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End of National Poetry Month – Poetry Goes On! (May 1st Monsoon Villanelle)

May 1, 2010

Monsoon Skirt

What to do when April, National Poetry Month, is over, and you no longer have an excuse to post draft poems, but you are not yet ready to reinvent yourself or your blog?

Post another poem about excuses, difficulties with reinvention and May 1st!

Here it is (a Villanelle).  (Thanks for your patience.  Tomorrow, I really do hope to move on.)

Travelers’ Wedding – Bangkok

The monsoon sky grew slowly thick with grey
as sweat like traffic stalled the steaming city.
It didn’t feel much like the first of May,

not even in his shirt saved for the day,
nor in the Indian skirt she’d thought so pretty.
The monsoon sky grew slowly thick with grey

as they hurried to the bureau where they’d say
“I do”, or if required, some learned Thai ditty.
It didn’t feel much like the first of May;

still was, and, as they found, a holiday.
Closed office doors made clean clothes somehow gritty;
the monsoon sky grew slowly thick with grey.

“Tomorrow then,” they sighed, feigning dismay,
and then made jokes that almost passed for witty.
But it didn’t feel much like the first of May,

stained, like his shirt, with portent and delay
as sweat, like lifetimes, stalled throughout the city.
The monsoon sky grew slowly thick with grey;
it didn’t feel much like the first of May.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, villanelle, writing exercises
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30th Day of National Poetry Month – Villanelle to Mistakes

April 30, 2010

K's

30th Day of National Poetry Month, and my 30th (or so) draft poem.  I have to confess I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow.

This last draft poem is a villanelle.  This one came very readily, actually, as I was busy stewing over the day’s mistakes.

For a detailed explanation of the villanelle form, check here; for a comparison between writing a villanelle and assembling a banana pudding, check here.  For more villanelles, check out the poetry category from the home page.

As always, pauses in my poems are intended to be made only where marked by punctuation (comma, period, etc.) and not at the end of every line.  (I have to say I’m not completely sure of proper punctuation here.)

Finally, thanks so very much for following this blog, reading the drafts and not minding the many–

Mistakes

I make mistakes just writing out my name.
I know the letters, curves, the dotted “i”,
but what was then was then, now’s not the same.

The letter “K”, for instance, no longer tame,
won’t bisect in half with every try.
I make mistakes just writing out my name.

The “u” beginning “us” against the grain,
it wants to sag and limp, become a “y”
what’s then was then, why now is not the same,

why what should be a beam becomes a crane,
not level, but a very uphill climb.
I make mistakes just writing out my name.

How does one make a stand on legs gone lame?
How does one make a song out of a cry?
(When what was then was then, now not the same.)

The green in Spring is yellow, in Fall is flame.
What one can do is endlessly defy
the making of mistakes.  I write my name
as I did then, and then.  What’s now?  What’s same?

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, villanelle, writing exercises
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Eighth Day of National Poetry Month – Villanelle to Glasses (Leopard-skin-pillbox style)

April 8, 2010

Furred Glasses (Underwater)

As followers of this blog may know, I made a commitment in honor of this April 2010 National Poetry Month to post a freshly-minted draft poem every day.  I am cheating tonight and putting up an older draft poem, Villanelle to Glasses.   This poem came to mind (and seemed to justify the cheating) due to the many kind and helpful comments I got about yesterday’s poem re sore eyes.

For instructions about how to write a villanelle, check out these prior posts on (i) how the assembly of a villanelle compares to banana pudding, and (ii) a specific breakdown of the form.

Villanelle to Glasses

Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred
like the ending of an echo, crush of shale.
Ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

trooping muzzily through head, not shaped by word,
as if mind’s eye can’t make out thought’s detail
without glasses.  As edges of my world are furred,

so too, I find, my verbal memory’s slurred:
I’ll say peach for onion, kite for sail;
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

and though I tell myself I’m quite absurd–
my mind’s still good; it’s only eyes that fail–
without glasses, the edges of my world are furred.

