Welcome to another year of Poetry Peeps Adventures!
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our poetry challenge for the month of FEBRUARY.
Here’s the scoop: we’re composing poetry in response to a poem of Arthur Sze, former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and current United States Poet Laureate. Arthur Sze is very much interested in poetry in translation, and during his term hopes to bring more opportunities for both reading and writing it to the American public. I’m excited to dig into a new-to-me voice in Asian American poetry, and look forward to meeting this challenge. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it on February 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!
This was such a great poetry form to kick off the year. It’s …kind of a joy to stride into our shared poetry space without my usual whinge of, “Oh, deary me, I thought this would be easy, and it turns out…” Haha, let no one deceive you: tricubes are dead easy. No, seriously. They’re easy and I love them. Of course, easy doesn’t necessarily mean simple. Those three syllables per line take simplicity right off the table. Making sense in a tight space, and saying something that isn’t choppy or trite… is a challenge. Aaand, it didn’t always happen for me, but a tricube’s saving grace is that it’s so short that one can write twenty or thirty and pick the ones that come out the best. At least one of my poetry sisters simply wrote a bunch of trisyllabic lines on a theme and picked and choose from among them to compose a whole. That sounds so easy that it feels like cheating. I found myself breaking the world into those three syllable phrases – I even wrote a tricube with my fingertip on a phone notepad at 4AM sans glasses (and as nearsighted as I am, that was quite a feat). All this to say: tricubes are addictive. If you’ve never before, try one today.
From Process…
2026 is lining itself up to be a poem-SUFFUSED year. Living through fascism isn’t something we always notice (we have always lived in the castle, friends, don’t mistake it), but the times when we are forced to acknowledge it unequivocally require… more time to process. Poetry helps me regulate mentally and my journaling usually turns into some kind of couplets, at minimum, so the ease of writing for a tricube really helped me to lean into that. Of course, I don’t always like to use my Poetry Peeps time for …like, a reality play-by-play so I made a deliberate effort to use our shared space in a kinder way this month. We can’t escape entirely from negative feelings, but I am sharing this space with some of you who need a flipping break. (I see you, friend.) I made conscious choices not to use certain names or words or concepts in what I shared today, and to lean in the direction of simply using the first stanza of my three stanza poem to explore an idea in a vague and general way, and then to intensify it by the end but to still keep it universal. And, I tried to keep the first three syllable line… simple-ish. (Again: didn’t say easy.) The very first tricube I wrote was on January 7, and the first three syllable line was “A cannon.” That object spoke well enough to my feelings that the rest of the poem could fall into that line. So my plan for all of them became a.) Focus on an object/statement topically. b.) Add intensifier or clarifying lines, and then, c.) a succinct Fin. And then I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Seventeen tricubes later…
…to Poetry
…I have a few to share.
CATENIGMA
Matter’s states:
Solid, gas,
or liquid,
Yet the cat’s
puddled sleep
doesn’t match.
Solid sound:
Contentment’s
liquid purr.
Pear – Shaped
Lovely pear:
Round-bottomed,
Pale, sweet, mild.
British slang
notes ‘pear-shaped’
means awry.
Distortion:
one round world
falling flat.
This was a definition poem. I idly wondered why things that were ‘pear shaped’ were so bad when a pear is half the social ideal for a good figure in modern society (the whole is an hourglass, of course. Or a violin? So hard to keep track of what random shape we’re supposed to be today). And then I read that it was a phrase coined during WWII when Royal Air Force pilots were making loops… if you came out of your loop and the vapor trail behind your plane wasn’t circular, but pear-shaped? You needed to course correct, or you were going to hit the ground…
Lift, Every Voice
When singing,
buoyant breaths
lift our hearts.
Metaphor?
This truth is
literal:
Keep breathing.
Let your soul
elevate.
To sing we have have to inhale before we begin. A deep breath expands the diaphragm, and the heart, which rests directly atop the diaphragm, connected by the pericardium, rises. Literally. Lift every voice, indeed.
My Poetry Sisters tried out tricubing as well this month. Liz’s post is here. Sara’s trio of tricubes is here, and Cousin Mary Lee’s is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Michelle K’s tricube is here. Margaret Simon’s tricube is here, and Carol V’s are here, and Rose’s tricube is here. More Peeps may show up throughout the weekend, so don’t forget to check back to see their links rounded up here.
Our lovely hostess this Poetry Friday is Amy VanDerwater at the Poem Farm, so don’t miss stopping by for more poetry! Thanks for hosting, Amy.
What a month. As it limps to a close, I’ll reiterate the Encouragement³ tricube I posted on Instagram:
A small thing
can change worlds.
