I sailed a galleon upon the sea,
I sailed a galleon, once a tree.
The tree’s the bed we’ll go to nest;
Its ancient wisdom offers rest .
We shall rest under ancient trees
to ponder the echoes that rise
over time, like those same ancient trees,
winding wisdom instead of lies.
The tree is the bed; that’s what she said.
We sit in our tree-bed, reaching for nests
of glass; when the wings are just right
and just ready, we break the nest
like hatching chicks.
This timber cannot be mined for wood;
This tree cannot be hollowed to float.
I try to keep up with moss
that grows too quickly, clouds
that change into three ships sailing.
Mad men like fools
I look for mad men who, like fools
rave and read the river, follow its clues.
Some rivers smile, and some weep,
but the best of them laugh at feet,
clues clinging to toes until we itch
inside river-wet socks.
The rocks rise, bald caps before
the river’s blade carves time
in sandstone, molding sandstone
nests to hold the river. Canyon walls
swallow tears while trees float
down the laughing river
A river flows new every time.
A river laughs new every time.
Stitches
From stitched together stories
we weave a narrative. Stitches
and laughter bind up our wounds;
rivers of laughter bring healing.
Stitches, or itches, slide
between measured spaces
where the needle went down.
How do they tickle; how do we
laugh back? Oh and we laugh
and we laugh and we call it stitches.
We laugh until the pain pines away;
through the eye of the needle we pass.
The Northern Lights
The northern lights glow
like broken glow sticks;
the northern lights grow
like arainbow sky-glass.
We pass through
the northern lights.
We pass through.
Don’t peek between
the blinds, throw them
open, inhale the lights.
Oh don’t close the shade,
let the northern lights in,
let the northern lights come in.
Plastic we shape
Plastic we shape to fit our need:
the curve of an eye, the point of a nose.
Plastic is molded in stainless forms.
The potter molds the plastic, heats
and shapes the form of the rounded
hip of the sleek Cadillac. Infinity is
curved, and it may be plastic: mold me
with your plastic hand, and I will speak
nothing to the curve of your emptiness.
In your hand I take the shape of plastic.
Sharp is the edge of plastic bent and
broken, a shiv to finish the work.
Plastic cracks with laughter, splintering
percussion glass that never gets burned.
I hear the sound of plastic bursting,
plastic laughing, plastic melting.
If I water plastic seeds with plastic
water , will plastic sprout and grow?
The river’s voice
Faith finds me here, under a tree.
Along the river, I hear God.
Are we the camel then, finding
our faith not so rich as we thought
we might be? Is He laughing then,
with the river’s voice, asking us
to laugh along the river with Him?
He is speaking silently, wishing,
wanting for me to find Him.
I think perhaps He is a laughing
river and weeping waterfall
altogether laughing and weeping
with us.
Sometimes we wonder if the young have anything to teach us. Megan Willome says yes, as she used fourteen-year-old Sara’s poem for sonnet-inspiration. To me, this is the vibrance of true community: We understand that learning could come through any door, any member, regardless of position, age, or status.
Here’s Megan’s beautiful sonnet, which I chose to feature for our Random Acts of Poetry follow up. I picked it not just for its construction and power, but also for Megan’s willingness to receive inspiration from a teenager’s poem.
AT THE POST-FUNERAL RECEPTION
What, may I ask, is the matter with you?
It’s been a year and half a year more
and still you haunt us. You sneak into
people’s funerals, step across the floor.
We all hear you, you know. You’re not that sly,
cutting your way through this grieving crowd.
We know you want to be here, to say Hi
in a voice beyond the grave, oh so loud.
So, welcome. So, come and sit down with me.
Have a lemon bar and a Toll House
marble square. I’m sure someone will make tea.
Tell me about your afterlife, how you’ve found
Heaven. Is it all you hoped it would be?
When can I come? Would you show me around?
Featured photo by Ann Kroeker. Thanks to all participants in the PhotoPlay/Random Acts of Poetry Celebration, as well as Claire Burge for collaborating. To see the PhotoPlay entries, visit The High Calling.
This past Tueday, TweetSpeak Poetry hosted another poetry jam on Twitter. Fourteen intrepid souls participated, jamming to the prompts from Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes. And the poet himself joined us, and at the end offered this observation: “The poetry-tweet-jam is a thing like no other. An exquisite corpse on ritalin. Nice invention.” We think that’s a compliment.
We posted our review of Kingdom Come here in May. In 2009, we reviewed his chapbook, Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon. John’s web site is here. He is an assistant professor of English and driector of Creative Writing at Malone University in Ohio.
The first five poems edited from the jam are below. In honor of the poet and his new collection, we’re entitling this group of TweetSpeak poems “The Kingdom Comes.”
If I am guilty, let it be
with moss, never with
milk, not linen nor silk;
silk, like moss, appears
between the cracks of
innocence,
innocence with rain
innocence with woods
innocence with poets
and authors and love.
I love you by moss, in rain
beckoning like white stitches
against the grey, stitches
between layers of skin,
fastening tight, holding,
overrunning with stories
remembered no longer
the stories I write,
the stories of clouds,
white galleons sailing.
The Woods of Ancient Trees
The woods of ancient trees
are calling, beckoning;
the echoes of trees
are crying, sighing.
I am called by the tears
of the woods, come be
washed innocent.
My guilt drips like
Spanish Moss, a tangle
of ancient deceit.
I am full of deep clouds,
falling rain, climbing up
and up. I am grown heavy
with burdens, echoing deep
Can you stitch a tree?
What would it take, what
echo might it make?
Tears evaporate, become
the clouds grown heavy like
roots and underground rivers
coursing through canyoned walls,
washed with canyoned tears.