Even corrected vision’s not assured,
each type of lens its own peculiar jail,
where ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

and I must make a choice between page or bird,
eternal grain of sand/horizon’s trail.
Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred:
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred.

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Snow Today – Villanelle to Aging Brain

February 26, 2010

Aging Brain in Snow Drift

Snow today.  A ton of it.  Many tons.

Snow is pretty great in Manhattan–there’s most of the magic, little of the mess.  No, that’s not right.  How about ‘there’s most of the incandescence, little of the inconvenience’?

What I’m really trying to say here is that most of us here don’t have to shovel our driveways, or clean off our cars.  (We just don’t have ’em.)

And the City is clean!  At least, looks clean.  For a few hours anyway.  (Before the dogs have had their day.)

In a really big snow storm, like today, all the things that you thought were so important, the deadlines, the bustle, go on hold for a little while.   Nature takes over, unusual in itself in the City.

Of course, Nature took over in kind of shocking way this snowstorm when a man from Brooklyn man was killed by a falling tree limb in Central Park.

Although I truly think New Yorkers were shocked and saddened by the incident, many still ventured into Central Park today to enjoy its heavy blanket of snow.   With the typical New Yorker’s can-do attitude, one woman commented that, after yesterday’s accident,  she’d decided not to stay long under any tall trees.  (Good thinking.)   (It reminded me of my far less careful planning,  when I bought a used inflatable rubber dinghy on the street sometime after 9/11 with the thought that if terrorism hit again, I could float my children and myself across the Hudson.  Unfortunately, because I bought the very heavy raft in a little shopping cart (the area had no taxi cabs), I abraded several holes in the rubber by the time I dragged it home.)

Today, I tried to use the quiet aftermath of the snow storm to write a Petrarchan sonnet.  I managed the form, but not a very good poem, which immediately sent me into a tailspin about brain deterioration.  (Although thinking about the incident with the rubber dinghy, I’m not sure that my brain really has deteriorated in the last several years.)  At any rate, as a result, I’m posting instead an older villanelle (already posted some months ago, but without illustration):

Villanelle to Wandering Brain

Sometimes my mind feels like it’s lost its way
and must make do with words that are in reach
as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day,

when what it craves is crimson, noon in May,
the unscathed verb or complex forms of speech.
But sometimes my mind feels like it’s lost its way

and calls the egg a lightbulb, plan a tray,
and no matter how it search or how beseech
is pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day.

I try to make a joke of my decay
or say that busy-ness acts as the leech
that makes my mind feel like it’s lost its way,

but whole years seem as spent as last month’s pay,
lost in unmet dares to eat a peach
as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day.

There is so much I think I still should say,
so press poor words like linens to heart’s breach,
but find my mind has somehow lost its way
as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day.

All rights reserved.

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The Dark Side of Carpe Diem – A Villanelle

December 30, 2009

In the last couple of posts, I’ve written about carpe diem, or carpe decade (using a symbolic date, such as the turn of the decade, as a goad to long delayed action).  But here’s a villanelle about the dark side of carpe diem, i.e. impatience!   A demand for action is pretty useful to impose on one’s self, but not perhaps, on someone else.

If you are interested in the form of villanelle and how to write one, check out other posts in that category from the ManicDDaily home page.

Right now

Fretful insistence marking the brow,
she pretended to ask but her tone commanded.
I wasn’t like her no way, no how,

still I’d spent the day as her little hausfrau,
wiping the dustless as she demanded,
fretful insistence marking the brow.

“That letter’s ready, could you take it now?”
“The post office’s closed.” (Take that for candid–
I wasn’t like her no way, no how.)

Besides that, I was much older now
no longer a child to be reprimanded
fretful insistence marking the brow.

“Still, take it,” she said, “take it right now.”
My heart felt her will like a bird that’s banded,
but I wasn’t like her no way, no how.

“We’ll forget it, if you don’t do it right now.”
Her right side frozen, she passed it left-handed,
fretful insistence marking the brow.
I wasn’t like her no way, no how.

