jungle lies the skull
of amethyst, that Andrew is to guard.
But that is in another time, or else
his spirit guards it, being everywhere.
I tossed into the ocean one black stone
hollowed on the top, that I brought back –
a shallow dish perhaps, for catching blood.
At any rate, it seemed to make us ill
and once it left, so did our heaviness.
Eleven years. Jaguar, condor, snake
were my protectors there, guiding my steps,
and still would come, but now I seldom call.
We do return in dreams, but otherwise
Australia is home; this too is good
Truly, Revoltingly, Disgusting…Made my stomach churn!
Kudos! your poetry works!