History Speaks Here
History speaks here; I hear it calling, carrying
words we dare not speak. Unspoken, sapped
of life, soured tastes, scoured from our mouths,
they fall heavy, tinder underfoot. Meant as
nevermores, they move away, trading
innocence for embarrassment
Laugh, laugh, wash all guilt away with sweet
cleansing laughter, with laughter and pain,
birth tears. I laughed at a river, once, and
the river laughed back. I didn’t know
the river smiled, staying true yet always
running away, meandering in woods.
I Hear Echoes Laughing
I hear echoes laughing, stitched
from nether parts,
I see galleons laughing, stitched
from rivers of roots,
I feel birches laughing, stitched
from roots of rivers.
There’s a galleon, and a canyon,
galleon ships on canyon shelves,
tilting tips toward sandstone waves,
galleon ships and canyon laughing,
echoing where the river used to be.
I can jump off into water or
jump down and fly.
A Child’s Quick Wit
A child’s quick wit
brings us to a close;
a child’s quick close
brings us to a wit.
A river’s a river,
So let’s drink tea.
Remember Angela? Her original Glass Slipper post had a different opening, which I trimmed out for the sake of space. But I kept it, because it was so cheeky I just knew I’d want to be sharing it with you eventually. Today’s the day. [You're on, Angela :) ]
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So you want to be a sonneteer?
To prove yourself mistress of wit and master of sass?
To cultivate your inborn ability to think up, slap down, and grand slam fourteen-liners like it’s nobody’s business—and live to tell the tale?
Call a sonnet anything, but don’t call it subtle. The sonnet’s aim is plain: to woo them and wow them, to take no prisoners, to claim and keep her readers’ hearts with nothing but big sound and a little sense. She’s a diva, and as with every soprano joke you’ve ever heard, what she wants is all of everyone’s attention.
The sonnet is small, despite its big voice, and its diminutive size may make it seem fragile. But the sonnet is a shoe your feet would kill to fill, so why not?—try one on for size, walk the floor, dance a two-step, and see how it feels. My guess is that once you break it in, one sonnet won’t be enough—you’ll find yourself morphing into the Imelda Marcos of poets, the pages of your notebook lined with sonnets of every hue and make—Petrarchan, Shakespearian, Spenserian, Miltonic, Versace (okay, there’s no Versace Sonnet)—yet each of them bearing your signature stride and strut.
— Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
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As it turns out, I struggled to wear the sonnet, but it didn’t quite fit my feet. My younger daughter shared my pain, while my older daughter wooed and wowed us at high-speed, composing sonnets like they were some kind of oversized Lego-blocks project: so easy that any three year old could do it.
While I think it’s important to discipline myself to try on the shoes of various poem forms, I understand that personality and brain-wiring somehow play a part. I may be sassy, but I’m no sonnet master, and I suspect I never will be.
However, that doesn’t exempt me from joining the effort. So, here’s my glass slipper sonnet. Complete with the “ouch” I felt while trying to compose. It must be said that the gracious James Cummins gave me some advice about punctuation, which slowed the sonnet down and turned the final line (which he also suggested I rewrite) into a statement. The sonnet is better for it. (Thanks, James :) )
Upon Learning that Fur Was Lost in Translation
(and then learning that it wasn’t, but too late for this sonnet)
What did fine French Cinder elles wear besides
glass, what high class did they hope to flaunt to
the ball, what gall muster towards, “I do”?
Did they eat ash, secret, pretend inside,
ache for privilege to take midnight steed ride
to prince, to price, to prove flamed thoughts, undo
braided tresses, guesses? Did they have clues
about the way ever-after collides
in fives, in tens, muttered end lines tight shut,
a fight to rise between odd hours ticking,
tripping like a da-dum tapped short, slight cut
into small rooms, I am‘s that jam, turning
coated slippers towards spondee minutes?
Where we pace time’s seconds on silk shirred string.
Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.
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It seems to go this way with James and I. One of us makes an off-hand remark, and before you know it, a poem talks back.
This time, I was teasing James about something, and I happened to say that maybe he was off in a closet somewhere, writing an article about sestinas. Never one to miss an opportunity, he wrote me a sonnet I am fondly calling the “Closet Cheetos Poem.”
As a side note, it must be revealed: all this fond Cheetos fodder began with Duane Scott.
Anyway.
I asked James if I could feature his sonnet at Every Day Poems, and he consented. Upon its delivery this morning, Claire Burge wrote to tell me she thought it was quite amusing. I’m glad, because that’s exactly what I thought. :)
This month at Tweetspeak and Every Day Poems, we’ve been thinking “sonnet.” I even got my two girls involved at home. (One stomped and walked away after the sonnet eluded her; the other has already written five sonnets—most in a matter of minutes.)
As we have been thinking “sonnet” together, I’ve been struck by just how much history this form has. I mentioned that to Claire Burge, and we thought… what about doing a personal history prompt between Tweetspeak and The High Calling?
So here we are.
If you want to join us, write a poem that focuses on a personal history—yours, an object’s, or another person’s. Try to get at the history through a single image or group of related images. Here’s mine (and it is not a sonnet, but yours can be if you want that extra history challenge at the level of form! :) )
Teacup
I remember traveling
in his suitcase, white athletic
sock stuffed in my belly to keep
me from breaking, rocking ‘midst
clouds, and your hand’s first
touch bringing me to birth
on that wooden table,
and your lips.
Post your poem link on our Facebook Wall by Wednesday, August 24th, for links and possible feature here at Tweetspeak or at The High Calling or Every Day Poems. For more creative fun, join the photo aspect of the prompt too!
Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.
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If you’ve never been to one of our Twitter poetry parties before here’s the scoop:
The rules are simple because there aren’t any. Well, maybe one (the hashtag). The party lasts one hour. @tspoetry provides the prompt — an idea, a line of poetry, even a tabloid headline. You write a few lines of poetry in response to the prompt and then play off the other participants’ lines.
You work within the 140-character limit set by Twitter for all tweets — just make sure each tweet includes the hashtag — #tsptry. That way, we can find your contributions. It’s a good idea to follow @tspoetry.
The best way to make sure you include the hashtag and see everyone’s tweets as they are tweeted, is to come to our @tspoetry Tweetchat room.
At this month’s party, you’ll get the chance to write with poet John Estes, author of the new collection Kingdom Come.
After the Twitter Party concludes, we usually tweet around and congratulate one another. Most of the tweets from the Twitter Party will be assembled into larger Twitter poems. We’ll feature some on this blog, some in Every Day Poems, with the best lines singled out and identified by contributor. You’ll get credit and links as a co-author, too. As for royalties, don’t hold your breath. We’ll let you know if any show up! :)
Harry Potter Parody Illustration (“Harry Trotter”), by Sara B. Used with permission.
On Aug. 10, poet Philip Levine was named the U.S. Poet Laureate by James Billington, Librarian of Congress. Billington called Levine the “laureate of the industrial heartland’ who writes with the voice of the ordinary workingman.
Levine has published more than 20 collections of poetry. What Work Is: Poem won the National Book Award in 1991 and “The Simple Truth,” published in 1995, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He’s also won many other awards and honors.
At 83, Levine is one of oldest laureates to be named.
Our Valley
By Philip Levine
We don’t see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.
You probably think I’m nuts saying the mountains
have no word for ocean, but if you live here
you begin to believe they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper and you can barely catch
your breath because you’re thrilled and terrified.
You have to remember this isn’t your land.
It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours. Remember the small boats
that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men
who carved a living from it only to find themselves
carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home,
so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,
wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.
I’m not sure how he found me. But I ended up publishing his poem “Macular Degeneration” in Every Day Poems. I’m glad I did.
The poem wasn’t complicated, but it was very human. And this is part of how I choose poems to publish. Of course I love technical facility, but I do not publish poems that trot it out and forget the human touch.
Two of our Every Day subscribers wrote to me about the poem. Something about it reached into them, touched their humanity. One person shared her difficult memory-dreams with me as a result. The other said the poem was already printed and carefully saved; she wondered how old the poet was.
Kilian is eighty years old. He would be touched, I think, to know that his brief words held such human power for two special readers.
The poem ends…
Yesterday I was indestructible
eighteen, the sea
was deep; today
decaying in the shallows.
It doesn’t get much more human than that.
Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.
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About a year ago, I was corresponding by email with a poet friend, when the subject of The Sonnet inevitably came up. (There is no escaping the long reach of the small song—which is literally what the Italian word “sonetto” means.) My friend declared that the challenge of trying to fit her ideas into a fourteen-line container of such careful construction felt like trying to squeeze her big foot into a glass slipper. (She is from Texas, and people do speak in a colorful way in that part of the world.)
Though many poets have spoken and written (complained and kvetched) about the difficulties of this form, this particular metaphor had the ring of both originality and truth. I responded with delight and immediately challenged us to a sonnet duel, of sorts: we would both write a Glass Slipper Sonnet—a sonnet describing the process of writing a sonnet in terms of her comparison. We liked the idea—were eager to begin—charged our weapons, took our twenty paces. Then we promptly forgot about it.
Just a few weeks ago, as I was culling through old emails, I came upon this exchange and thought it high time to take a shot at it (not her, mind you), based on the assumption that a late sonnet is better than no sonnet at all. The result was this poem:
GLASS SLIPPER SONNET
Pity the poor step-sister those big feet
she’ll never stuff in a size-six sonnet,
her flesh so fulsome the slipper seems effete,
unworthy of the labor spent on it.
But try she must, and so she makes a pass,
jams four fat toes in the narrow throat,
the fifth pig smarting, pressed against the glass
(though pain’s no stranger—she knows it by rote.)
The other shoe drops—as it is wont to do—
a second foot is squeezed into the vamp.
She stands up straight and takes a stride towards you,
her footfall heavy as a farmgirl’s tramp.
The slipper strains against those excess feet.
She hobbles onward—she has a prince to meet.
CONTENT
Though the poem above will certainly garner no prizes, I must confess—it was fun to write.
After growing up (like most of us) channeling Cinderella (whose story is the obvious origin of the Glass Slipper image) and holding the wicked step-sisters in contempt, I enjoyed adopting the perspective of her nemesis. (It’s not easy being ugly and ungainly, unloved and un-princed—and that awful mother!) So the poem satisfied my desire to give the silent sufferers in the tale their due. I also enjoyed learning some new words that describe shoe construction (“vamp” being my personal favorite) and using slang to describe certain body parts (“the fifth pig” having arrived as a complete surprise, coming as it does out of another—very different—childhood story, one involving, mysteriously enough, roast beef).
FORM
The form of this sonnet is traditional, in most ways, but the attentive reader (and would-be sonneteer) will also note that it breaks with tradition, as well:
1. The rhyme scheme corresponds to that of the Shakespearean Sonnet (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). However, instead of being grouped into 3 quatrains (4-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet, the lines form a series of seven couplets. The effect of this is to make the poem move more slowly, one step followed by another, and then another. In fact, the pairings suggest the image of feet (which tend to come in pairs) and the act of walking (which is actually described in the latter portion of the poem). The pairing of lines—which I did instinctively rather than intentionally–allowed me to control the pacing of the revisionist tale. Thus, the poem both conforms to and breaks with sonnet tradition. This kind of playing within and also against the boundaries of the form lies at the heart of sonnet writing. The goal for the poet ought to be to obey the rules as much as possible—unless he or she comes up with a better idea.