All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson

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Another Villanelle – “The Nap”

November 22, 2009

Believe it or not, I have found, on this blog’s “stats,” that there are almost as many people interested in villanelles as in Robert Pattinson.  (Well, maybe not almost as many.)  Still, there is an interest.

This is fortunate for me as the villanelle form is one that I really like.  (Check out my other posts on this subject, if you would like to read explanations of the villanelle form and suggestions about how to write them.  Check these out especially if you also like Magnolia Bakery’s Banana Pudding.)

Today, I’m posting the villanelle, “The Nap,” because it it feels to me to have an autumnal aspect–after the fall, as it were.  (I was in upstate in New York when I wrote it, when the leaves were fallen, brown, and slowly drying out.)

To all those who are afraid to try writing a villanelle–you’ll see that  I cheated!  I modified the repeating lines;  in other words, I gave priority to meaning over manneristic form.   (Ha ha!)

Reading suggestion:  line breaks, in my poems at least, are not intended to denote pauses, unless there is also a specific punctuation break, such as comma or period.

Thanks as always for reading this blog.  I very much appreciate your sympathetic interest and time.  Comments are also always welcome.  Thanks again.

The Nap

Side by side, we slid to a dry, still, place.
It was not a woeful drought of age or dust,
the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.

We never used to find this quiet space.
Any closeness quickly clambered into lust.
But side by side, we slid to a dry, still, place

where hands touched in a sweat-free interlace,
fatigue overwhelming pheromone fuss
with the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.

Some other time we’d find that moist embrace
where pleasure mounts to such synaptic bust
I find myself side-sliding to a place

as blank as emptied well, as capsized chase.
(My brain reacts so badly to heart’s trust,
the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.)

But today, we two, exhausted by the pace
of time and life and words like ‘should’ and ‘must’,
side by side, slid to a dry, still, place,
the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.

 

I am submitting this post into the Gooseberry Garden’s Poetry Picnic, with the theme of love and lost love.

All rights reserved, Karin Gustafson.

Also check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson on Amazon.

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More on Obama at Dover, Another Villanelle

November 2, 2009

Still thinking of Obama at Dover, and how some on the right have such a hard time accepting the sincerity of his concern for U.S. servicemen at war.

To some degree, the right seems disingenuous here.  However, the disbelief in the patriotism of someone who is generally against war is longstanding in this country;  it seems to  me at least, to stem in part from a  re-hashing of the fight between those for and against the Vietnam War, and the lingering anger over those protests.

I do believe, now, that those protesters went too far, seeming to disown the  U.S. soldiers.    The backlash, in which the flag was taken over by the right (almost as a symbol of war rather than the country) was also a travesty.

At any rate, here’s a poem about it.  Another villanelle.   (Please check other posts in the “poetry” and “villanelle” categories for the exact rules of a villanelle.  You can see that I’ve played with them a bit here.)

Flag

There were rules.  You weren’t allowed to let it
touch the ground.  If it did, it should be burned
or buried.  You couldn’t just forget it,

pretend it hadn’t slipped (if stained, to wet it)–
our trusted God would see and you’d be spurned.
There were rules.  You weren’t allowed to let it

rip or fray.  To be flown at night upset its
regimen, as it were.  The darkness turned
it into something buried.  Don’t forget it,

leave out in the rain; you had to get it
(getting soaked yourself, your last concern).
There were rules. You weren’t allowed to let it

pass—even at the movies, we would fête it—
until the Sixties came, and their war churned
and buried much—you couldn’t just forget it,

pretend we hadn’t slipped.  The fall begat at
least two flags—one paraded, the other mourned—
but just one rule—you weren’t allowed to let it
be buried; we couldn’t just forget it.

All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson

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After the Sestinas–Why Bother?

October 14, 2009

As I wrote down the rules for a sestina in the last couple of posts, I have to confess that the question “why bother?” went through my head with the regularity of the six repeating “end words” of that form.

Why bother writing formal poetry?  (Much less blogging about it?)

Seriously, isn’t poetry supposed to be about free expression?

