Welcome to another Poetry Friday Adventure!
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our poetry challenge for the month of MARCH.
Here’s the scoop: we’re writing ekphrastic poems, which might pair beautifully with your plans for National Poetry Month (I’m attempting poetry comics). Ekphrasis is a Greek word which means “description,” and you’re invited to choose your own image from anywhere – personal pictures or otherwise. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it April 24th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll play along!
From Process…
Greeting, Poetry Friends! If this form was a challenge to you – well, I can’t exactly say ‘mea culpa,’ but I will own that this month, this form is one I chose…possibly unwisely, since, once again, I based my choice on cleverness and appearance… Or, in other words, because, it looked easy. I mean, it had Rules! A clear Rhyme Scheme. There was Meter and Boundaries! Except for that bit about the quatrain written in trochaic tetrameter, it was even straightforward. What could possibly go wrong?
Well… the first issue was my assumptions. Spanish is a romance language, so surely this form, first popularized in Spain, was going to be a lyrical, dance-y walk in the park, no? Er… no.
The second issue was time – and just how much this form insisted on consuming… in terms of how long I spent thinking about trochaic tetrameter and remembering what that was.😂 It’s been a minute since grad school, and I can’t honestly say when last I spelunked into the cavernous depths of poetic meter. Perhaps as an undergraduate…? In any event, a quick search reminded me – of Blake’s Tyger, of the fairies and the witches speeches in Shakespeare’s Scottish play and in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” and of the hard syllabic pulse of Hiawatha, which Longfellow likely meant to mimic Native American drums. The skip-stumble “falling” cadence of tetrameter in lieu of the more regular pentameter might have been second nature in 16th century Spanish, which is the original language of the ovillejo, but it was afterthought enough that I decided against attempting to use it consistently, feeling that the redondilla refrain at the end was difficult enough. The final line of the quatrain wherein previous lines are recycled came with difficulty, and the Poetry Sisters discovered during the group write that if one did not give any thought to it ahead of time, it would All Go Very Badly. We all agreed on the wisdom of beginning the poems there…
…To Poetry
…so, I did. The first time. But, I admit that I’m contrary enough to have tried just writing the poem straight out – surely that’s what Cervantes did? Writing the poem straight out required a lot more piecing things together and fussing, and revising, revising, revising – but both poems had some dissonance, written from front or back. This poem was 9/10ths revision – and I’m grateful to like pieces of both, but this was not the unqualified win that I assumed. Which, given assumptions? Is my own fault. 😂
In the spirit of applying maximum rules in order to achieve some measure of success, I tried a theme-focus first. Twilight – whether civil, nautical, or astronomical – is one of those fascinating liminal periods that lend themselves well to poetry. Since our Poetry Friday hostess is already celebrating her book of the same name, I tried to lean in as much as I could to that changeable transitoriness. The other Poetry Sisters went other directions, of course. Sara’s poem leaned into answering a question. Mary Lee joined in on theme. Laura’s fierce poem is here, while Liz’s exploration is here, and Tricia’s offering is here. You’ll find Karen’s poem here, and Denise’s poem is here. Michelle K’s poem is right here, and Margaret’s ovillejo is here. Linda B’s poema is here, and Carol V’s ovillejo offering is here – and Carol L joins us here. It’s so nice to see so many participating! More Poetry Peeps may offer their own ovillejos throughout the weekend, so do pop by for the full roundup.
The next poem I tried to come to with fewer expectations. It obviously needed to be… the opposite of liminal. I wanted it to be unsubtle, blatant. High noon, no shade. I also decided to pry my grip off of the rules for this one. In spite of this, the second poem still has elements of twilight (which happens twice a day, despite many of us only acknowledging the evening one) and took a ton of revision and probably more time than I would normally give a poem that is meant to just be a challenge. …I’m still not fond of the dissonance the form created, so stubbornly, I kept polishing. Eventually I discovered that enjambment is actually a saving grace of this form, and I was able to move away from trying to make a workable rhyme scheme towards focusing on a smoother poetic arc and making more meaning. This is where I quit:
“NIGHT SONG”
for Marci Flinchum Atkins
Light slips its leash and starts to slide –
Eventide.
In slate and *mauve, dusk’s shadow grows.
Afterglow
Veils twilight, takes its light inside,
Beautified.
Day breathed its last, and night replied
A lingering note. As warm light drained,
Cool starlight rose up in refrain:
Eventide. After glows, beautified.
(Mauve here is pronounced the way I learned it – in French, so its long /o/ matches ‘stove.’ And, no, I don’t know why it matters.)
☀️MERIDIAN
Near solid, nourishing seeds, slow,
sun seeps, then glows.
Light tips. Sparks, shaken out and stirred –
The living, served.
No shade, just brightness unconfined
in “Sunshine.”
A subtle scent – soil, blade, and vine,
The warming earth and air duet
at Equinox. Its minuet
Sweeps and grows, and serves up sunshine.
Despite the second image not matching the poem (pictures of noon are …somewhat boring), this has been a fun project. An excuse to dig into snapshots from the past – that picture of Keflavik is one of my favorites – an excuse to try a new form – a good time, even when it doesn’t go as I envisioned – and an excuse to do poetry in community with my peeps and the Sisters. I’m looking forward to taking this viewpoint of the harmony between words and images into my NPM project next month. And however you plan on moving through April – in anticipation of renewal and hope, through a steady, measured practice of daily poetry, or in an exuberant exploration of simply sipping poetry from all corners, I wish you warming winds and calm skies, elegant elucidation and resonant rhymes. Happy National Poetry Month to come! Remember, you are well-loved.
©2015, David T. Macknet