2. The length of the lines in the poem is more or less equivalent. The traditional sonnet form calls for 14 lines of iambic pentameter, and, accordingly, most lines in the poem have 10 syllables, 5 of them stressed and 5 unstressed. I do confess that these are “loose iambics,” as Robert Frost liked to call colloquial-sounding lines. There are times that I have violated this rule in the interest of creating some variation in the meter and introducing some tonal changes.
For example, the final line contains 11 syllables instead of 10, in part because of the repetition of “she” in the line. This redundancy, together with the awkward pause in the middle of the line, seems to be a rhythmic echo of the step-sister’s awkward gait, as she hobbles along, putting one big foot after another, trying to wear a shoe that doesn’t really fit. Again, the poem both obeys and flouts the rules in attempt to meet the expectations of the reader and then to surprise him or her—pleasantly, I hope—by upsetting those expectations. The immediate goal, of course, is to create a humorous conclusion to the poem. The ultimate goal is to write a sonnet (or wear the slipper), but to do so on my own terms (like the step-sister!).
TRYING IT ON
As you set out to write your sonnet, you’ll want to make a few choices. These will help you to create a blueprint for your poem:
1. Which rhyme scheme—and which rhetorical structure—will you adopt?
The Petrarchan (or Italian) Sonnet is divided into two parts: the first 8 lines (the Octave), rhyming ABBAABBA tend to present a problem or situation, and the last 6 lines (the Sestet), rhyming CDCDCD, tend to resolve it. This works well when you want to present two sides of a story or to establish contrast or tension between two entities or ideas.
The Shakespearian (or English) Sonnet is divided into four parts: three four-line stanzas (or quatrains) rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF and a couplet rhyming GG. Each of the four parts tends to present some aspect of the poem’s subject, each one building upon the previous assertion. The couplet tends to resolve the difficulty or challenge expressed in the poem. This tends to work well when you have a series of ideas you want to explore.
You’ll want to decide whether either of these rhyme schemes is easier for you to execute and/or whether either of these structures is more or less suitable for the story you want to tell.
2. What rhyming words would you like to use?
Some poets like to decide in advance which rhyming words they might like to use. If you choose to do this, you might even block out the poem, writing the rhyme words at the (imagined) end of each line by and then creating lines to fit them.
Another option is to begin with your first line and simply see where it takes you, allowing the rhymes to develop more organically as the poem proceeds.
In either case, feel free to have a rhyming dictionary handy. It serves as a great aid to memory!
3. Which characters (if any) will appear in your Glass Slipper Sonnet? What voice might you adopt/ what point of view might you assume?
Your choices are, of course, unlimited. They range from the traditional characters in the fairy tale—Cinderella, the Prince, the wicked step-mother, the wicked step-sisters, the fairy godmother, etc—to characters who have absolutely nothing to do with the story. In fact, introducing a new, unexpected character into the sonnet is more likely to lead you away from safe and familiar paths.
4. What will the tone and approach of your poem be?
Do you want to write a humorous poem? a tragic poem? a satire? a revision of the story? an indictment of it? Or some combination? (The tone of the poem ought to change—and most likely will as you follow out the implications of your “story.”)
PUTTING YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
Start your poem by writing down the first sentence that comes into your head. Even if it seems to have nothing to do with sonnets or glass slippers, just write it down. If it isn’t a 10-syllable line, try to cut or introduce more words and/or syllables to make it close.
Once you’ve got a first line, you’ve got a foundation to build on. Your second line can be a reaction to or a continuation of the first—or it may have nothing to do with it at all. Your goal should be to come up with approximately ten syllables and to conclude the line with a word that you will be able to find a rhyme for pretty readily. That’s it! (If you work to satisfy the form—the content will come.)
Proceed in this way in writing the 3rd and 4th lines, making sure to create rhymes in keeping with the pattern you’ve selected. Your goal is the accumulation of 4 lines which present or loosely describe a particular scenario or situation having to do with shoes and feet.
With the 5th line, you can begin a new sub-topic—something related to the theme you’ve already explored, but one that takes the theme in a slightly (or entirely) new direction. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines should then follow suit, addressing this new theme and fulfilling the rhyme scheme.
Lines 9-12 of the sonnet might introduce yet another theme or set of images, once again allowing you to deviate from what has been said and to go in a new direction.
Lines 13-14 of the sonnet should, in some way, attempt to tie up some loose ends, sum up a central theme—perhaps gesture back towards the beginning—and leave the reader with something to ponder.
RETRACING YOUR STEPS
Once you have your 14 lines, the blueprint of your sonnet is complete. Now you can begin re-vamping with them in several ways:
1. Eliminate and introduce words in attempt to come up with the best, most precise, most entertaining or surprising words, whose denotation(s) and connotation(s) enrich the poem’s possibilities.
2. Count out the syllables and stresses in each line, adding some where the lines fall short and removing some where the lines are too long. (You don’t want to be too mechanical about this or to strive for metronomic exactitude—feel free to make some allowances for variation.)
3. Substitute end rhymes, to get the most satisfying sounds, and in the process feel free to write alternate endings and/or beginnings of lines.
4. Pay attention to the music made by the words inside the lines, as well as those at the end. Try to make your sonnet sound like the “little song” that it is by introducing as much alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, and internal rhyme as you can.