So why bother with all the restraints and requirements of a poetic form?  Why not just write free verse all the time?

Ten reasons:

1.         Writing formal poetry limits your choices.  (If your form requires rhymes, you are limited to words that rhyme.)  This is a big help if you don’t know exactly what you want to say (and if it doesn’t involve oranges.)

2.         Writing formal poetry defines your choices (i.e. once you decide to write a villanelle, you know your poem will have two repeating lines that have to work as a couplet at some point, and will probably not end in “orange”.)

3.         Writing formal poetry terminates your choices.  (If you write a sonnet, you’ll be done by line fourteen.)

4.         Poetic forms provide inherent music and, if you can manage it, rhythm.  This is great if you don’t have a good ear; even greater, if you do.

5.         Sometimes the music of a poetic form, and the cleverness of its dance, can substitute for profundity (which is wonderful if you never found out what exactly you wanted to say.)

6.         Writing formal poetry is fun; there is a game-like quality to it.  (It has rules!)

7.         Even failing at the chosen form makes you more conscious of language, and, it is to be hoped, a more musical and adventurous writer.  (Oh Orange!)

8.         Even bare success at the chosen form puts you in the company of some of the greatest poets of all time.  You, like Shakespeare, will have written a sonnet; like Dylan Thomas, a villanelle; like Elizabeth Bishop, a sestina.  This sense of camaraderie, and the understanding that arises from even a brief turn in the trenches of prosody, will make you a more appreciative and attentive reader.

9.         Finally, it must be understood, and grudgingly accepted, that a good sonnet, sestina, villanelle or pantoum is not good because it follows the rules, but because it’s a good poem.  That said, it’s hard to write a good poem.  Maybe you don’t have it in you one day, maybe not any day.  However, if you follow the rules, which can be done by simple diligence (if not always inspiration), you can write what qualifies as a sonnet, or one of the other forms.  You may not have achieved a good poem, but you will have achieved a sonnet, a sestina, villanelle or pantoum, which itself deserves a modicum of pride.

10.  “Orange” is supposed to be one of the few words that, allegedly, has no perfect rhyme in English.    But it works just fine in a sestina (or mid-line.)   And, if you do manage to rhyme it, well….

If you prefer counting elephants to counting syllables, check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson at link above.

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“Cautionary Tale” – Another One – A Villanelle

October 5, 2009

One more poem came to mind when thinking of the Roman Polanski affair, a villanelle.  This is not one of my best villanelles!  (Sorry–check out prior villanelle posts.)   But I hope you find it interesting in light of the current debate.

This follows the basic villanelle format, though there is some slight variation in the repeated lines.  (Again, see prior posts on villanelles both for a rundown of the form, as well as for a discussion of the virtues of cheating in writing any formal verse.)

As always in my poetry,  it’s the punctuation (and not the line breaks) that are intended to mark the pauses.

Cautionary Tale

“It’s hurting me,” she said in half belief,
as he freed her passing hair from a button’s play.
He offered nothing else for her relief

except a smile agleam with shiny teeth
and eyes flecked with intelligence and grey.
“It’s hurting me,” she said in half belief,

about a life that had grown spare, deplete,
while casting him as knight to save the day.
He offered nothing else if not relief–

opened doors, used credit like a thief,
assured her “no” each time she tried to pay.
“It’s hurting me,” she said in half belief,

but smiled inside at all that seemed in reach;
her smooth-skinned youth would certainly hold sway;
she offered nothing else for his relief.

Game over when he pinned her underneath.
His weight, his age, his wealth, would have their way.
“It’s hurting me,” she said in half belief.
He offered nothing else for her relief.

(All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson)

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No Rest For The Weary – Metered Feet

September 24, 2009

Went to bed at one a.m.  and woke up at five.  (The way in which ten cups of strong tea remain in your system never ceases to surprise me.)

I am not someone who particularly touts the benefits of sleep.  It’s great stuff, but the fact remains that there are only 24 hours in the day, and, when you have a day job, only so many (other) hours can be spent unconscious.  (That’s a joke, boss.)