One small change.
One small spark
ignites fire.
One heart warms.
“There are things
I can do.”
Repeat it.
Believe it.
No matter what the weekend brings, no matter the next loss or shadow that steals your breath, no matter the Sturm und Drang, be anchored. Be held. Be sure: You are so well-loved.
Well, your comment came through on my blog, but all mine were eaten by internet ghosts.
While I may live for my dog, I love cats, and this poem is a puddle of cat perfection. I love the tidbit shared about Royal Air Force pilots with your pear-shaped poem. When I was a kid, hourglass was what that standard was. Today I feel like everything is falling and pear-shaped is an apt description. As to your third poem, one of these days we’re going to breathe in and sing together!
Thanks for sharing all these lovely poems.
@MissRumphius: I grew up with a cat, which died and my mom was so sad she said NEVER AGAIN for years… and now my nephews talked her into another one, so we’re all enjoying the matter-defying puddling.
Until we sing together…
Tanita, I love all of these. But especially the reminder to “keep breathing.” Whew! Yes.
@Marcie Flinchum Atkins: Hang in, friend.
Tanita, These are delightful and wise. As a person with 3 cats, your cat tricube made me smile straight through my body. Each one just brings everything home somehow, and both cat and pear beginning with a real solid object started so concrete and then rippled out – inspiring. Thank you for Encouragement. It is an important mantra for this time as sometimes the believing part can be difficult. xo and strength for the week ahead. a.
@amyklv: Oh, thank you. Strength to you as well.
“There are things
I can do.”
Repeat it.
Believe it.
I’m finding hopeful (my olw) in your tricube, Tanita! Thank you!
(and I’m gonna just sit with “puddled sleep” — love love that pair of words.
@pjnunz: It didn’t even occur to me to do a One Little Word take on these! Great idea!
Obviously — I mean, OBVIOUSLY — I love everything here. And “Catenigma” gave me such pure and utter delight.
I always feel such pure and genuine love emanating from this space, Tanita. And your new look! Wow!! I love it. Well done, friend!
I missed the Tricube challenge post, but I’ll definitely play around with the form. It’s calling me. 🙂
@Karen Edmisten: Oh, DO play with this form. It just… lends itself to thinking. And thanks for the kind words on the blog; I’m trying to learn to do all of this MYSELF and stop whingeing to Himself when the internet ghosts eat the comments… It’s a process.
Thank you for all three of your gifts (four, if you count the Encouragement you tucked in at the end of the post). We’ve been on a health roller-coaster with our sweet fur baby, and are treasuring every “liquid purr ” he has in him.
The last one is so quintessential YOU. Like Liz writing a love letter to the world, and Sara finding good luck in fallen trees, you writing about singing is perfection. I need to make it a point to sing with loud gusto every time I’m alone in the car. My heart needs it. The world will be glad I heal myself in private!
Add to the quintessential list — Tricia writing a tricube about block printing!
@Cousin MaryLee: You can add to the quintessential list when we do these in April – I’m sensing a fishing tricube coming soon to a blog near me…
It IS healing to sing… even to yourself.
Oh, Tanita!!! These bring me to my knees. That first poem? The cat poem? The puddled sleep???? Are you kidding me? Thank you thank you thank you.
@Liz Garton Scanlon: Cats really are decidedly liquid. Glad you liked it.
I’m amazed at how many tricubes you wrote, Tanita! And all so different, from playful to a bit more serious and a reminder to stay positive. Thank you for sharing them as well as your process.
@rosecapelli: And thank you for dropping by!
“Contentment’s/liquid purr.” That’s purrfect, sorry couldn’t resist. ; ) Yes our “one round world/falling flat.” That about sums all up, and so succinctly! And the breath before singing and breathing always helps, and your lovely graphics too! Thanks for all and your distance which I couldn’t keep at bay, ah well, be well, xox
@Michelle K.: Well – the ‘distance’ is a hope, but never a reality, really. Keep hanging in, friend.
As a pear-shaped person, I love your second poem (and the pilot history behind it—who knew??) But the cat one makes me laugh…and applaud your cleverness in such a short form.
P.S. I still need that Canva lesson. I knew this form lent itself to being framed by small graphics, but I just get stumped every time by trying to make my words readable against the images.
@SaraLHolmes: I was really surprised about the RAF thing, too! There’s apparently a great deal of British slang that originated from the military and WWII – the first time a whole lot of people from all parts of their various kingdoms were all in one place, and it changed the speech of the whole.
(Let me know on the Canva, seriously — anytime. We can hop on a Zoom or a Google, share screens, and I’ll walk you through how to play with the free one.)