DISCOVERIES
What you’ll discover in this process is that the sonnet form is very elastic and expansive—that there is plenty of room to move around inside the fourteen-line structure you have built—and that it is a pleasure to play within the rules, as well as to occasionally break them, as you attempt to create the most satisfying form that says what you want it to say.
To return to our original metaphor, you may also discover that the Glass Slipper isn’t quite as delicate or as rigid as it may have seemed at the outset. Instead, you will find, good shoe that it is, that it will expand to accommodate your foot, and will prove a sturdy sole-mate as you continue along your poetic journey.
You might also discover the secret to the celebrated sonnet sequences written by Petrarch, Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Donne, Wordsworth, Barrett Browning, and so many other poets: writing sonnets is addicting. Once you have experienced the satisfaction of producing a small, well-made sonnet, you will want to do it again. And again.
I can readily attest to this. There are currently four completed Glass Slipper Sonnets, and more are on the way. Perhaps part of the pleasure of the sonnet lies in knowing that you will almost certainly fail to include everything you wish to say in fourteen lines—but you can always pick up where you left off and write another.
GLASS SLIPPER SONNET #2
Sister Two tries her hand—or feet—
and fits more flush in the fragile shoe
(as if that were possible to do,
given her sibling’s previous feat).
But she—well-versed in the art of snugly
stuffing in clothes so small (this gets ugly)
the seams perform an undulant dance
along her sides and posterior expanse—
yes, she quite matches her sister’s skill
in making that slipper conform to her will.
(When the shoe breaks, the sonnet must fall
two lines short, no sonnet at all.)
GLASS SLIPPER SONNET #3
A brother bemoans his unfair exclusion
from glass slipper rites, the final conclusion
of which will decide who is the true beauty,
the siblings remaining bounden by duty
to serve their good sister and her happy prince,
polish the mirrors, remove fingerprints
from those holy shoes only her hands may touch.
He questions his fate: isn’t this a bit much?
Condemned to wear sneakers, she gets to wear glass?
Confined by my gender to be middle class?
Forced to be subject while she gets to rule?
Forced to look average while she looks so cool?
But she does not answer his whining or woes.
She hears only verse. He speaks only prose.
GLASS SLIPPER SONNET #4
“But why a glass slipper?” she asks, and you pause—
“Why not made of rubies, like Dorothy’s in Oz?”
“And what about diamonds or Mother of Pearl?”
“Such glamorous stuff appeals to a girl.”
Your daughter is right. The story is daft.
Glass slippers are cheap. The prince is an ass
to think brittle footwear will win him a bride.
He needs to bring something she’ll slip on with pride.
The tale has a flaw no mother can men—
unless she insert a new shoe at the end—
hijack the story, fly off on her own,
leave the step-sisters (and their feet) alone.
A bright, glitzy slipper a princess can wear
she pulls (like this sonnet) out of thin air.
In Greek mythology and popular legend, Orpheus is the musician, the poet, who could charm all with his music. Possibly the son of a king and the muse Calliope, he was one of Jason’s Argonauts; he is said to have perfected the lyre; and is credited as the composed of the Orphic Hymns, some of which survives today. He occupies an important position in Western literary culture, and has been the subject of paintings, poems, operas and many musical compositions.
One of the best known stories about Orpheus concerns his wife Eurydice. Startled by a satyr at their wedding, she falls into a nest of vipers and dies. Orpheus travels to the Underworld, and is allowed to bring her back on the condition that he not look at her until they have departed Hades and reached the upper world. He looks back too soon, of course, and Eurydice is lost forever.
Matthew Duggan, a British poet, has retold the story of Orpheus in Underworld: The Modern Orpheus, a series of 16 poems published as an e-book in late July. This Orpheus is no Greek of mythological time, but a contemporary man, in contemporary times.
And the story is just as haunting, unfolding in a series of images and scenes that are both familiar and mythological.
This Orpheus has turned 40, and his “birthday balloons drift, / like the years had quickened with time / from hardships passed to rare moments of bliss.” He has traveled far and long to find love, and he does ultimately find her, only to lose her: “…her colourful corpse lay with wingless priests / so far from the reaches of love’s blessed arms…”
As Orpheus seeks his love, even the muses weep in what is a moving, lyrical passage that illustrates the language of the entire work:
…a hunched weeping muse collects her tears
like the frequent pebbles that span a beach.
In the dead fields of weathered corn
she rests well under dappled skies of canvas,
in prayer she weeps for songs of hope
from the ghosts and gods that glisten the night.
It is Duggan’s description of Hades that sounds so familiar, so modern, a contemporary urban landscape:
In the realms of the city of the dead
the warrior of song takes a deep breath,
in charcoal towers with skies of coarse red.
Searching the high-streets burnt and bled
in old cafes of timeless death,
in the realms of the city of the dead.
In a city coloured with glossed lead…
In this Hades of “neon skyscrapers,” Orpheus finds himself a player on the stage, following the script written out for him to its inevitable conclusion. He has no choice, really; his fate has been laid out before him.
Duggan has done something wonderful here with this retelling of an old, old story. He’s given it a modern sensibility while remaining true to its mythological origins. And he’s done so using beautiful lines and images that continue to haunt long after the reading is done.
Six poems and 16 fragments – the last of our poems developed from the recent Twitter poetry party hosted by TweetSpeak. All prompts were taken from Harvesting Fog: Poems, by Luci Shaw. And our thanks to Luci for participating with us (and she gets full credit for Fragment 15).
I am rain, sweet rain,
and I am carried away;
hold my hand, love, lest I slip
quietly away.