Nonetheless, I do think that, over time, sleep deprivation can put a serious dent in creativity.  Great swathes of the sleep-deprived brain are spent on questions such as what is your husband’s cell phone number again, and where did you just put your purse, socks, apple, keys, and, most importantly, that fresh cup of tea?   Under those circumstances, it’s hard to make space for new combinations of brain waves.

As a result, I decided today to write about something kind of technical, which is meter in formal poetry.  Ta Da!

Or rather:  taDa taDa taDa TaDa TaDa.

The above, by the way, is my version of iambic pentameter, probably the most common form of meter in traditional English verse.  (I base this statement on the fact that iambic pentameter is the form of virtually all the lines of Shakespeare’s  plays, other than the prose dialogue of his commoner characters such as the Rude Mechanicals in a Midsummer’s Night Dream. )

There are variations.  But before going into these, I want to take a break to thank another blogger, Patrick Gillespie, who writes Poemshape at wordpress  and who kindly wrote about my poetry and blog: http://poemshape.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/another-poet-childrens-writer/.  Gillespie knows a great deal about poetic meter.  And although he inspired me to continue with this subject, I had oddly already started writing about this morning on the subway.

So:

If rhyme gives a kind of music to poetry, meter is what makes it dance.   Ironically, meter is measured in “feet” (sort of like toe-tappings.  Also, like the English system of distance measurement.)  A line which is written in “pentameter” has five feet.

A “foot” of poetry generally varies in length between one and three syllables.   (Two is probably the most common.)

There are various terms for the specific rhythm of a “foot” of a poem. An iambic rhythm is a ta-Da, with the emphasis on the second syllable.  A trochaic rhythm is the opposite of an iamb: Ta-da.  (A better example may be “Dada” as in Marcel Duchamps.)   A spondee is a foot with two syllables of equal stress as in “graveside”.  (Sorry for that one.)   Two types of feet which use one long syllable and two short unstressed ones are dactyls and anapests. (What comes to my mind is “Heidigger”, a dactyl, although a perhaps better, example is “Pattinson”.)

It’s all kind of complicated.  Which is why I tend to write poems using a syllabic count rather than using meter based on “feet.”  (Perhaps I should have told you this before the long explanation.)

Yes, it’s cheating.  And lazy.  But using a syllabic count is quite helpful to a striving poet, particularly when sleep deprived.

When writing formal poetry, I also aim for pentameter, because that length of line seems very natural.  To reach an approximation of pentameter, I try to keep the lines between 9 and ll syllables (though 12 can also sometimes work).

Keep in mind, if you try this technique, that a syllabic count really is not same as a count of feet.  You need to be careful that you are not reading the line in an odd or contrived way in order to get it to sound “right.”

I include below another example of a villanelle.  I chose this one because it describes the aging, sleep-deprived brain, although the meter is not that great and may not qualify as as “pentameter.”  The second repeating line: “as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day” is a bit long but just about works because,  arguably, it ends with two “anapests.”

Villanelle to Wandering Brain

Sometimes my mind feels like it’s lost its way
and must make do with words that are in reach
as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day,

when what it craves is crimson, noon in May,
the unscathed verb or complex forms of speech.
But sometimes my mind feels like it’s lost its way

and calls the egg a lightbulb, plan a tray,
and no matter how it search or how beseech
is pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day.

I try to make a joke of my decay
or say that busy-ness acts as the leech
that makes my mind feel like it’s lost its way,

but whole years seem as spent as last month’s pay,
lost in unmet dares to eat a peach
as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day.

There is so much I think I still should say,
so press poor words like linens to heart’s breach,
but find my mind has somehow lost its way
as pink as dusk (not dawn), the half-light of the day.

(All rights reserved, Karin Gustafson)

Do check out1 Mississippi, my children’s counting book, Going on Somewhere, my book of poetry, and Nose Dive,  comic novel.

Also, I am linking this to The Purple Treehouse today, where C.C. Champagne is talking about syllables in poetry.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, villanelle
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