Return to me, let me touch
the turn of your back, down
which a gentle hand might slide
and find its way to love.
The thirst is quenched
Doorways I
I slip on stars, careening
through the doorway,
falling, and spilling
into the river of my love.
A winter star, observed
through a doorway
will show us through
the darkest night of love.
And on till morning one star
turns milk-white, slips among
the stones, falls, quietly comes
and rests beside the moon,
and spell us for a moment
of enchantment awash
in moonlight, turning us
in a glass smoky with desire.
Memory and time both fade
like sunlight. Now I write
of doorways and wonder
who goes to their beds alone.
Doorways II
I reach through the doorway
to snatch a winter star, placing
it on your finger to light our way.
The winter star holds the eye,
arrogant in its crystal beauty,
sharp light reflected, in sharp air.
The doorway of memory has closed
upon me, the darkest winter night
hides the star that would lead me on.
A star through the window, like a kiss
in the night, opens a translucent
doorway, the face at the doorway.
Lay me down again, by the doorway,
next to the constellation of you.
Lay me down again by the doorway.
See the ashes, cinder-soot of the love
we had, the winter, the island, the dream,
of the doorway and the ashes.
A glitter of ash
I wait for you as I wait
for the ocean to part,
where I might fling
a glitter of ash you left.
Can a tongue taste
the clouds or speak
the lightning reflected
in your eyes? Can a hand
grasp the thunder?
His fingernails are translucent;
veins run through those hands,
Veins like strong ropes sew
their way through the tissue
of his hands.
He was crazy
He was crazy, standing in the doorway,
gun loaded. He asked if I could kill a man
cold-blood. The gun was heavy, cold;
I did not even want to touch it but I did;
I could not let him think I was afraid.
The bed, yes, always the bed; put away
the gun; follow me back to the bed.
Piles of pillows, shame hidden; come
back to bed now, put away the weapons
and trust my body to kill.
When I need to write I call on him
in the doorway, in the dark, with the gun,
and I ask him to write me again
and to the bed return, a winter’s memory
to dream on, the way a lover does,
enchanted, in the face of a full moon.
Blue sheets
The faded blue sheets were all I had
to tell me of that night…
I was scared on the blue sheets
in the blue room with a wizard
on the wall and a trunk full
of my letters by the bed.
Sheets were borrowed; sheets
were blue; I was swimming
in blue sheets, diving through dreams.
The last blue sheets of paper
hold your last words to me
until the drip I hear in blue
plastic barrels washes your words
from the last blue sheets of paper
folded in your hand. Enfold the sheets
about me; life will live on the morrow.
I am tired.
Fragments II
1. When I walk down his staircase,
I let my hand trail the soft wood
of the banister. It is silk, like skin.
It is reassuring.
2. A verse in glass
he etched
to woo her.
3.
What can one read
from lines in parts
apart across
a thousand miles.
4.
Stick my finger in a jar
of peanut butter;
brush my teeth with it.
No one is watching.
If my fingers were candy,
could I resist biting them
off?
5.
I floated on a blueberry,
drifted to an island,
found an open bed,
and slept.
6.
Ashes pile up under the full moon.
The beetle crawls under sandstone
rocks. The stain of ashes is like a curse
in the dark.
7.
I sat entranced
by a rainbow beetle,
a thick blue and red
beetle, with wings
of colored hope.
8. The water at hand
recalls the gentle
thrum of rain, and
mornings given
to too late rising.
In June, poet Anne Overstreet published her first collection of poems, entitled Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems. It is about memory and faith, affection and love, work done and work done well, and even playfulness. The poems are about a life observed, but also a life to come. It’s a beautiful work.
Anne’s poems have been published in the Asheville Poetry Review, Radix, DMQ Review, Relief, Talking River Review and several other publications. She is a Soapstone Resident and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She’s conducted a number of workshops, and her poetry has appeared as part of the Cody Center Exhibition “Pairings” at Laity Lodge in Texas. She lives near Seattle with her husband, author and film critic Jeffrey Overstreet.
We talked with Anne about her poetry, her background and experiences, and the influences on her writing.
Your “home place” — New Mexico — plays an important role in your poems. Can you tell us a little about your background and growing up there?
We actually relocated to Roswell when I was 12 and I remember driving cross-country in the yellow Oldsmobile, muttering under my breath that I was going to hate it hate it hate it there. Now I can’t imagine feeling as connected to any other place the same way. You’re walking on the skin of the earth, moving through the heavens where it touches down. I imagine God breathing and this place is that held space between inhalation and exhalation. Such subtle beauty—you have to be alert to catch spring slipping quietly along the rivers, spilling green across the plains. I used to lie on the ground at Salt Creek and could swear I felt the earth turning. There’s no place like it.
Prior to New Mexico, we moved a fair bit because my dad was in the Army when we were young. Mostly parts of Virginia. Certain rituals provided continuity across the states and into Roswell, where my parents still live. Reading as a family was one. Camping in the mountains. Sundays were for church and feeding people.
In the Acknowledgements, you cite Luci Shaw and several others for helping you be a better writer. How did they do that?
Luci advocates for confidence in one’s work, one’s own voice. I’d say she was my poetic fairy godmother, but I’m not sure godmothers have tattoos and sport leather jackets. Linda has one of the clearest senses of vision I’ve ever encountered and has leant me her eye when I needed it. Stacey listens. Then she tells me what she’s heard, how she experiences what I’ve written. She doesn’t read a lot of poetry—she’s in my sci-fi/fantasy cohort— and she has a fresh ear. Plus, she’s a mean cook. And everyone needs someone who helps make room for you to get your work done, who protects that space. She does that. Derek has been a mentor and a teacher for years. I learn from his work every time I encounter it. There is a balance to every piece he writes that I’d like to achieve. He also sets the bar high for intelligent critique, something I hope I have learned from, and he never hesitates to give his support any time it is asked for.
Who are some of your favorite writers and poets?
Oh that’s an extensive list that is perpetually expanding! Annie Dillard—everything. I will also read anything Kathleen Norris writes. Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale is at the top of the list, as is much of Guy Gavriel Kay’s work, Patricia McKillip’s novels, and the Auralia’s Thread books (yep, I’m a fan of Jeffrey’s work). I’m a big fantasy and fairy tale buff and these authors write gorgeous prose, lyrical and surprising. The kind that stuns you, pulls you under and out into a different state of being.
Poetry, hmm, Pattiann Rogers, Maxine Kumin, Jane Hirschfiedl, Zbiegneiw Herbert, Adam Zagejewski (I particularly like the Polish poets of that period), to begin with. Rogers does this exquisite blending of the divine and science that celebrates fact and design, and yet holds something wild in it. Two of my northwest favorites are Derek Sheffield, whose work is keen, swift, and well-balanced, and Kevin Miller, who, though he has only a few collections out, does place so well. There is a reverence too for the holiness of the ordinary in his poems. These are writers I am in conversation with, at least on page, who I learn from, whose work elicits a response or a question every time I encounter it.
Many of the poems read like a movie camera filming a scene, then shifting to another scene, and then another, effectively (very effectively) combining three or four scenes into a cohesive whole, like in “If It Doesn’t Rain Soon.” Is film/movies an influence here?
You’d expect me to say yes, since my husband Jeffrey is a film critic. And the films I am most drawn to are often image heavy. However, I do think that is a consequence, not a cause or influence. As an undergraduate I studied history and loved reading various texts on one subject, looking at the event from differing perspectives to apprehend the whole. I think I still do that in my poetry.
Faith plays a strong role in your poetry, even when it’s subtle and understated. It’s straightforward in poems like “The Logic of Prayer Rising” and “Annunciation: Triptych” (two of my favorites in the collection) and “The Bearded Lady, Asleep,” but it’s present throughout the poems, which seem to suggest a belief in the order and purpose of things. How would you describe it?
It informs the way I see. Because of it, it is clear to me that we move through a designed world. Moreover, the designer seems so obviously to delight in artistry and variation, in evolutionary innovation. Scientists have recently discovered a shark whose underbelly mimics patterns of light falling through water so that it is virtually invisible from below. How cool is that? We keep discovering. Creation keeps unfolding. God continues to speak it into being, a proper artist.
My faith also gives me permission to ask questions. Scott Cairns talks about poetry being a continuing conversation, a response or reaction perhaps to the poetic tradition. Writing’s my way of engaging with my faith tradition. What do we do with apparent anomalies, like a person who appears to be both male and female, as in “The Bearded Lady”? How could Mary be the same after having been overshadowed by the same spirit that overshadowed the waters and drew the land masses up out of the deep? That sort of thing.
Maybe I am not entitled to answers, but I am free to ask. And ask and ask. Job is a favorite text, as are some of the Psalms. I think we’re supposed to raise questions as part of the conversation, even in the face of doubt, perhaps especially in the face of silence.
Related:
At The High Calling, Anne talks about how she came to write poetry, how various jobs she’s held influenced her writing, and how she uses details to make her poems so powerful.
Below are five poems and five fragments pulled from our recent Twitter poetry party. The prompts were taken from lines of poems included in Harvesting Fog: Poems by Luci Shaw.
Why aren’t you rushing?
The ashes are disappearing
like words, words that nourish,
truth that burns going down.
I will always eat your words;
you are never too late. Bitter
taste it leaves is better than not.
I would eat them
a thousand days,
a thousand nights.
The ashes of black tea are
cinnamon and sugar on your breath
A spoonful of sugar with or without
the medicine; sugar,
sugar, to put out the fire!
Nor are your words spent like ash,
spread like ash in the balm,
a coating thick
cinnamon and sugar
a coating thick on toast.
I am not averse to ashes worn
on the forehead of my soul.
My forehead burns. I like the fire:
it spreads like paprika words.
I scatter paprika like ashes on the bread
just a dash of it is spice enough in a night.
And butter, there must be a pat. Sugar
cannot hid the painful ash sliding down
word made flesh, burning tongue drinks
the glass red as fire. Shards, like words, heal.
Ashes must lay fallow to grow again
and we wait, rushing not.
The girl with no shadow
I want to be the girl with no shadow, but
I cannot be her. I love myself too much.
My shadow is my dearest friend. I lit
the candle, three-wicked, and I watched
the flame in the dark, and I smelled
the perfume of your ashes. Now,
with pink pills, they take a knife
to my shadow, ripping her apart
at the seams, covering her mouth,
and she tries so hard to scream.
When do you know your candle flame
is dying? Who is there to say this is
the end? My therapist says I have
a way with words and something
deep inside me tries to sing.
More than a year since I held her
hand in that coma no one knew
would end. Now she rolls her eyes
at me, stands to watch TV, smirks.
I cleaned the dresser last night.
I have milk-pale skin and cinnamon
freckles and ice cream breasts and
hard rock eyes. I am edible and
unknowable. I am one.
I will put my cinnamon wherever
I want to; no clause could hold me.
My rocky eyes betray my indecision.
I do not know what I want…
who I am…
where we are.
Is it bad to miss the words
that come with theinsanity?
Love once taken
Love once taken
can only be returned.
Love never received
can still be longed for
Return, my love,
return from the islands
of spice, unmask
this heart, rend
like the curtain, torn.
Shear me wide open
or speak of the scent
of spice.
A river of words
I interrupt the rush of milk-pale river
of words that lie on my tongue, unkept.
Words, water rushing, carving paths they
never expected to travel, interrupt
the nights, interrupt the waves, washing
smooth stones to step upon, under
cool water, and cool water beside the bed
before we pray, before we say goodnight.
I interrupt the noise of crashing waves
and sit in the ashes of silence, listening
to poems of the deep, inhaling
the sand smells, the years of thrashing
these stones. Walking the shallow river
by moonlight, I feel the cool on my feet;
a blessing. The river of moonlight flows
swiftly through time, lulling me to sleep.
The stones, smooth stones, river born,
know my skin, feel my pulse in their fingers,
spill beneath my feet.
Crystalline strawberries
Crystalline rigid prisms splinter,
quartz gathers, glows.
And quartz and clouds like stones
and the pulse of milk against the skins
of strawberries tenderly crushed
between the teeth; such fruit, swimming
in cream, floating and brand new, is savored.
Inspired by joy, I dine on goats milk and
strawberry panini I made myself. I once
wrote of eating strawberries with a man
in bubbling hot water, chocolate dripping.
I wrote our love. The moonlight flows like
thick cream on bowls of strawberries.
I am a berry and I wait my turn.
Five fragments, and shards
I. Leave your father and your mother,
and cleave… cleave to me.
Do hold, and pierce and cleave,
leaving a mark, the way a lover does,
in the face of a full moon.
II. I was manic then, throwing words
at the screen, like they were
the only way to save myself and,
somehow, they were my poison.
III.
Two eyes I have; I can look straight
Ahead and straight into your soul
but what if I’m blind in one eye or
the other or both?
IV.
Blessing and curse,
each terse verse
lifted from the fire,
cupped in these hands.
V.
Shadows worn without apology,
don’t try to lose or loosen them.
Sometimes clouds shadow us;
sometimes lightning burns us
Lightning, too quick to catch
flashes glass clouds
of shadow skin.
Guided by the words of our trusty prompter, our recent Twitter poetry party swirled around the lines from Harvesting Fog: Poems by Luci Shaw. And they swirled around oceans and ashes, a drive down side roads, the telephone and how something as mundane as burning the toast becomes something else again.
I wait for you as I wait for the ocean
to part where I might fling a glitter of ash
you left, the ash of your tattered soul
glittering on the surface of my inner ocean.
And ash fell from your words, smeared
on the forehead, littering the fireplace,
a blessing either way. Ash to ash and
dust to dust fling wide an ocean of life;
sing now, no clause perhaps but claws
sunk in. The ashes of your words tattoo
my skin like claws sunk in; ashes glitter
on my tongue. Smoke and clouds of spice
stain the hot water. Fling spice instead of ash,
burn it first as incense, in memory.
I tasted you. I tasted you, as I said goodbye.
Driving on side roads
I’m not asking for any of that. But I can drive.
Or you drive; I’ll read poetry on side roads
As the fires stain the sky.
I’ll take your twists and turns of verse;
you keep your eye on the road.
I wait for the ocean to drive its poetry
on side roads; it is on side roads that
I find the poetry lost and forgotten.
How can I keep my eye on the road
with you beside me?
And what if you kissed me? What then?
if you can kiss with one eye on the road
what possibly could be the problem?
I pull over to the rest stop.
And am arrested for slow driving.
I give the cop my latest poem. The Ticket:
Driving too slowly, distracted
by view or thought.
Why aren’t you rushing?
Beach at low tide kisses the sunset.
And when those side roads swell
we watched ash spin, clawed against
the onslaught. It’s beautifully dangerous
to read poems while driving in the summer heat,
windows down, the words curving on my tongue.
The tide is out
Try scaling the sandstone rocks
now that the tide is out;
the stain of salt is in the air.
The tide is out, the wash will wait.
Who will take away the old appliances?
There would be the dryer;
we could kiss there, and the TV
we’d try every channel.
The telephone
Slam down the receiver.
Cell phones are much less
satisfying. There is only
the “end call” flashing.
No crash, no tangle.
I hate the telephone.
I hate to send my needs,
shrill ringing, into someone
else’s day. He never called.
Not once in all these years.
I am to be satisfied with
an email, a note, here and
there, that says he loves me.
The phone rings in the silent room,
pixels flashing notes across the miles.
I long for the smell of ink, the touch
of paper, the phone still ringing.
The words are burning me up inside;
I have to get them out.
The paper folds again and again,
the ink wears thin on the creases,
thin like the curtain that holds
your shadows .
A voice without a face, so little to see,
so little to say; pixels hurled from black
to white, charring in the heat of my anger,
tormenting me with their lack of poetry,
beauty.
Phones do not ring anymore. Now,
they sing snippets of someone’s song.
They tinkle like the ivories. They buzz
and shake and no one can hear the voice,
a voice I will always hear even when
it’s not speaking.
Incinerating the Toast
Incineration is only one way
to avoid the law. I’m not averse
to incineration, of words spent
for unfulfilled nights. Words are
the curse of language. Words are
walls between us.
Every night the incineration happens
again. The smoke detector is broken.
I am not averse to glass either, but
smoke detectors lie, crying wolf over
burnt toast. I am not averse to burnt
toast or lies if told gently; scrape
the black away, the toast is fine.
Lie detectors lie, crying wolf over
truths unseen by the naked eye.
The boys asked why a dark setting
on the toaster? I tried to explain
this odd preference for burning.
Always with the burning.
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